Although promising with its unique twist on the Metroidvania genre, it’s hard to say Lucid Dreams Studio’s Biomorph is truly iterative rather than derivative. Its weird sci-fi aesthetics, generous serving of body horror, and solid platforming make Biomorph a fine game overall, but its weaknesses and missed opportunities are also hard to ignore. Regardless of its faults, however, Biomorph is still solid enough to satisfy most genre enthusiasts and is worth checking out at its price point.
Those who love a good platformer will likely be thrilled with Biomorph, as its level design is always clever and formidable enough to keep players from getting bored, even on those long stretches between checkpoints. On a technical level, Biomorph excels with controls that always feel crisp and responsive, matching its thoughtful and precise platforming design. Whenever failure was encountered, it was always due to a personal failure of skill rather than a rough design choice on the game’s part. Biomorph gets the fundamentals of a 2D Metroidvania right, which is great because it does a lot of the heavy lifting for a game that often seems to lose focus as it grows in scale.
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The primary standout feature of Biomorph is its namesake biomorphing abilities. The main character, Harlo, can scan the DNA of mutated monsters they defeat and then morph into them and take on their skills for that region of the biome. It’s a mechanic that should be familiar to anyone who has spent time with Nintendo’s flagship pink vacuum Kirby, albeit far less cute. Once Harlo is morphed, these monsters’ newfound abilities–and occasionally, size–are often the key to solving many of the puzzles around the planet Ilios, giving an innovative twist to the standard Metroidvania ability-based progression system.
This mechanic is most robust in how diverse and full of ideas it is, with tons of variety in enemies that players can become. For example, players can take on the form of a Toroth, who charges headlong into obstacles to break them, or a Roltys, who is a riff on Metroid’s morph ball ability. In fact, many of these creatures are repackaged forms of familiar Metroidvania abilities, but in a new macabre form. It is in discovering how each one works that the mechanic clicks and can get players invested.
From a design standpoint, these creatures are massively fascinating and often designed like sympathetic victims of a decaying world rather than straightforward evildoers. Plenty of time and care went into these creatures, and it frequently shows the more that players discover and unlock these foes. Unfortunately, Biomorph only dives knee-deep into this concept, leaving a lot of its best lore feeling shallow, which is disappointging.
To give an example, a core concept in Biomorph‘s Kirby-inspired design is how Harlo can store discovered monsters in their loadout as long as players have already morphed into certain monsters a set number of times. The intent is to have earlier monsters available for use at a later time per the Metroidvania formula. At first, it seemed like this mechanic would extend well into later parts of the game, perhaps leading to players needing a creature from the first few biomes to progress later in the game in a sort of “full-circle” moment.
However, that never truly happens besides a few select secret areas that aren’t necessary for progression. Instead of scaling the system up so that the various monsters could be helpful in all zones, the mechanic makes certain monsters only significantly useful for their respective zones. And even within their own zones, Biomorph always has the monster that players need for progression close by, in turn making a lot of the monster loadout mechanics seem rather pointless in the end.
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The whole concept is a bit lacking overall because Biomorph eventually overshadows its central gimmick after players start unlocking more traditional Metroidvania progression tools. Once players have an arsenal of true movement abilities, like wall jumping, wall climbing, and wire skating, the need to become one of Ilios’ mutants grows less enticing unless required for progression. As a result, Biomorph‘s refined Metroidvania fundamentals ultimately make its unique features feel underdeveloped. It’s hard to beat the old, reliable systems that have been successful for years.
None of that is to say that Biomorph’s morphing system does anything particularly bad or boring, because it does feel like a solid foundation for something better in the future. Right now, though, it is more on the gimmick side of things. In reality, the worst part of Biomorph is its boss battles, which are stale and lifeless. Many boss fights are a somewhat transparent “enemy’s turn, player’s turn” affair that doesn’t deviate much from its stop-and-start feel. Most bosses have about two or three attacks with an extra one added mid-fight, which players have to play Red Light, Green Light with, and then it’s lather, rinse, and repeat until the end. None of these encounters felt very memorable or were engaging enough to make repeated failures anything more than a nuisance.
Narratively, Biomorph is also a mixed bag. The game does a great job at offering a neat world with an intriguing premise but drops the ball with a lacking script. Where the writing exceeds is in Biomorph’s subtext, telling a story about how the planet of Ilios is being mutated and transformed due to the constant harvesting of the planet’s ferrox energy. This harvesting has resulted in the aforementioned mutation of the planet’s wildlife into bizarre body horror creatures that even Cronenberg would be proud of. It’s an excellent allegory of current-day environmentalist issues that is delivered effectively with great monster visuals and backdrops.
However, the actual front-facing writing falls flat due to bland dialogue for otherwise interesting-looking characters and a primary objective driven by a “find four control panels” goal that is a bit too dull to drive the plot. The various side quests and city-building scavenger hunts that help boost Harlo’s power carried most of the interest in Biomorph, especially when the game’s narrative seemed to be dragging its feet.
But on the upside, there are plenty of wonderful things to see and hear in Biomorph. The planet of Ilios itself is decently large for a game of this scale and decorates its biomes with great color palettes and tons of visual themes that are always great to look at. And while the music isn’t super memorable, it does hit the right notes when it needs to in order to sell that extra layer of immersion. Not to mention the incredibly neat and stylized cartoon cutscenes that pepper the whole experience. In its presentation, Biomorph stands out with its distinct style.
Lucid Dreams Studio’s Biomorph is a solid Metroidvania that should definitely scratch the itch for any fan craving more from the genre, and with a neat Kirby gimmick to boot. Its strong platforming and level design elevate Biomorph‘s otherwise straightforward approach to the genre, while its main issues mostly come from a desire to see the game do more with its concepts. Despite some lacking elements that do take away from the overall experience, there is nothing here that stops Biomorph from being an easy recommendation in a genre already filled with great releases.
Biomorph
Lucid Dreams Studio’s Biomorph is a Metroidvania with puzzles, platforming, and combat. In Biomorph, the protagonist can take on the shape of enemies, allowing them to use their skills against other monsters.Â
- Great platforming
- Excellent Metroidvania fundamentals
- Exciting world and character designs
- Losses focus of its main gimmick
- Lackluster plot
- Weak boss battles
Biomorph is available now for PC with PS5, Switch, and Xbox Series X|S releases later in 2024. Game Rant was provided a PC code for this review.
