Maliki: Poison of the Past by developer Blue Banshee and publisher Ankama Games—PC(Steam) preview written by Richardwith a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Hey there,and welcome to a preview of a new title that’s now wormed it’s way into mywishlist. Maliki: Poison of the Past is a really neat looking title that drawsfrom the graphic novel series Maliki. A very interesting turn-based combat RPGwith a sort of farm management aspect, let’s take a look at what we can lookforward to!
Maliki, thegraphic novel series, is a series of French books by an author/illustratorgoing by the same name. I’ll admit I hadn’t heard of them prior to trying outthis demo, but now I really want to see if I can find a copy of them inEnglish. Maliki: Poison of the Past tells a tale about Maliki and some of the interestingcharacters around her. A story of fighting against a plant-like lifeform thatcan travel through time in order to keep humanity from being wiped out.
While theMaliki demo isn’t very long, between an hour or two to complete, I can say withfull honesty that what I did get to try out certainly hooked me. You play asSand, a person dragged through a temporal gate by Maliki in order to help hergang fend off Poison. You start rather strong on this recruitmentdrive. After a very brief combat tutorial, you’re shunted through another timegate into a more peaceful period in the past, where you get to learn more aboutthe Domaine, an area outside the usual effects of time.
Within theDomaine you will meet the cast of characters who are helping Maliki to fend offPoison and to keep the Domaine up and running. A sort of slice cut out fromnature, presided over by a Thousand-Root Tree, which is what keeps the Domaineoutside the natural flow of time. The Domaine itself gives some pretty heavyHarvest Moon type feelings, as you can plant and harvest food, cook, craft, aswell as feed nature essence to the Thousand-Root tree to take care of it.
Once you’vesettled into the Domaine, you are now ready to face the dangers of the worldoutside the boundary! The fearsome creatures created by Poison will attempt tostop you, so you need to be ready to fight back. Off you are sent into worldsunknown so that you may fight back against Poison’s influence. Youexplore and gather or help people out everywhere you go. In a very interesting case ofin-universe justification, battle takes place in a mostly turn-based systemonce you get into a fight. Basically, since you are using the time-power fromthe Thousand-Root Tree, you would normally be able to turn fights into aone-sided beating. However, because Poison can affect time as well, the enemiesaren’t stuck there. Hence they “move” too.
You get aturn order in battle, and you have multiple commands such as attack, technique,block, focus, temporal actions, and inventory. Maybe a little more than you maybe used to, but it all makes sense. There are different element types toattacks, and enemies can be strong or weak to them. As you perform actions, oruse focus, you build up a temporal action gauge. Once it’s high enough, you canaffect the turn order. Most notably, you can “rollback” your time, healing youand restoring some points you need to use your techniques. Seriouslythough, the amount this gives is bigger than you’d expect and, at least in thedemo, is pretty much your main method of survival if required. There are a lotof traditional turn-based RPG elements here, but also enough little additionsand tweaks to make it feel fresh, which is always appreciated.
I didnotice that enemies can be somewhat more healthy and strong than I wasexpecting, which is tied more closely to that healing from the temporal action.Not only does it keep your health up, but also returns technique points so youcan keep using the big moves. In another note, if you slide the turn order andyour turn matches with a teammate, you both act at the same time. If you matchwith an enemy however, you both take action together as well, but you have atime limit to determine what you want to do before the enemy acts. A reallycool aspect to the battle strategy that I quite enjoyed.
It would beremiss of me to talk about Maliki and not mention the art. Overworld art isdone in a sort of 3D Japanese chibi style, while character portraits, veryanimated ones I’d like to note, are done in a very beautiful 2D art style. Noseriously, I really love the art style. So much I actually went out to go checkout the webcomic strips that started the whole deal. The aesthetic of Malikijust really all comes together nicely and it looks really good. A sort of weirdcross between old-school Final Fantasy and Harvest Moon style vibes.
I’m superexcited to see the full release of Maliki: Poison of the Past and so shouldyou! Go put this awesome looking title on your wishlist, or check out the webcomic strips/graphic novels if you can and it’s your thing! I know I’mcertainly looking forward to what Maliki has to offer!
Score: N/A
