Like most people, a good trailer or concept is often enough to sell me on a game. Molly Medusa: Queen of Spit is no exception, with a unique premise wrapped in mythological trappings. However, what starts out with an interesting concept and premise winds up feeling half-baked at best.

Molly Medusa puts you in the role of Molly, a sculptor’s apprentice who longs to be able to “mold stone into flesh” and become the best sculptor she can. This over-exuberant passion to succeed leads her to make a bargain with Circe, which doesn’t end well. Now cursed to be Medusa, Molly must find a way to undo Circe’s curse.

That premise sounds great, right? The sad part is the story is almost non-existent other than a small sequence at the beginning. That sequence is well done and is voice acted well, but because Molly turns everything in her path to stone, the developers backed themselves into a corner. Other than some monologuing from Molly herself, there isn’t much story involved once you get started.

Also, there are several major oversights right from the start. There is a very small tutorial at the beginning which explains jumping and locking on. As you get tools, you are told how to use them, but there isn’t a tutorial for any of the major concepts like the gravity mechanic. The gravity in Molly Medusa is referred to as “local” by the devs. This means that Molly can walk on walls and ceilings just by jumping against them.

The big issue with this is that the in-game camera is a nightmare. Trying to do anything precise with the in-game camera is almost impossible. Worse than that is the fact that there are no video options, so you can’t put the game in windowed mode, change resolution, or even alter things like Vsync. For a modern game to have such limited options is quite frankly insane.

One of the few options that Molly Medusa has is a “no-damage” option, that allows Molly to be impervious to damage from traps and enemies. This is practically required to get very far, because enemies and traps take so much of Molly’s health that you’ll hardly survive more than a hit or two even early on. Had the developers tuned the damage a bit or made health pick-ups more plentiful, this might not have been an issue.

If you can look past the problems with Molly Medusa, there is a strangely charming Zelda-esque adventure game here. The puzzles are engaging, though at times they aren’t sign-posted well enough due to a lack of tutorials. The level designs are interesting, the visuals are well-crafted, and overall, the game is fun despite its warts.

It is hard to recommend Molly Medusa at full price though. With all its problems and a lack of updates since launch, it is a little disappointing how rough Molly Medusa is. If you’re going to pick it up, check it out on sale, otherwise steer clear.

A PC review copy of Molly Medusa: Queen of Spit was provided by Burning Planet Digital for this review.

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Molly Medusa: Queen of Spit

$19.99 USD

3

Score

3.0/10

Pros

• Interesting Premise
• Cool Gravity Mechanic
• Unique Puzzles

Cons

• Very few Tutorials
• Clunky Camera
• No Video Options
• Ridiculous Difficulty level
• Story is Sparse