Metamorphosis
If you’ve ever heard of or read the book The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, which tells the story of Gregor Samsa: a salesman who wakes up one morning to find that he has turned into a bug; then you may know some of what you’re getting into here. Ovid Works’ Metamorphosis has you play as Gregor as he tries to figure out just what is going on, after waking up and somehow turning in to an insect. As you try to grab the attention of your friend, Josef, he is arrested for a crime that he did not commit. So now you’ve got two problems: how to get back to my human body, and how to prove Josef is innocent.
Learning how to navigate the world as a bug is fun, and requires you to think out of the box at times when trying to decide how to get to where you need to be. Seeing the normal, human-sized world from a bug’s point of view is unusual and takes a little bit of getting used to, especially as reaching areas in the world would normally be as simple as taking two steps and reaching to take something off a shelf. Instead, you have to decide how to approach it with various pieces of furniture or toppled over books; stepping in cough syrup to make your feet sticky so you can climb up furniture and walls, or crawling into all the wee nooks and crannies to see what you might find is both interesting and exciting. Talking to other bugs to find answers, and seeing their world filled with their own iterations of clubs and workplaces is bizarre yet wonderful.
The art style is very realistic, with a huge emphasis on all of the teeny-tiny features on normal everyday objects that otherwise wouldn’t have been given a second thought in most games. The contents of a chest of drawers are done in fantastic detail, and with the game having a huge puzzle element to it, it encourages you to look at things as platforms - rather than just useless objects in a drawer. To reach most destinations, you’ll need to climb to some degree, but the stickiness you gather to do so is only temporary, so getting to a high point without climbing, so that you can climb the rest of the way is crucial. Zooming out for a wider view with B helps to give you some sense of direction when you’re in a busy area, so it helps to do this regularly, even just to get your bearings in order.
Sound design perfectly complements the game, with characters voice acting being done extremely well. You always find yourself hanging around to hear the full stories they tell as it is done so fantastically. And the noises from the bugs as they converse are an odd mix of horrifying but interesting, as they click and croak away. The overarching soundtrack - done by Mikolai Stroinski and Garry Schyman) also works really well here, with an eccentric feel that meshes perfectly with the weirdness of the game itself.
The story is interesting, and whilst the puzzles can sometimes be a bit frustrating and take a bit of legwork to figure out, it was still a fantastic game to play and one that I really enjoyed. At £20.99 on the Xbox Store, it’s a little bit more expensive than other games its length (as it takes just a few hours to get through), but it’s still a game I’d recommend you to check out as it even has a Free Trial available for you to dip your toe in before shelling out.
In the end, we decided to give Metamorphosis the Collecting Asylum rating of 7/10.
Have you played Metamorphosis yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to EvolvePR for the Metamorphosis Xbox One review code!
