Malicious

Malicious combines fast-paced gameplay of titles like Devil May Cry, Bayonetta and God of War with ideas from the Megaman series. The game was produced by a small Japanese studio Alvion, whose only title for stationary consoles was ChainDive, released in 2003 on Playstation 2.

Plot

At the very beginning of the game, we choose whether we want to become a hero or a heroine. Apart from the purely aesthetic difference, this decision does not affect the course of the game. The plot of the title was presented in a very fragmentary way, in short dialogues and an introduction. The character we are going to lead is a human soul, whose task is to defeat creatures called Malicious, appearing in one of the 5 locations.

Mechanics

We play the levels in any order - these are actually huge arenas. We face powerful bosses and hordes of smaller enemies. The game doesn't feature platforming elements, exploration or collecting hidden objects. Moving from a large room to a selected location, we get right into combat, which, depending on the players' skills and difficulty level, can last from a few to even several dozen minutes. Just like in the Megaman series, defeating the boss we gain their special weapons/skills, which can be used in subsequent battles.

The combat doesn't differ from the games mentioned above. Our character, which we observe from the third-person perspective, can perform standard jumps, dodges, slides, and blocks. Our character is also very agile and fast, and its ethereal form allows you to move around the walls. The game does not have any bar indicating the state of health. The loss of strength is visually marked by the slow disappearance of the hero's body and damaged outfit. The more damage we take, the less visible we are, losing the legs, torso, etc. Of course, it may seem impossible to fight without limbs, but the hero's main weapon is a coat, which can turn into powerful fists or blades that cut enemies, and in case of counter-attack serves as a shield. By defeating our opponents, we gain aura points, which we use in two ways - to regenerate health or increase the strength and level of attacks (there are three). Using enhanced attacks, we can build a large combo, which increases the aura points received for the killed enemies.

Game modes

Malicious does not have a multiplayer mode, but it offers an online scoreboard and points gained while playing the game. Getting a good result in several of the available categories requires a lot of patience and skills.

Technical aspects

Despite the fact that Malicious is distributed only through the Playstation Store and its production is the responsibility of a small developer, the graphic design does not differ much from what we are accustomed to by the creators of titles with a bigger budget. Locations are rich in detail and opponents' designs are original and eye-catching.

Last updated on 28 September 2011