Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death

My first hour with Marlow Briggs was spent waiting for the other shoe to drop. A small studio, a low budget, a premise ripped wholesale from 80s action cinema, and combat that lifts its combo logic almost beat-for-beat from God of War - everything pointed to a cynical cash-in. It never dropped. What Zootfly shipped in 2013 is a genuinely entertaining hack-and-slash that knows exactly how ridiculous it is and leans into that with surprising confidence. The combat revolves around four weapon modes built from a single Swiss-army scythe called Kukulkan's Fangs. You cycle between the double-ended obsidian blade, Tacab's Bloodthirsty Claws (fast backhand curved swords), the Forsaken Sting chain-whip, and Patan's Tusk, a slow heavy hammer. Light and heavy attack combinations build a hit counter, and experience earned from kills goes toward upgrading both weapons and a set of elemental spells: fire, ice, earth, and a full-screen wind blast. The loop is simple but fluid, and the shared combo system across all four weapons means switching feels natural rather than disorienting. Grappling, throwing, and spirit knife ranged attacks round out the toolkit. None of it breaks new ground, but it all works cleanly and the pacing keeps it from going stale. What keeps the whole thing moving is the variety the game throws at you between arena brawls. Anti-aircraft turret sections, a top-down shoot-em-up segment where Marlow hijacks a propeller plane, waterfall slides dodging debris, environmental platforming across jungle ruins and industrial machinery - the game refuses to let any single mode overstay its welcome. The boss fights use the scenery well, with camera work that circles enormous enemies as the arena shifts around you. The flip side is that some reviewers found the level structure formulaic: brawl, turret, brawl, boss, repeat. That criticism lands, but at a runtime of roughly six to eight hours the repetition never fully exhausts the goodwill the combat builds up. The tone is the real surprise. Marlow bickers with King Tep, the ancient Mayan soul living in the mask, throughout the entire game. The mask mocks you when you miss a jump. Marlow comments on how conveniently placed enemy turrets are. The villain Heng Long (voiced by James Hong) plays corporate-overlord-turned-god with complete commitment to the bit. The self-aware humor is not highbrow, but it lands more often than it misses and it gives the game a personality that most budget action titles simply do not bother developing. The static-image cutscenes - budget limitations dressed up as stylistic choice - are divisive, and the voice acting is uneven outside the two leads, but these feel like minor complaints inside a package that otherwise delivers on its premise. On PC, a known quirk worth flagging: alt-tabbing can occasionally boot the game back to the title screen, so save regularly. The graphics were modest at launch and show their age now, though the environments moving from jungle ruins to industrial hellscapes to the depths of something far older have enough variety to stay visually interesting across the runtime. Controller support is present and, given the combat system's lineage, the recommended way to play.

Alex · Scout Team

Catch-all

Be the first to comment on Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death.