Ebenezer and the Invisible World Review – It’ll Be a Blue Christmas

Ebenezer and the Invisible World Review 

Ever wondered what a Christmas metroidvania where you play as Ebenezer Scrooge might look like? Me neither. But here it is, from Orbit Studio and Play on Worlds comes Ebenezer and the Invisible World. It’s an interesting pitch, if nothing else. Play as Ebenezer Scrooge as you try to save the commonfolk from a greedy industrialist with the help of local friendly ghosts. Work with variations of Ghosts that you can summon in combat. Collect Christmas turkeys to boost your health, and remember to save your progress in the nearest save room.

For the Union!

In Ebenezer and the Invisible World, Ebenezer has already undergone the whole Ghosts of Christmas thing and now he’s a noble do-gooder. So when a ghostly friend of his, Eric Fellows, asks for help saving the common working people, he can’t help but oblige. The townspeople are seen as a plague by the local noble Malthus family and the heir to the Malthus fortune might follow in their footsteps. Eric is convinced he can still be saved. So he enlists Ebenezer to find the pieces of the heir’s past, present and future and convince him to choose a better path.

However, due to some meddling gone wrong by the ghosts, Malthus’ heir might be closer to achieving his goal than before. It’s now up to Ebenezer to stop the Malthus dream to crush the workers of the city under the gears of industrial progress.

The story is workable and a bit obvious. It was kind of easy to guess what would happen next story wise. Coming off the back of Ebenezer’s original story as a greedy and stingy loner. Now he has to face a reflection of his old self and help the town.

Sleigh Your Enemies

Take control of cane-wielding Ebenezer to traverse the map, while surviving the Unrepentant ghosts. The controls in this game are kind of difficult to handle, it takes some careful dodging to not send yourself crashing into enemies. Touching them siphons your health so be careful where you’re dodging. Anytime you get up close and personal better only be to swing that cane. As you play, you can summon a ghost and they can assist you in combat. For example, Eric Fellows comes out to deliver an action move. Other ghosts help you in the environment, like helping you phase through locked doors. You can also collect materials to craft and upgrade your ghost friends.

It’s basically going around collecting ghost buddies like Pokemon for your arsenal.The combat takes a bit to get used to and enemies feel a little lacking overall. Enemy combat animations could use a little polish. It feels a little outdated for the times. Along the way you can also talk to townspeople and fulfill their side quests as you get ever closer to the Malthus heir. Side quests can be a little annoyingly simple but kind of add some flavor to gameplay. To break from the monotony of running back and forth in an empty area.

Ebenezer and the Invisible World has a save room mechanic. Reminiscent of older metroidvanias. My gripe about this is that the checkpoints are far from each other. Dying anywhere in the middle is a nightmare. You will have to restart unfinished side quests and sit through dialogues with characters again. I’d rather go without the save room mechanic completely.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Ebenezer and the Invisible World has beautiful visuals. From the town backdrop and the various environments you get to traverse and double jump in. The little details of townspeople walking around in the background far off in the distance. Little bits of clutter and lit up store windows. The environmental designs are detailed and skillfully hand-drawn and crafted. The character sprites are nice. The game gets extra points in the visual category. Audio as can be expected is a subtle but serious trail of a Christmas themed soundtrack, beautifully composed. Obviously the game went all out in the artistic department.

Ebenezer and the Invisible World brings forward a fun new concept. But actually getting you to enjoy it fully is a whole other ball game. With tedious and lackluster combat and enemies dragging down, it’s standing solely on concept and visuals. Overall, it doesn’t seem to bring anything special or engaging to the metroidvania table.

***Nintendo Switch code provided by the publisher for review***