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Review - Miasma Chronicles... Hail to the King?

Image credit: The Bearded Ladies

The Bearded Ladies have a solid reputation in the gaming industry because of their efforts with Mutant Year Zero, a cartoonish-yet-violent take on the apocalypse that involves anthropomorphic animals and strategic combat. Miasma Chronicles came after this, expanding on the studio's proven formula in true XCOM fashion.

    In Miasma Chronicles, you play as a young kid named Elvis who is desperate to find his mother. He knows that she is on the other side of a wall of hardened miasma, a kind of radioactive swirl of microplastics and who knows what else, but getting through that wall has proven to be more difficult than he could fathom. Luckily, Elvis has an older brother named Diggs to help him out. This brother is a robot, so you can already tell the family is a bit of a blend, but he provides Elvis with the support he needs in order to boost his natural talents at manipulating the miasma with the hopes of not only finding his mother... but finding himself in the process.

    Along the way, the pair will meet up with Jade. Jade is known as the mystery girl, with good reason, but she is the true MVP of the team. With her silenced sniper rifle and penchant for sneaking around, Jade is great at picking off the team's enemies before combat is even fully engaged. That's not the only thing that Jade is good for, however. As she traverses with Elvis and Diggs, the reveals behind Jade, the miasma, and Elvis's mother only become more urgent.

The Good

One of the best parts of the game is certainly in the combat. Manipulating the miasma is fun, but the true heart lies in setting up strategic ambushes by using combinations of specialty shots and overwatch. Elvis and his companions can use their wiles, as long as you use your own, to outwit and pepper the enemies with rounds coated in flames, acid, or armor piercing tips. Putting all those things in play makes for a very enjoyable experience.

    The narrative is also pretty strong for Miasma Chronicles. Elvis and company do their best to restore the balance of the world, being held back by the miasma and the results of its spread along the way. The ideas that The Bearded Ladies came up with regarding an ugly future where humans have destroyed any semblance of sanity actually hit pretty close to what could one day be... with a bit of a fantasy twist. Miasma Chronicles weaves a unique pattern between apocalyptic and cyberpunk types of settings, all chucked into the swamps and deserts of America.

    Audio is a plus for The Bearded Ladies, too. Voice acting is well done, and surprisingly has plenty of vocal roles amongst the populace. From random robots to village people chatting it up as you pass them, the game does a great job with vocal immersion. Big shout out to the robot woman complaining about how her boyfriend, a casino slot machine, is an emotionless jerk whose sole concern is money. The music also matches the tone of the game as well. My only disappointment lies in the fact that it's so difficult to come across on music streaming platforms. 

    Visuals also impressed me, but pretty much anything using Unreal Engine will. From the combat to the cutscenes, everything looked nearly as crisp as a AAA title. For a game that is firmly in the AA category, this is pretty impressive. There were only a couple of the times when the frame rate fell off or someone's outfit started glitching into nonexistence. 

The Bad

The character development was probably the biggest bungle of the game. While it felt like Miasma started off great with building these characters and really showing us a lot about them, that ultimately petered out towards the end. There were some decisions made by really key characters that felt rushed or out of place (Elvis, I'm lookin' at you, King), and that can always end up being a little disappointing. When there's a poor reflection on the character development, it unfortunately bleeds into the overall narrative a bit.

Enough is Enough

Overall, Miasma Chronicles hit plenty of marks in my playthrough. Was it as great as some of the other AAs I've played? No. It wasn't even as good as some of the other AA TRPGs that I've played, but that doesn't make it a bad game at all. The Bearded Ladies tried, and they got pretty damn far, but they just couldn't quite stick the landing on this one.

7/10

Good Enough

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