What drew me in
The one thing I don’t think I need to describe is the immediate draw of the game. The artwork is absolutely incredible. This games trailer came across my screen right after I was getting into Hollow Knight to prepare for the sequel. Later, when I had completed Silksong and looked at the game sitting on my Steam Deck home screen, all I could think was “It feels wrong jumping into this after burning out for 100 hours in another Metroidvania. I couldn’t possibly appreciate this the way I should.” But I pushed forward and I’m glad I did. Even if it added an unnecessary irony playing a game in a genre I’m burnt out on with the theme of burn out.
What kept me in
Opening on a multi monitor set up that starts beeping and booping away with ads and work and whatever else before sucking the heroine into a paint covered reality. I’m a sucker for a thoughtfully created world that reflects the themes of game and this one does it better than most. Every part of the world begs you to question the mental state of the heroine, and I’m willing to bet that any person living through history now will find it hard to not relate.
The other huge piece that kept me in is the traversal. When it comes to the Metroidvania genre I’m not exactly a veteran, so I found it a bit shocking to realize that flow-y/satisfying traversal isnt always the main focus. It’s a major piece of these games that I need to work to keep me engaged and Constance manages to hit above the average. It’s not the best I’ve played but I’d be lying if I said that the dive-into-the-paint/dodge/climb-up-wall maneuver and the paint brush pogos weren’t extremely satisfying.
The visual language of alienation.
The Peaks and Valleys
Two issues that came up during my gameplay that held back the experience from being perfect are the combat (or combat ability freedom) and the bosses (kind of).
For the first, there is a really great idea for Constance to create various different combat kits. You have a page with blocked out spaces and during the game you can find abilities that are different blocky shapes to fit into that page that have various effects. Some consider the amount of other abilities it touches in the sheet to add modifiers (attack or defense is stronger) and some straight up add a whole new aspect to an ability (ie, create a paint clone in your place that explodes and damages enemies). When you first start messing with this system it seems great. The problem I had is that by the time I got to the final boss I only had half the sheet available to slot in skills and had only come across what appears to be half the skills. Its unclear to me if it’s a pacing issue or performance on my part but it seems that having half your skill sheet still locked at the final boss is a bid odd.
For the second issue, the bosses seem tuned for a slightly different kind of game. If you thought Constance was going to be a combat focused game like Silksong or Nine Sols the first couple bosses will teach you differently. Suddenly, the game leans into the precision platforming side of things and it becomes more of a dance. You have to learn to jump around for a while and wait for openings to start whacking with your paint brush. Coming off of the other Metroidvanias I was recently playing I was expecting more of a series of toughish platforming challenges that lead up to bosses who test your combat mastery. Instead it’s more like some medium difficulty platforming challenges with a few bad guys in the way leading up to a bad guy who demands precision platforming in between mashing the attack button. It’s something I did learn to enjoy more as the game went on and it does give you a different kind of flow where you have to shift into low gear, dance around, find those openings to wail on the boss, then shift into low gear and dance again.
"... the bosses seem tuned for a slightly different kind of game. If you thought Constance was going to be a combat focused game like Silksong or Nine Sols the first couple bosses will teach you differently."
Despite those two very detailed complaints, the game comes together to be an incredible experience that leads to a very simple and striking ending. The game really peaks in these moments that make you try to understand what the main character is going through. Half way through the game you get a glimpse of the work our artist-made-hero does in the real world. You get to respond to requests via email that have you do monotonous tasks like exporting a video for marketing and making minor tweaks to a corporate logo. The requests become more and more rushed with emails demanding the tasks be completed immediately before it slows down and it’s revealed that all the work you did wasn’t even needed. It was all for nothing. The few glimpses you get mixed with the clues in the world Constance escaped to show that they are suffering from burnout, anxiety, being alienated from their work and maybe other mental problems. These moments of ludonarrative consistency are worth the experience alone in my opinion. The gameplay, themes and world building all come together in such a way that any adult in the modern world who can’t find something to relate to here is someone I don’t think I could relate to. It truly sings when it hits and made it a no brainer to follow Blue Backpack Games (the developer) to make sure I don’t miss future projects.
How I reflected on it
There is a trend in gaming content recently that I don’t want to be a part of. “Elden Ring saved my life”, “Games that cured my brainrot” and the like. I don’t want to be part of this kind of trend and it would be an extreme exaggeration to say Constance saved my life but it did have a pretty big impact. The game came out at the exact right time, with an art style damn near designed to entice me, with themes that I wholly relate to in a genre I’m currently exploring. On top of it all I’ve been fighting my own battles to try and be consistent with a creatively outlet. It was one of the handful of pieces of media that pushed me to make this website and to double down on my dream to create a video game of my own. I’m not sure if this game will have nearly as much impact on other people but it’s damn worth a shot if anything I’ve mentioned sounds up your alley. Plus there was DLC just recently announced so no better time to add it to your wishlist and keep an eye out for a sale.