Islets put to the test: Metroidvania with mice

Metroidvanias are back in fashion, aren’t they? Well, at least the indie area has produced more than enough representatives of the genre in recent years. And you don’t want to miss gems like Ori and the Will of the Wisps or Hollow Knight. Even Nintendo breathed new life into the genre with its namesake Metroid: Dread. With Islet Now, of all things, a single developer is trying to compete with the big genre leaders. And that works surprisingly well. Although one notices Islet that behind the loving Metroidvania there is no budget in the millions. But the style, gameplay, soundtrack and boss fights make you quickly forget that.

In the game, you embody Iko, a tiny mouse armed with an even smaller sword. The four islands of Air City have been scattered, revealing a fifth, the Ashen Isle. Because of their long isolation, huge monsters could develop on it, which have somehow made it to the other islands. As a hopeful, but maybe also a bit naïve mouse, you have set out to reunite the five islands. A sweet, little story awaits you, which works wonderfully as a framework for the setting and the game world.

Set out to reunite a shattered world: Iko, the Mouse Wanderer, as we like to call him.

Source: PC games



But the highlight of the game is the wonderfully fluid gameplay mix of jumping, fighting, rolling, climbing, shooting and flying. In each of these disciplines, Islet feels intuitive and, most importantly, accurate, which is definitely important for a Metroidvania.

Just like in Hollow Knight, the gamepad controls are very precise and boss fights, but also rushing through the different levels and flying through aerial cities feel incredibly satisfying.

What should also be explicitly mentioned in such a test: The game – and this is amazing – does not come from a large team of developers and designers, but from exactly one person, Kyle Thompson. To be more precise, by two people, if you include his brother as a composer. And yet this one developer manages to create such a great feeling.

Don’t be fooled by the relaxed atmosphere!

Unlike in Hollow Knight, the mood in Islet is not melancholic and gloomy, but hopeful and driving. At first glance, the game’s soundtrack seems full of happy melodies. And the world is also peaceful at the start and peppered with very few, very easy opponents. But with every new island we explore, the setting becomes more absurd.

First we are sent to the haunted grove, inhabited by eerily beautiful ghost skeletons. Later we make a trip to the garbage dump or venture into the shallows of the cinder island. So variety is guaranteed. And with each island, the setting becomes more creative, bizarre and above all one thing: more realistic.