The Messenger Retrospective
A Postmodern Sidescroller? It's More Likely Than You Think
I didn’t hear about this game when it came out. I still don’t really hear people talking about it much. Five or six years ago, I was browsing the Xbox Game Pass catalogue and I stumbled across it in my search for platformers. Downloading it on a whim, I went in completely blind - something I almost never do. This is the single best way to experience what this game has to offer. If you like platformers, action games, or even just want to see something different, go and play this game without reading or watching anything about it. Don’t even read whatever store page you download it from. I’m dead serious; close this article and come back when you’re done. The game’s pretty short; I promise.
Didja finish it? If not, don’t say I didn’t warn you. I did. Right above this line, actually.
The indie scene is filled to the brim with “retreaux” style games; that is, games designed to look and/or feel like classics. Many of these games are like direct analogues to fan-favorite franchises. Mega Man X has 20XX and its sequel 30XX, Castlevania has the Bloodstained series, and Metroid has Axiom Verge, just to name a few. Trust me, the list goes on; metroidvanias in particular are probably right behind roguelikes in the most oversaturated genres of the indie scene. As much as we’re inclined to view the indie scene as the last vestige of creativity in the face of an ever-homogenizing industry, it’s not like there aren’t trends in that sector, too. 2018’s The Messenger is a game that’s well aware of all these trends, and it responds to them by cleverly playing with audience expectations. The result is one of the most creative modern sidescrollers I’ve played, standing out in the pile even seven years later.
For ten levels, the game is essentially pretending to be a Ninja Gaiden revival. It’s a completely linear action-platformer with 8-bit style graphics about a ninja fighting against demons and other monsters. It struck me as fairly well-made, but not all that special outside of its self-aware sense of humor. The Ninja’s conversations with the Shopkeeper are filled with satirical snark from attributing the climbing claws upgrade to “John Gaiden” to a mind-boggling amount of unique dialogue if you continually try to inspect a closet you’re not allowed to open. The necromancer you fight in the Catacombs pretends to be tall by floating in the air with a long cape, and he decides he’s just no good at being evil after the fight and gives it up. Quarble, the little demon that revives you after death, makes quips about how you died and how often you’ve been doing it. Once you talk to the Shopkeeper on the Frozen Peak, though, the Ninja will say he must be nearing the end of his adventure; the Shopkeeper replies “Clearly you haven’t watched the trailer.” It was true for me (and hopefully you too, dear reader), and I couldn’t have been happier.
After the brutal Tower of Time gauntlet, the Ninja goes 500 years into the future, and everything looks 16-bit now. I already thought it was cool that it looked like I was playing a next-gen sequel to the game just between levels, but then it got even crazier. After the “last” level, the Ninja rides back into his own village and hands off the vital scroll he’s been carrying to a future soldier, just like the “western hero” handed him the scroll at the start of his journey. You’re finally allowed in the closet, and inside are the robes to become a new shopkeeper. You get a couple visits from the soldier… until you don’t. Turns out you were supposed to send Quarble to the soldier if he ever died, and the Shopkeeper forgot to tell you that. You get handed the scroll again - turns out it was a map this whole time, by the way - and now you have to explore all the old areas and some new ones across both time periods to beat the game. It was another metroidvania this whole time? I thought it was another action-platformer this whole time!
Yeah, I’m summarizing a fair bit here. I know you probably didn’t finish the game before reading like I told you to, so I might as well fill you in.
Anyways, this little bait-and-switch is indicative of The Messenger’s greatest strength; a deep understanding of how players approach games. Though there’s hints to the detours that will open the world up later even during the first run, the levels mostly appeal to linear design sensibilities. Start at the left and run to the right until you beat the boss, with some going up or down here and there. The game intentionally hides many of the purchasable upgrades until the world opens up, making it look like one could reasonably get “everything” in those first ten stages. The reason you - and the Ninja - don’t know the scroll is a map for the first half is because the button to open it doesn’t work until you’re told about it. Every part of the game looks like a linear action-platformer right up until it isn’t.
This is also the linchpin of the game’s humor. After the level design forces you into the shop with a wall you can’t pass without climbing, the Ninja says this in a conversation about the Climbing Claws with the Shopkeeper: “The way everything looks, it just feels like I should be able to do that.” The Shopkeeper gives you the rope dart and then just says everyone’s going to call it the grappling hook anyways. The Ninja is characterized as someone who runs right first and asks questions later, just like the player. He also criticizes the Shopkeeper’s stories for being too simple or having plot holes, not unlike a fan who’s already “seen it all.” Other characters make fun of him for being “slow” because he doesn’t know what to do until someone tells him, but every game is different, and players usually need to learn them on a case-by-case basis. Though he’s a discrete character, he’s meant to match the player’s reactions. Along with the other characters directly mentioning things like “overpowered upgrades” or a section “totally being worth a second playthrough,” the fourth wall becomes more of a fourth suggestion.
