Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom (PS3)

During the seventh generation of video game consoles, character AI had hit a point where developers could make believable AI-controlled companions to assist the player on their journey. A few games capitalized on this to create memorable characters like Elizabeth from Bioshock: Infinite and Ellie from The Last of Us, but those two ladies are mostly remembered for their importance to the narrative rather than their actions as an assistant. Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom however devoted its efforts to making your companion the major focus of most of the experience, the Majin truly feeling like the focus of the plot and the action.

Many years ago a kingdom known as Q’markaj was overrun by a malevolent force called only The Darkness, this destructive blight spreading out across the land with ease. Not only can it leave a corruptive substance on anything it touches, but that black gunk can come to life as a variety of soldiers who cannot be killed with normal weapons. While some survivors were able to flee Q’markaj and survive, everyone dreamed of a day The Darkness could one day be destroyed, this hope driving an unnamed thief to leave his home in the forest to seek out the one creature supposedly capable of harming the Darkness: The Majin. Finding this mythical beast with relative ease and freeing him of the seal stabbed through the Majin’s arm to restrict his power, the thief soon discovers that the Majin is actually a dopey giant closer to a friendly troll than a destructive demon. The Majin’s true name is actually Teotl, and after bequeathing the name of Tepeu to the nameless thief, the two prepare to fight The Darkness only to find that the servants of it have split up the power of the beast and hid it across the land. Thus, it falls on the pair to travel across the tainted kingdom to find the fruits the power is sealed in and restore Teotl to the point he can truly cleanse this world of The Darkness.

Teotl carries much of the story on his shoulders, the beast waking up with no memory of his past serving the kingdom before The Darkness attacked but regaining it at key points over the course of the adventure. The information about the kingdom’s fall is actually doled out at a good pace, almost every flashback helping to better understand the Majin, how the kingdom fell, or introduce other characters who are important to the redemption of the forsaken kingdom. Tepeu is mostly a spectator, his personal connection to everything minimal save for his growing friendship with Teotl. The two become surprisingly fast friends who don’t ever seem to bicker, and that close relationship does mean it’s rather sweet to see the two dancing to celebrate a solved puzzle or praising each other for a job well done in a battle. Teotl being such a simple but kind creature makes him easy to love, his speech almost like a child who is still learning grammar but his behavior never going against what the player needs him to do. Naturally he won’t perform an action you ask him to if he literally can’t, but mostly he’s attentive and helpful and if he doesn’t come running to execute an order you gave him, it’s probably because there’s something blocking his way. Sometimes Teotl will trip while running around, and while this at first seems like a nice little touch to make this naive giant feel like he’s just as prone to a simple mistake as anyone, it becomes less charming once you’ve seen it twenty more times over the course of the adventure and realize it must be some programmed stalling behavior to perhaps let the game’s AI processes catch up rather than a natural occurrence.

The Majin’s abilities are the core of most of what you’ll be doing in Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom. While Tepeu does use the nail that sealed the Majin’s power as a sword analogue, his attacks actually don’t cause the enemies formed out of the Darkness to flinch, meaning that they can easily counter you while you’re mid-swing if you aren’t careful to dodge and pick the right time to strike. Teotl is your main attacking force, his hefty swings able to knock down foes with ease and deal much more damage than even your best attacks. You can take down a foe alone though because the nail is infused with the Majin’s power, and there’s a focus on using execution moves to put down the enemy creatures that can be done alone or with Teotl’s assistance. Different foes require different approaches though, some like the dog-like creatures having a place on their rear you can strike to daze them, bird-like foes out of the Majin’s reach unless you hurl a stone to knock them out of the air, and monkey-like servants of Darkness able to leap up onto the Majin to drain his power unless you knock them off with your weapon.

While it can feel a little strange to have your attacks be so comparatively weak and deal less visible damage, the concept of the fighting system is sound enough and the enemy variation continues to ask for you and the Majin to collaborate in different ways to win. However, Teotl’s attacks advance in a strange way. When you find the fruits that increase his combat power, he often learns a new physical attack in addition to the power buff. Some of these can be moves that you really don’t want him performing like the drop kick, the move having a wind-up that gives the enemy time to move out of the way and then the landing leaving the Majin prone to being attacked from all sides since most foes attack in groups. You can’t exactly tell him which melee attacks to use in a fight and the attack increases are too valuable to skip, so you soon will find yourself in battles where Teotl is sometimes making things harder than necessary as he attacks with his poorer options.

