The Prisoning: Fletcher's Quest

When I heard Acclaim was coming back, I immediately remembered their history with the gaming industry. Acclaim was the company that brought a lot of my favorite arcade franchises to my home consoles. They were responsible for Wizards & Warriors, and Double Dragon II for the NES. They published great conversions like Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam for the SNES.

They weren't perfect by any means, but they were enough. Hours went into those games. I also remember where Acclaim didn't deserve so much…acclaim. If a movie or TV show existed, Acclaim was bringing a licensed game version of it. If you think your e-shop is cluttered now, Toys "R" Us and KB Toys would like a word. 

Acclaim went away for a bit, and we won't get into that here. What we will do is talk about the fact that Acclaim is back. The first game we got is a team up with Elden Pixels called The Prisoning Fletcher's Quest. It's an original Metroidvania, and that’s pretty much all it needs to be. Maybe Acclaim finally came up. Maybe the days of you dying over and over to unfair hitboxes—and Simpsons games—were finally behind us.

Oh right. You want a story. You want exposition. You want characters to fall in love with and enemies to hate. You want a game to talk about around the watercooler, or in your fancy fast-moving Twitch/YouTube hybrid chats.

Well you get none of that here.

The main character Fletcher is a game developer who goes to see his therapist. His therapist thinks the cure for stress is to hypnotize him and let him drift into his own subconscious. And in this subdued state, you're naked. No worries. Because this is a Metroidvania, and that means you have a map, a designated destination, and someone who will eventually give you clothes and a weapon. The gun allows only one bullet on the screen at once, to dispatch your weirdo enemies. You can also jump. So that's nice. 

Out the gate, the game starts to take shape. Your goal is to simply get to the end. There are no princes or princesses to save. No aliens to save a planet from. No eternal monsters to slay. You just gotta get to the end. There is a small introduction of characters to meet, but again, don't get too attached. Every character in here is not here for a long time, just a fun time. Two of them give advice. One of them wants a lemon, and the other five are in the game for some reason. You have been warned. It is a hypno-induced dream, after all.

One of them is the one you’ll run into the most. I think he’s a bartender. He’s smoking a cigarette, and he’s where your checkpoints are. These checkpoints don’t activate until you hit the vending machine. The vending machine works twofold. One as a warp point. So once you activate a warp point, you can warp back to that point at any time in the game. It’s literally the click of a button, and you choose where to go. You should definitely do this, especially if one of your fetch quests requires you to go back to the beginning of the game. This makes the game less tedious, as they seem to pop up at the right time. 

The warp point’s other use is to restore your hit points. You have two total. That’s it. This is indicated by the hat Fletcher wears on his head, and once you take a hit, the hat goes flying off. Pretend that everything is out to kill you, because it is. Every time you die, you are sent back to the last check point. If you take a hit in the very next room, there is no shame in going right back into the last room to get a hat. There are also semi-secret rooms that have hats in them, so make sure you explore those off-beaten paths. They’ll get you through. This game is not easy.

Luckily, the controls are very tight, and Fletcher does exactly what you want him to do. He will jump as high as you hold the button. There is no delay between you pushing the button and Fletcher reacting.

While my first playthrough had me second guessing my platforming skills, my second playthrough had me surveying every room before I went through it, and I completed it quicker than my first run through. And these one-screen rooms aren’t randomly generated, thank goodness. There was some familiarity. I think that’s the beauty of this game.

While the enemies are few and far between, there are plenty of them, and they are all trying to find different ways to kill you. Some of them you can just avoid and make your way to the next room. It is easier to navigate if you kill the enemies first, and they’re all built differently.

I guess the best way to explain this game is that it’s small but mighty. It’s kind of like Megaman in a way that some enemies can be taken down in one shot, while others take 6 or 7. Keep in mind that if you exit a room, all the enemies you cleared instantly return in their same places. Again, Megaman. 

Fletcher’s two hit points, and the ability to shoot one bullet at a time, is a little tough at first. And that’s where the bosses come in. The bosses are larger than life and pack a punch against our little slow, pea-shooting, hypnotized game developer. When you meet that first boss, it’s one shot at a time, and it is no joke.

Patience is your best friend in this game. The second you get frustrated, the more punishing it becomes. This isn’t a Cuphead boss, but the bosses are no pushovers. While they all have weak points, I have to give extra kudos to the next-to-last boss. It’s genius. After you defeat each boss, warp back to the beginning. You can thank me later. 

And that’s pretty much it. This game wasn’t made to give you the absolute best Metroidvania of all time. It’s not here to compete with Hollow Knight, or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The game takes you about two hours on a good run. Probably three. But if you’re good at any platformer, you’ll like this one.

I don’t want to use "bare bones" to describe this game, as there are a few surprises, like a shoot 'em up stage. There are different sections to keep it a little fresh. The enemies get a little repetitive, but I didn’t care much. It was fun, it was quick, and I’m fine with it. It’s just fine. Also, this is not a kids game. I should’ve said that at the beginning. There are some very adult themes, and pixelated nudity.