I’m always up for playing quirky puzzles games. As such, I jumped at the chance to review developer Kong Orange’s Felix the Reaper. The premise — playing as a dancing grim reaper — is one that immediately caught my eye. While Felix the Reaper has some interesting ideas and a quirky sense of humor, its core gameplay holds it back. This is a shame considering how this could have been one of 2019’s sleeper hits.
Felix works for the Ministry of Death: an organization tasked with ending human lives. Felix enjoys what he does and loves to dance while on the job. He also has a crush on a girl named Betty, who works for the rival organization: the Ministry of Life. Felix’s eccentricities make him a loveable character despite the fact that he murders people for a living.
Puzzles take place on isometric grid-like levels. The goal of each level is to kill a target. This entails moving objects or pulling levers within the environment to get yourself into a position to complete the task. The trick is that Felix can only move along shadows. You can create shadows for Felix by moving the sun in 90-degree angles. If the sun hits Felix, you’ll have to go back to the last shadowed square he stood on. Felix can use objects like haystacks and ox carts to create shadow-paths for himself. The core gameplay is straightforward and easy to master within a couple of levels.
The problem with the basic gameplay structure is that it never evolves. If you’ve played the first batch of levels, you’ve played the entire game. Though stages become larger as the game progresses (requiring more moves to finish them), the core formula never changes. Puzzles only have one optimal solution. This means you’ll have to suffer a lot of trial and error to find the best possible route to your goal. Completing puzzles fills you with a sense of relief rather than accomplishment.
Each stage ends by presenting you with your results. This is a list detailing the completion time, the number of steps taken, and the amount of completed optional objectives. What’s annoying about the latter is that you don’t know what the requirements are until you’ve finished a stage for the first time. The game encourages speedrunning, which is fine if one is willing to put in the work to find the most optimal path. But if you want to complete the game and unlock bonus stages, then you’ll have no choice but to endure the grind that comes with perfecting levels.
I played Felix the Reaper on the Nintendo Switch. For the most part, I had no issues reading the screen. Unfortunately, there are moments where I had to pull the camera back to see the entire map. You can keep the camera locked into a far-off angle, but it makes it difficult to plot a path for Felix. You’ll have to constantly zoom in and out as you play. This isn’t a deal-breaker, but it’s something that can get annoying after a while.
The art design is equal parts eye-pleasing and disturbing. Levels are bright, vibrant, and bursting with color and style. The stages are downright beautiful. That’s not the case with the people and animals populating the land. The misshapen humans are, for the lack of a better term, ugly. They look less like humans and more like mutated aliens. Though repulsive, the characters have a weird charm to them. The juxtaposition of lovely environments and hideous humans somehow works. Felix the Reaper has a unique visual identity, that’s for sure.
Levels take place in different time periods. Felix visits locales set in the Middle Ages, the 1980s, and even the far future. Though the gameplay doesn’t change to suit specific eras, it’s fun seeing the unique interpretation of different epochs. The developers did an excellent job of making each level feel different from one another.
I would be remiss in my duties as a reviewer if I didn’t talk about Felix’s love of dancing. Have you ever heard of a grim reaper that likes to cut a rug? I know I haven’t. Seeing Felix dancing across levels always brings a smile to my face because of his exaggerated animations. Even his “idle” animation sees him strutting his stuff. Felix’s dances become more outlandish the better you perform. While it can get frustrating trying to figure out the best route for a level, watching Felix dancing almost makes up for it.
Felix the Reaper should have been one of this year’s standout puzzlers. Unfortunately, its rigid gameplay and emphasis on speedrunning turns it into a slog. This is sad because the game has such a cool premise behind it. I’m sure some folks will appreciate the challenge that comes from figuring out the best way to complete stages, but most won’t. Hopefully, Kong Orange will create a smoother experience if it ever decides to make a sequel. If the team can iron out some of the inherent flaws, I’m all on board for another Felix the Reaper.
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