Some battles can become needlessly difficult because of Teotl’s slow and sometimes ineffective attacks, but the boss battles are remarkably simple by comparison. The major boss fights are against important figures from Q’markaj’s history that have been corrupted by The Darkness to take on new forms such as the admiral of the now landlocked ship being turned into a sand-swimming fish monster or the hero of the kingdom becoming corrupted into thinking the Darkness soldiers are now the people he needs to protect. These fights are both easier than the regular battles and a better fit for the relationship between you and Teotl as they focus instead on figuring out what objects in the boss arena can be used to your advantage. You can distract the bat-like beast by banging on gongs to lure it into electric currents, and the way you and Teotl work together to do this feels much more satisfying than just hoping the Majin will smack the right Darkness warrior in the regular combat. Their relatively low difficulty might be for the best so you don’t grow frustrated with the Majin if he’s slow to use a device in the arena, but since these are just boss battles, you’ll spend more of the adventure dealing with sloppy combat involving regular enemies rather than these more intelligently laid out encounters.

Puzzle solving makes up the bulk of what you’ll be doing with the Majin though, enemies often used as a hazard that will impede the puzzle if you don’t deal with them properly. Sometimes Tepeu might need to sneak up and backstab foes to make the path ahead safe and clear, he may need to disable archers who could easily hassle Teotl otherwise, or he might just need to play bait so that the foes line up in the path of a rock or wall the Majin is about to push over. Bypassing combat is often better than participating in it, but there are still plenty of puzzles that don’t involve trying to outsmart Darkness soldiers. The Majin not only can help open large gates in your path and operate catapults to launch you higher, but he packs a set of special powers he regains over the course of the adventure. Teotl will eventually learn abilities like being able to blow a huge gust of wind, breathe fire, and even launch lightning from his horns, and these find uses both in combat and in navigating the kingdom’s different regions. Blowing things over, lighting explosives, and activating ancient technology don’t just involve telling Teotl to use his powers either, as sometimes you need to set up a path for the Majin to cross, set up a circuit the lightning can follow, or explore ahead so you know the right actions to take during a time sensitive event.

There is some backtracking involved that can go a bit slowly as you repeat a puzzle, face enemies, or need to make sure Teotl’s keeping up, but other than a few items you can only grab on the repeat visits to an area, you can often run right through these areas in a few minutes. Optional collectibles can reward you for taking time to dig around though such as fruits to increase the Majin’s stats and treasure chests with armor for Tepeu that grant him perks. These are often hidden behind little puzzles as well, so having that immediate reward for working together helps cement that sense of camaraderie even more with clear benefits for finding out how to make the most of both characters’ skills. Much like the boss fights show off how well Teotl and Tepeu can work together in a fight, it does feel like the pair is collaborating to solve the plentiful puzzles throughout the world, but the basic action found between all these puzzles unfortunately means the focus moves away from these towards the game’s weaker side a bit too often.

THE VERDICT: If Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom was just a puzzle platformer with the rare boss fight thrown in, it would be a game I could easily call good. Teotl is a lovable companion and the world has enough of a history to it thanks to the tragic boss characters and the Majin’s returning memories, so if you only explored Q’markaj by interacting with quality puzzles then things would still be quite enjoyable. However, the battles with The Darkness’s creatures, despite featuring a good bit of variety, always feel a little off either because enemies rarely react to Tepeu’s attacks or because the Majin isn’t fighting intelligently enough to deal with the swarm of foes. Teotl is a well done AI companion right up until he needs to participate in melee combat, and due to the frequent presence of skirmishes with simple foes, Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom becomes a little harder to love overall.

And so, I give Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom for PlayStation 3…

An OKAY rating. I wanted to give Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom a Good rating because Teotl is fairly well done overall and adds a lot to how the adventure unfolds, the cooperation involved in the puzzle solving feeling like it focuses on the Majin most but the player is never just the man giving out instructions. Both halves have important tasks to do to ensure the important items are grabbed or the path onward is opened up, and trimming every enemy from the game wouldn’t be required to keep supporting this as the main focus. The earlier mentioned foes like the archers who pester the Majin could exist solely as part of a puzzle, and the boss fights are already more about finding out how to make The Darkness’s generals vulnerable rather than going in swinging. Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom succeeds most when you’re asked to be thoughtful rather than aggressive, because when you do start swinging your weapon you feel unfortunately weak and the Majin’s own efforts can sometimes lead to you losing simply because he picked the wrong strikes or too many enemies surrounded him. While backtracking and other little quibbles could be easily tolerated, the fights feeling so flimsy really does make it hard to enjoy the rest of this otherwise good action adventure.

AI companions aren’t easy to do, and if they are unresponsive they can be a millstone around the player’s neck for the entire experience. Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom makes Teotl into a wonderful ally who almost always behaves as you like and the cooperation involved between the player and the Majin clearly shows how both need each other even though the giant beast is definitely the powerhouse with the more interesting abilities. However, once an enemy shows up, a lot of that smooth teamwork dissolves into a sloppy affair where your contributions aren’t always meaningful and Teotl can’t pick his attacks very well. If the fighting side of things was ironed out, perhaps more people would remember Teotl alongside other famous AI companions, but the weak battle system has tainted this otherwise enjoyable puzzle-filled adventure.