Metamorphosis Review (Helix)
I’m a bit conflicted with this game.
On one hand, it’s a game that features a story inspired by Franz Kafka’s works with basic platforming mechanics and simple puzzles. I do enjoy these types of games. That’s exactly how the game is advertised and that’s exactly what you get. This is why I’m not giving it a thumbs down.
On the other hand though, I expected a different experience than what I got. Before playing this game, I read Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” and know of his other works that the game is clearly inspired by, “The Trial” and “The Castle”. The common theme among all of these stories is a feeling of powerlessness and anxiety when faced with higher influences out of your control. That’s what makes Kafka’s stories so special. It’s what makes them “kafkaesque”.
In my opinion, the plot of this game is evidently NOT kafkaesque. Yeah, the character you play as is turned into a bug by mysterious forces, but he has a ton of personal agency throughout the story, making steady progress toward his goals even though he got turned into a bug. The main character doesn’t really struggle throughout the game. This is VERY unlike Kafka’s “Metamorphosis”. In fact, not much is similar between this game and Kafka’s story, really only that the main character shares the same name and got turned into a bug. It shares much more similarities with his other works, but I was expecting more “Metamorphosis” in this game given that they have the same title. This was pretty disappointing. But again, there was nothing that explicitly said that the story would be kafkaesque, so I can’t blame the developers and I guess it would be hard to tell a kafkaesque story through the video game medium since progression and character agency is typically a part of playing games.
Having said all that, I’d recommend this to those that want to play a simple puzzle game that features a lot of Kafka references, but don’t expect much more than that.
100% Achievement Completion Perspective:
Most achievements are story related. There are some multiple ending achievements, but you can also replay any chapter you want after beating the game. There is one collectible-finding achievement that wasn’t that fun to get because the collectibles don’t unlock anything, so it felt like a bit of a waste.