PLATFORM: PC / SWITCH (REVIEWED) | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
First released on PC in 2020 and now finding its way to a new audience on the Switch, Mezmeratu is a spinoff from 2017’s Baobabs Mausoleum – one of the most unhinged and demented (and wonderful) games of the last decade. From the insane mind of one-man development team Jacob Jazz, Mezmeratu follows in its predecessor’s footsteps with countless references to punk bands, horror films, 90s cartoons and other culty goodness, but changes up the formula by swapping Baobabs’ schizophrenic genre-spanning gameplay for more restrained (but no less deranged) 2D side-scrolling platforming action with roguelike elements.
As expected, by those who experienced Baobabs Mausoleum at least, Mezmeratu‘s surreal and absurd story makes total sense while somehow being nigh-on incomprehensible at the same time – the sort of thing that might be created by the lovechild of David Lynch and HP Lovecraft, if such a thing were possible. When starting up the game, you’re immediately bombarded with bizarre visuals and subliminal cursed images while being told that there’s a castle inside an owl’s beak, every year a giant flying fish takes October to a distant island where weird things are happening inside a putrid church, and that this is the story of “an underwater guy who controlled the sea”. If that doesn’t fry your brain enough, the accompanying aural assault of shrieks and screams and ridiculously catchy punk rock should just about do the trick.
The madness continues as the game begins, and never stops until you either lose all your lives or complete the game (good luck with that – Mezmeratu doesn’t save your progress at all, so you need to somehow make your way to the end in a single sitting). Each of the ten or so levels are procedurally generated, so every time you play you’re never quite sure what obstacles you might come across. This leads to stretches of absolute chaos as often as it can result in periods of not too much happening at all. Thankfully, the end of each section is marked with a checkpoint so you don’t have to replay any of the more devious parts, although it’s quite likely that you’ll come across something equally tricky and obnoxious soon enough. It’s certainly challenging, and the more difficult areas can be incredibly frustrating, but the “one more try” aspect is very high and it all looks and sounds so strange and otherworldly that it’s worth persevering just to see what’s going to happen next. At less than a tenner, Mezmeratu is the perfect platformer for lunatics!
