Makis Adventure Review

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Fast Facts

Sink or Swim?

Makis Adventure is a brief action-platforming title where I played as a shark that could somehow fight on land, water and in a three-dimensional sea. This constant adjustment seemed like an interesting gameplay mechanic. Did it work well? Find out in this Rapid Review.

To begin my adventure, I was shown a brief cutscene setting up the premise and lore. While the cutscene was simple, it did an adequate job of establishing the context of Makis Adventure. In fact, there were quite a few cutscenes throughout the game, showing my progress and reminding me of the overarching plotlines. These were cute and helped guide me on my journey effectively. Unfortunately, broadly, these cutscenes did not do much to add to my excitement about the game. The story was nothing that maintained my interest. However, it was nice to have the adventure established officially.

Similarly, the characters in the world were not overly engaging either. Despite helping many characters in the world with different quests, I never got attached to anyone. Still, I enjoyed how there were characters in the game. They helped make the world seem more dynamic and real, even if they were not necessarily memorable. Despite some solid components, the worldbuilding in Makis Adventure is not a major selling point.

A Bit of Bite

Instead, the game focuses on gameplay. There are a lot of solid elements. For starters, my main character has a lot of great options. I have a dodge-roll, a traditional attack, and, of course, I can move and jump. This is all traditional, but the main character nonetheless feels good to move around with. Makis Adventure stands out because when I go into the water, I transform into a shark, allowing me to heal and dash through the water quickly. This is a cool concept, and it is explored decently within the title. I specifically enjoyed how rapidly I could navigate through the aquatic terrain. While I enjoyed the movement, the movement and all of my shark’s components were incredibly basic. Even the shark transformations did not adjust my game plan significantly.

In fact, many components of the game do not stand out much. The level designs are typically open areas with a few enemies scattered throughout. There are very few unique elements, and those that are present are often very simple components. The ways levels connected also failed to feature intricate or neat layouts. Typically, every stage of the game followed a simple structure with rooms scattered on the left and right sides of one massive room extending to the ceiling. Though this is not necessarily bad, it certainly did not lead me to believe that the levels were intricately put together.

Furthermore, when in shark form, the game did not change. How I interacted with the world was still simple, and being in the shark form only exaggerated that. Each shark-related component was overwhelmingly easy to navigate, and the puzzles revolving around the different shark forms did not differentiate this mode from the standard modes.

Ferocious Foes

Unfortunately, the enemies, which typically engage me throughout each level, did not. Each of the enemies was incredibly simple. My moves made me significantly more powerful than they were, so I consistently took them out without a problem. Similarly, I was disappointed by the checkpoint system. If I died, I respawned at the beginning of the screen I was on. I have enjoyed games with this checkpoint system in the past, but since the enemies were so easy to defeat, it made me unconcerned with dying. In fact, death became more of a setback than anything, as it never took much effort to get anywhere anyway. The lack of tension took away my excitement for Makis Adventure, diminishing my overall experience.

The only place I felt challenged was in the boss fights. This was the highlight of the game. These were interesting fights. However, these fights were also imperfect. They often featured long segments where I could not hit each boss, forcing me to wait through extended periods of patterns where I could not retaliate. These bosses also had extremely massive health pools, pushing me to master the fights. However, the fights were often simple, but since I wanted to skip as many of the waiting phases where I could not attack, I took significantly more risks and had less fun than I otherwise would. Despite those minor grievances, these fights were still neat.

The developer also included a fair number of minigames and other challenges. These were cute, too, but they did not encapsulate me for long. Still, they were a nice inclusion. Specifically, I enjoyed the billiards minigame.

Finally, the developer hid letters in each stage to be uncovered. Typically, this is not something I work towards, but these were often so clearly visible that I had no choice but to find them. They were still fun to obtain, though, as sometimes it took a second or two to figure out how to get them.

Shark Tale

To supplement this whole experience, the developer designed charming art and sprites for many aspects of the game. Granted, the art was not my favourite, but I think there is a lot of detail within the game that I got to enjoy. Specifically, I enjoyed the three-dimensional shark moments, as the world was quite beautiful, and the contrast from two-dimensional combat was a welcome change of pace.

The soundtrack, however, was less enjoyable. I did not find it fit the game’s theme much, and while it is decent, it did not enhance my experience. The sound effects, in contrast, took away from my experience because many of them were annoying and frustrating to listen to.

Overall, I did not enjoy my experience with Makis Adventure much. The game has some great elements, like a solid main character, interesting boss designs, and a cool shark-swapping mechanic. However, the lack of depth in enemies, simple room layouts, and lack of tension kept me from feeling truly engaged while I played this game.

Rapid Reviews Rating

2.5 out of 5

2.5

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