The bait-and-switch doesn’t just serve the gags; it helps introduce this game’s unique structure. Metroidvanias typically demand very different level design from linear platformers. Where linear platformers place obstacles and enemies in order to make getting from point A to point B difficult, metroidvanias need to ensure most areas are fun to navigate forwards and backwards. Because death sends you back to save points to preserve tension in metroidvanias, instant-kill obstacles like crushers and bottomless pits are usually omitted. The Messenger, on the contrary, ends up being a metroidvania that feels like a linear action-platformer. Levels can be navigated backwards and forwards, but enemies and obstacles make moving either way a veritable obstacle course. You can - and will - be falling into pits and getting crushed, but checkpoints are frequent and Quarble’s revival fee exists instead of extra lives and game overs.
The frankensteining of these sub-genres isn’t a perfect blend. It tends to favor its linear design principles; even the later levels of the game are clearly designed as straightforward levels with a few detours and backtracking accommodations. Backtracking through these level designs can get a little tedious, especially on a first playthrough when you don’t know a smooth route for everything you need yet. In some ways, though, this unsteady mix makes perfect sense. Just as the Ninja is trying to break the cycle the previous messengers have perpetuated for millennia, the game is literally breaking its own mold. If it feels like it doesn’t work perfectly, that’s because it was never supposed to. There’s a message inherent to the structure of this game; even if it’s messy, it’s worthwhile to innovate rather than stagnate.
It helps that the game isn’t relying solely on this blended structure to stand out. The gameplay features a number of unique movement mechanics which may be similar to ones you know, but function together to form a slick movement system which feels totally different from any other platformer. It’s all grounded on the cloudjump - a double jump which is earned by striking enemies or lampposts in midair. As long as you have something to hit, you can stock up a cloudjump again and again. Clever cloudjumping can let players skip major sections of levels, especially when combined with the wingsuit and the rope dart. The wingsuit lets you glide for more airtime, and the rope dart pulls you towards enemies before striking them for another cloudjump. Large sections of the game’s later levels hardly have any floor since you can use cloudjumping to stay in the air for a long time, and it adds a level of strategy to when and where you hit targets to make sure you can stay afloat.
Combine that with some fundamentally solid level design and boss battles, and you have a good foundation that could stand on its own even with a less original structure. I think this foundation is important, though, because it proves that the game’s appeal isn’t totally grounded in a gimmick. The game may be messing with some of your expectations, but it knows that one thing you don’t want them messing with is the core gameplay. When the game makes fun of itself or messes with something familiar, you trust the devs to be doing it for a reason because they’ve proved they have the basics down. You gotta know the rules before you can break them.
This brings me to why I call this a postmodern sidescroller. I think postmodernism is an oft-misunderstood concept; the unfamiliar tend to think it’s some high-and-mighty arthouse concept. One aspect of postmodernism, though, is a sense that creators are starting to have fun with the conventions of their medium. As people grow more and more familiar with the format, there’s a lot of value to be found in poking fun at that sense of normalcy in countless ways. The Messenger achieves originality by unceremoniously meshing two overexposed indie genres together; originality through the familiar. The game is constantly acknowledging this and insisting the player just goes along for the ride; in the end, it’s just about having fun with it and seeing where it goes. It’s impossible to define postmodernism as any one thing, but I’d say satirical unseriousness from a bunch of genuine creators fits the bill.
At the end of the day, The Messenger isn’t the best, most refined, or most well-written game I can think of. What it is, though, is something all to its own. It’s funny in a way few games are. It flows like nothing else I can point to. It is the dictionary definition of “greater than the sum of its parts.” The Messenger is proof that even the most unassuming games are showing the maturity of this art form as they reference and build upon themselves. For as much as I respect a good retreaux game played straight, The Messenger shows just how much value there is to be found in simply doing something different, perfect or not. Games, like any art form, aren’t about some kind of mathematical refinement or a correct answer. They’re experiences meant to make us think differently, bring us into all kinds of different imaginations, or just plain entertain us. The Messenger is an earnest reminder of these things, and I hope to see a lot more like it in the future.