Murasaki Baby Review

Murasaki Baby is a dark, emotional journey that aims to make the most of the Vita’s touch screens. It’s a great aspiration to have, but sadly it doesn’t work out all of the time.

You guide Baby as she searches for her Mother. In fact you literally guide Baby, using the front touch screen to take her by the hand and pull her through the 2D levels. The journey takes you through a dark, twisted world, meant to represent a child’s nightmare, forcing you to deal with Baby’s fears to progress. The actual connection that you have to Baby makes you naturally protective of her (and you’ll want to keep her safe from harm), but you’ll also feel guilty when you upset her accidentally, or pull her too far and trip her up – it’s a bond few titles manage to pull off.

There are four chapters to guide Baby across, each with a character stuck in a situation that must be resolved, for example: a child stuck in a bunny suit given a nightmarish twist. Each is made up of a series of levels, fraught with hazards for you to negotiate.

Other than interacting with Baby directly, you have two other powers at your disposal. The first is moving the balloon that Baby clutches in her other hand, gently tugging it under spikes. If it pops, she’ll break down and cry, pushing you back to the last checkpoint.

More important are the interactions with the background. At first nothing happens, but popping other balloons found in each level unlocks a different backdrop. These can be swapped between with a two-finger swipe across the rear touch pad, and their unique powers are activated by tapping it. One power turns on a shop window of televisions, distracting monsters in your path, another allows you to zap lightening to power mechanisms. They’re quite varied, and the fact that they are tied to a specific chapter means that the puzzles stay fresh.

Theoretically this is all brilliant, changing puzzles making the most of the Vita’s arsenal. Practically, though, it’s haphazard at best. The most pressing issue is how to hold the Vita while playing. The standard controller-like grip is okay to start with, but certain sections require two fingers on the front to move both Baby and her balloon. Either both thumbs or both index fingers are required for this, but that means contorting your hands horrifically or resting it on a surface, which causes the background to go wild. Using two fingers also blocks a lot of the screen, making it hard to see what’s going on.

Even worse are the sections where you flip the Vita upside-down to change the gravity on a level. On the face of things it shouldn’t be bad, but try and imagine doing that while grappling with the controls as well, and you see the scale of the problem. Compounding the issue yet further is the need to quickly switch background to change power, but it could be several swipes away, and when you’re flipping the screen it becomes too difficult to keep track of what is in which direction.

All of this means that you’ll die frequently. Luckily checkpoints are generous, with one after every little challenge you face, but this takes away any bit of challenge. All the puzzles are solvable on the third or fourth attempt – with a bit of dexterity – and it’s almost as if Ovosonico knows that the control scheme was borderline unworkable. There are points the puzzles could have been pushed further, but the inputs just wouldn’t have coped.

The combination of a saving issue and a crash lost me a good twenty minutes towards the end of the story as well, meaning I had to replay some of the most frustrating parts again, and for reference, that twenty minutes is a sizeable chunk of Murasaki Baby – it might just about last you three hours.

Ovosonico have attempted to create an original, thoughtful title that takes you on a journey of discovery through the eyes of a child. It feels a shame to blame Murasaki Baby for the poor controls of the Vita, but it wouldn’t work on any other platform – it’s been tailor made for Sony’s handheld. While it would have lost the connection with Baby that the front touch screen gives, having the sticks control her and the balloon would have improved things no end.

DECENT. A 6/10 indicates that, while this game could be much better, it still has a fair amount to offer the player. It might be an interesting title sabotaged by its own ambition, or a game denied greater praise by some questionable design choices. Don’t avoid it outright, but approach it with caution.

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Review code provided by publisher.