Wéko The Mask Gatherer Review – Stay Hidden

Ready for a little adventure? Wéko The Mask Gatherer is a charming little 3D adventure game where you’re gathering the masks of the seven deadly sins so evil doesn’t rise again. Made by SIRO GAMES Sarl, Wéko The Mask Gatherer can scratch that itch if you’re looking for a little bit of challenge and discovering a new world.  

Writing in Wéko The Mask Gatherer is unfortunately flat. A lot of conversations are pointless, or they’re asking for you to fetch something for them. Some creatures hint at Weko being there before, or doing this previously, cueing the player into some kind of hidden story that they have to uncover, but conversations don’t get any more mysterious than “I’ve seen you before.” I want lore! There were seven masks, cool, what’s the deal with the actual world? What is this place I’m exploring? There isn’t any reason for why the world is the way it is, making everywhere I explore feel pointless and empty. There are some story beats, but they recount the actions you just played for yourself, and don’t reveal anything new.

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Okay, maybe the writing is all that bad. Poor gorilla bottom

While the writing in Wéko The Mask Gatherer is basically nonexistent, there was some care to the challenges. One part before a boss battle had you exploring rooms in a mansion, and dropping blocks to reveal the path to the boss. It was a nifty idea, except that each room was mainly a battle of weaker characters. I was happy when I saw an actual puzzle appear that I had to solve, only to be instantly disappointed when the next room I had to battle more enemies. The enemies in Wéko The Mask Gatherer are sponges that you can spam with your boomerang until they perish. While only attacking with your boomerang is clunky and not fun, it’s easy and keeps enemies away from you. To avoid having the player spam, a triple boomerang with a cooldown could be used, so the player has to juggle distance and close combat. 

I think the main problem with Wéko The Mask Gatherer is that it’s so formulaic. There have been many games before it where you reach a roadblock, battle enemies, then backtrack and overcome the obstacle. This style is categorized as a Metroidvania, but in Wéko The Mask Gatherer there is a lesser amount of backtracking, which is a relief. Locations are so dull that I have no desire to explore them again just to get more currency. Is this game supposed to be a collect-a-thon? With how empty it all seems to be, I wouldn’t think so. The basic structure of Wéko The Mask Gatherer is to do a task for a character, open up a path, chat to someone whose friend is wearing one of the bad masks, and battle that person until the mask comes off. Great, now do that six more times. That’s the game. 

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If you keep your distance you can spam the boomerang for as long as you want. It’s not fun, but it’s an honest day’s work

The mask abilities are tame, either raising your strength, health, or stamina. While one mask could be a big benefit, there’s a detraction to it because it doesn’t help out your main stats. For example, I had two masks that boosted my health by a good amount, and one that raised my overall strength. When I got another mask saying it was a better boomerang, I was under the impression that it’d replace the functional mask slot my boomerang mask was in, but unfortunately it took the place of my health masks. Since enemy attacks can be unpredictable and spammy at times, I couldn’t justify removing any health masks. So, I just wasted currency on a mask I wasn’t gonna use? Cool. 

Wéko The Mask Gatherer is sorely missing an objectives log. After putting the gameplay on pause for a day and coming back to it, you can easily forget what your goal is. You have to spend time retracing your steps and pick through things you’ve already done. The importance of the main story and side missions are blended together, as they’re so similar in what you have to do. I’ve spent too much time wandering through villages trying to discern what my next task was that helped progress the story. If there were some better directions and an objective tracker to follow, the time I wasted would be lessened. 

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Big ice boy go brrrrr

The art in Wéko The Mask Gatherer feels a little basic, but gets the point across. I can’t quite put my finger on why, but everything in the world feels really empty. Maybe the maps need better environmental storytelling, like dirt paths, and trees and whatnot. Currently there are just a few cookie cutter houses placed around a village, and the outside environment has no landmarks that distinguish itself from the rest of the similar terrain. 

The music in Wéko The Mask Gatherer is pleasant, and even dynamic at times. Some of the creature chatter that you hear when talking to people is really enjoyable and silly. But the “dynamic” music can cut off abruptly, and only switches if you’re in a heated battle.

In summary: mildly fun gameplay that needs direction and focus, poor writing and storytelling, and nice environments and music, even if it feels lacking at times.

Jordan played Weko The Mask Gatherer on PC with a review code.

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Nour
Nour
6 months ago

I’m really disappointed with this review. You clearly didn’t reach the end when you said do it 6 more times with fighting bosses (that’s not true). You complain about enemies having too much health and the battle system being bad, yet you admit using a boomerang only and mention in the same sentence that it’s clunky and not fun. The boomerang is meant to be used as a helping option to finish enemies off when they have little health left, not as a viable way to kill enemies. You can also upgrade it 2 more times to make it better. There is more that bothered me about this review but I’ll leave it at that.