Mangavania [Game Review]

We’ve said this before and we mean it, sometimes simple is great in the gaming world. Not every game needs to be extremely complex and look ultra-realistic and be best played on 4k TVs. That’s why when we saw Mangavania, our eyes instantly fell in love. This old-school-inspired action game is mostly black and white, is pixel art themed, and looks like it was released on the NES. We finally dove in for a closer look and now have our thoughts on this interesting title. Does Mangavania warrant ponying up $5 dollars or should you save that money for a cup of coffee? We find out in our review of Mangavania for the Nintendo Switch!

There isn’t much to Mangavania, so we can pretty much summarize this indie title easily enough. You play as Yuhiko, who just so happens to be a ninja on a mission to save his brother. How does he accomplish this? Simple, by saving souls, killing baddies, and finding keys to open doors. Really, the story here isn’t going to be the main draw for Mangavania but it at least gives you a small incentive to jump around doing ninja things!

Mangavania’s greatest strength is the gameplay which is extremely simple—we can’t stress that enough—but fun and easy to pick up, play, and master. As our little ninja you’ll be thrown to various levels where the goal is simple, find several red souls to open the door and complete the level. Like classic games all over, your ninja will deal with various enemies and only has three hearts to survive. Falling, getting hit, or taking environmental damage costs one, and losing all three means game over. You can continue from a checkpoint using crystals or just restart the level from the beginning.

Speaking of crystals, these are your game currency which you’ll want to nab not just for continues but for upgrades such as gaining a double jump, a bow, and various other special abilities that will help you beat levels faster. There are also the occasional bosses that will test your ninja skills and these are fun but spread out across levels. Levels have plenty of replay value as there is a constant timer judging your speed and making the speed runner in all of us gamers just want to push for better times. Mangavania is fun and that is why we can’t deny it harkens to easier gaming days.

What we love about Mangavania is the classic design from the almost entirely two-color visuals—there are a few other colors in there we promise—to even the UI design. The menus feel ripped from the 80s-level selection screens and even the upgrade system is just a simple buy-it-and-move-on concept. Mangavania will probably be disliked by newer-age gamers who can’t appreciate the old-school days but us older bees here at Honey’s Anime love the memories we found ourselves diving back into when we began our adventure in Mangavania!

Honestly, with games being nearly $70 now, a $5 game is easy to recommend! Mangavania might not blast you with high-end visuals and a deep gameplay design but we don’t think that was the developer’s intention. Mangavania was clearly meant to be an easy-to-play game but plenty of room to master the indie title, and it accomplishes this without a doubt.