The Waste Land

This one is for players who forgive rough controls when a game has something to say, and for nobody who wants a clean, polished side-scroller. Fledermaus built a small melancholic metroidvania out of Eliot's poem, and the mood carries it: desolate side-scrolling corridors, a heavy hush over everything, ability gates that slowly open the map back up to you. Exploration is the real pleasure here. Finding a new movement power and remembering the ledge it unlocks two zones back is the loop, and it lands often enough to justify the walk. What it does not do is play well. Combat is stiff, hit feedback is vague, and the platforming asks for precision the controller support does not always give back. The Mixed review score is earned, not unfair. But it is short, it does not overstay, and it ends where it should. If you collect strange, unloved literary experiments and treat the friction as part of the texture, there is something quietly worth sitting with in here.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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