Maliki: Poison of the Past - Switch Review

Maliki: Poison of the Past is a turn-based RPG with a hint of coziness to boot! You play as Sand, who, with nary a moment’s notice, finds herself and her time overrun with monsters; next minute, she’s teleported to the near future, thrust into a mission to save the world by repairing the continuum.

The Good

What instantly drew me in was the wonderful 2D art style cinematic, and thankfully, this art continues throughout the entire game through depictions of characters whilst in dialogue… sort of like a visual novel. The style is very much indicative of a more modern Akira Toriyama approach, and it's so wonderful to see.

Maliki: Poison of the Past had some great ideas, with a combination of farming and cooking, allowing the fruits of your labour to boost your performance in battle. It’s not an entirely unique concept; Cuisineer comes to mind, and the art and presentation on the offset showed great promise. Couple this off with characters I could’ve genuinely found myself vibing with, and it had all the recipes for an indie gem.

TL;DR

• Wonderful 2D art
• Good ideas

The Bad

Once I was given the freedom to explore at my own pace, I quickly realised… I had no idea where I was supposed to go. The absence of maps really hurts the gameplay—whether you're in the hub world or within a level, the environments are just a bit too open to clearly understand the intended path. And if you happen to wander the wrong way, getting back can be frustrating, often discouraging exploration altogether out of fear you won’t be able to retrace your steps.

Combat is surprising, to say the least. It doesn’t stray too far from the norm for what you’d expect of a turn-based RPG; your attacks have one of four elements, and upon encountering a new enemy, each element will have a question mark below it, prompting the player to experiment to uncover the attacks it’s both resistant and weak to. That all sounds well and good, but in practice, the game introduces combat quite aggressively, where you’ll find yourself being beaten after just a few battles, forcing you to have to find a portal to make it back to the hub world, heal in bed (but only at night), and then teleport back and make your way back to where you once were. This all stretches out the game’s runtime arbitrarily, resulting in a long slog.

While the characters and setting initially felt promising, in execution, the plot feels like something where, if it worked for the Final Fantasy series, why not ours? Oh, and time travel—people like time travel, right? The game thrusts you into the thick of the plot in a way that doesn’t allow the player to become emotionally enthralled with the characters, and it’s a bit of a shame because they had potential. While RPGs can often feel padded out unnecessarily, most are long partially because it allows players to become emotionally invested. While the developers clearly had high ambitions, the execution feels slapped together, lacking impact.

While the 2D art is absolutely the primary marketing showcase, the in-game art and its environments feel bland and full of basic Unity assets. Aside from your run-of-the-mill turn-based combat UI menu, which, for all intents and purposes, is actually quite well designed, the overworld exploration just feels clunky and lacklustre. And don’t even get me started on the farming; the lack of grid design, or any sort of design for that matter, makes everything feel like a chore. It all seems an example of all bark and no bite, with the trailer being as much as it has to offer.

TL;DR

• Lack of maps
• Unbalanced combat and arbitrarily padded gameplay
• Plot tries to be more than it is
• 3D models feel clunky

Final Score: 3/10

When I saw the trailer, I was captivated by the art and its presentation. However, it appears I fell victim to shallow marketing efforts. Aside from Maliki: Poison of the Past’s stellar 2D artwork, every aspect feels clunky and lacking in any form of satisfaction. I don’t revel in being this negative, especially when, behind this game, I know it’d have a team of passionate developers’ hard work behind it, but I just can’t see this game as something to recommend. The trailer made the game show promise, but I’m afraid it talked the talk when it couldn’t walk the walk.

Thank you for checking out our Maliki: Poison of the Past Switch review, thank you to Ankama Games (via HomeRun PR) for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:

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