From Squid Shock Studios, Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus is a stunning metroidvania with a large platforming focus. Bō displays impressive potential throughout its runtime, combining smooth traversal with unique combat mechanics to such a degree that I can describe it as a true romp. Unfortunately, that potential is never fully realised, leading to a path most haphazard.
That said, Bō does a lot of things right. The art style is incredibly striking, and so easy to get lost in. Taking inspiration from Japanese folklore, Bō offers pretty environments aplenty, perfectly complemented by charming NPCs to meet and greet. Sure, a ramen vendor named Naruto is a little on the nose, but there’s still plenty of charm to the denizens of this world. Good writing helps there, making Bō’s seemingly simple story a little easier to get engaged with.
The UI is also delightfully smooth to navigate, an area that I’ve come to appreciate more in recent years. Bō’s menus, HUD, and dialogue boxes add the perfect little extra layer to this cornucopia of aesthetics.
Platforming is generally well done, with a pogo mechanic at its core. Hit things in the air to unlock an extra jump in lieu of the traditional double jump, and string hits together to keep going ad infinitum. It’s not the most consistent in execution, but the system is remarkably intuitive. I approached most rooms with an immediate understanding of what to do to progress, which helped with pacing and flow. Plus, with so much visual flair, every last jump and dash feels incredibly satisfying to pull off. Some of the platforming gauntlets Bō had to offer had me grinning from ear to ear.
This strong core is only complemented by how much Bō almost commits to its platforming prowess. Traversal is generally on the challenging side, constantly testing player dexterity in ways that truly engaged me during my playthrough—most of the time. For all its initial joy, the platforming does not pair quite as well with everything else on offer in the world of Strange Garden. With every fun feature Bō offers, it takes from that fun with another element of its design.
Combat is nowhere near interesting enough to justify how much of it there is. There’s an interesting incentive to stay airborne with constant pogo hits, but encounters are ill-designed to take advantage of it. Too often I was overwhelmed by enemies approaching from every angle to focus on stringing hits for extra jumps—it’s a lot to think about all at once. It’s often safer to stay on the ground and let foes come to you.
Bosses are visually stunning, never failing to spark the imagination with how they look and use aesthetic indicators on their person to indicate damage instead of a health bar. Yet, they immediately douse that spark with how utterly boring they are. Overly simple movesets meld with absurdly large health pools, resulting in such drawn out fights that I couldn’t help but be happy when each was over. Bō’s bosses are too easy, make simple to poor use of the platforming mechanics, and take forever to beat.
Even stripping away grand encounters and complex mechanics, Bō struggles with the fundamentals. The standard three hit combo is simple to execute and has some visual flair with Bō’s bo staff—a clever weapon choice that did not go unnoticed. Yet, the animation feels stilted, never quite managing the smoothness some of the combat arenas seem to demand. You can make do, but it always feels underwhelming to have Bō’s bread and butter be boring.
Then there’s the level design. Again, every last room impresses visually. Detailed backgrounds with loving little touches, legible pathing, constant cues to Bō’s background in Japanese mythos. It’s gorgeous, through and through. However, where exploration is concerned, Bō plays it too safe. When something unique is actually attempted, it’s not committed to, and ends up falling short.
Perhaps the biggest example of this comes early on in Bō. In the snowy mountains biome, immediately accessible from Sakura Village, are a series of small platforming challenges. There’s a well-designed cave connecting to an earlier quest. There’s another vexing combat challenge required to progress. Then comes the big bug man. As delightfully animated as his fellow NPCs, this character informs us of a tournament built around aerial sumo. An interesting platforming challenge, aerial sumo revolves around using Bō’s pogo jump mechanic to knock enemies out of a floating ring while staying airborne, reaching the timer goal before his opponents. Naturally, there’s a qualifier to test our mettle. Here, the problems begin.
At such an early stage in the game, this qualifier is perfectly doable. Start a jump chain to hit every target spread across the room without touching the floor. Targets disappear, giving less to bounce off as we go. After acing that, I made my way to the dojo only to find… the actual sumo challenge to be impossible. It revolves around the exact same mechanic as the qualifier, but the first sumo to hit stayed far too high up to reach for far too long. There was nothing to pogo off of, I hadn’t unlocked any kind of wall jump yet, and it was complete luck of the draw to see if any of the sumo bugs flew low enough for me to start a jump chain. I lost ten times in a row just waiting for that one chance. Given how easy it was to get here, there was zero indication that this wasn’t an area I wasn’t supposed to be in yet. Sure, brushing up against insurmountable walls is a staple of the metroidvania genre. It tells you there’s somewhere else to go. But having that wall be a challenge that by all means should be doable the first time you find it, that is signposted as such so early on, felt more frustrating than anything else. I felt less curious to learn what I was missing than I did misled by Bō’s pacing.
And that’s Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus’ problems in a nutshell. It lays a solid foundation, but stumbles in the execution. Level design is uninspiring, combat repeatedly stumbles, and the platforming is not enough to ignore the other shortcomings. All of this further harms the story being told, denying my full investment as my focus lay on the mediocre time I was having. There’s potential for something truly great here, but as is, this isn’t quite the right path.
Sarim played Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus on PC with a review code.
