Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus Review

thesixthaxis.com:

There was a time when Metroidvania fans almost exclusively had the Castlevania series and some occasional adventures from Samus Aran to keep themselves entertained, but the past fifteen years has seen an almost unending feast of Meroidvanias to devour in a video game-like meal. So, with the promise of some refreshments to accompany our gaming gluttony – and at the risk of stretching this awkward analogy to breaking point – what does Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus bring to the table? Well, a sip of tea when you level up, for one thing.

Played from a 2.5D perspective, Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus is a visually sumptuous experience. The rich, hand-drawn characters and environments are silky smooth in their presentation. It’s a cliché, but in this case that doesn’t make it any less true; Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus looks like a carton brought to life.

Our protagonist, the celestial blossom Bō, has the pace and forward momentum of a high-end sports car, gliding through the levels with an elegance and ease that is only possible with the capable skills of a confident developer at the wheel. Bō, shockingly, is unable to double jump, so must utilise their Bō staff to navigate through the impressive and almost impossible verticality of the stages that Path of the Teal Lotus offers.

But a double jump is practically mandatory for the genre, and so thwacking an enemy or one of the many floating lantern-like objects enables Bō to store an additional jump that can be released to reach the seemingly unreachable. Developer Squid Shock Studios uses this simple mechanic to craft a smorgasbord of precision platforming. The controls will never let you down, but the demands on the player’s skills are palpable and often overwhelming, with one wrong input sending you to the bottom of your steep climb. As such, this can be a frustrating experience, though one that has you blaming your own middle-aged gaming ineptitude more than anything else.

Combat is solid and satisfyingly punchy, with Bō getting a