I thought that The Messenger was going to be a rather short platformer at first, something akin to the games of the 1980s. Indeed, there were times where leaping across levels as a ninja were felt remarkably similar to Ninja Gaiden. As I scaled a mountain to deliver a message about a demon invasion, I got new abilities that furthered my ninja skills. Things got weird in a tower when the game started throwing puzzles into the mix, but it worked well enough. But just when everything clicked together and I got into the flow of beating the levels, The Messenger upended everything I had come to understand. Suddenly I had a hat. There was a little more detail in the backgrounds, and the sequential levels became open-ended worlds that I could freely travel between, revealing new areas using the powers I had picked up along the way. Things were fresh once more - and it wasn’t the last time my understanding of the game was changed, either. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it, so much so that as soon as it ended, I started a new save file. But for all its upheaval of expectations, there’s one thing that The Messenger drills in: whatever changes, there are always two certainties. That the messenger will die, and that Quarble will be there with his ledger when he does. The utter git.
