Right now I’m something like halfway into Incredible Mandy, and it’s fair to say that its visual style and music are uncommonly good. There’s just something inherently whimsical about the way everything looks and sounds, and this lends a strange sense of serenity to the puzzle-solving and platforming that make up the bulk of the gameplay. The combat, however, is simply bad, highlighting the general floatiness of the mechanics and unwieldy nature of the camera. Boss fights are where things truly become infuriating, with each of the three-phase bosses having a single weak point that has to be uncovered by completing awkward mid-fight puzzles that don’t tell you what you’re supposed to be doing. Still, there are some interesting mechanics to be found here, the most notable of which being the explosive energy swords you can conjure out of thin air and place in the environment to set up an elaborate chain reaction explosion. That’s unlike anything I can recall seeing in another game, much less a puzzle-platformer, and Incredible Mandy‘s uniqueness on this front goes a long way toward smoothing out its frustrating combat and confused boss fights.

Right off the bat, I want to mention that I have no idea what Incredible Mandy‘s story is about despite being halfway in. You can open hidden chests that reveal everyday moments between a few characters, primarily a brother and sister, but that doesn’t really explain much. I think that you play as the brother, but it’s difficult to get a sense of whether he or the sister are Mandy, just as it’s difficult to understand what this has to do with Incredible Mandy‘s opening cutscene where asteroids start crashing down and destroying everything in sight. We’ll see how much ends up being explained.

Incredible Mandy‘s gameplay is primarily centered around solving puzzles and doing some light platforming, and these puzzles are totally fine. Sometimes they’re really clever, and they’re paced well enough that you’re never stuck in a single place for too long, but the clunky camera can make landing where you want unexpectedly challenging at times. The enemies that are interspersed throughout levels don’t help much, either, with combat mostly consisting of smacking enemies around and dodging when they wind up to attack. Your dodge covers a bizarrely long distance while your sword’s range is less than you’d expect, and this can become a problem when facing enemies who shoot projectiles at you and run away. Then there are the boss fights: each boss has three phases that boil down to three puzzles that you have to work out with no direction whatsoever. You’re really just blindly flailing about, trying everything you can think of until something finally has an effect. These fights can end up lasting 20-30 minutes because of all of that guesswork. That’s insane.

It’s worth mentioning that there are timing minigames here, so Incredible Mandy isn’t the kind of puzzle game that’s going to be accessible to those who struggle to react quickly during changing circumstances. It’s also prone to some slight bugginess, which can be both a pro and a con; while it was frustrating when my previous (non-recorded) attempt at the sequence above ended with my controls being unexpectedly locked—Incredible Mandy can be a bit finicky with gamepads, only recognizing my Xbox 360 controller’s inputs once I’ve selected something from the main menu using the mouse—it’s also possible to bypass certain puzzles entirely.

I know that I mentioned it already, but there’s really no overstating how much I enjoy Incredible Mandy‘s art. The visuals are an especially colorful take on that low-poly style that I find endlessly interesting, and the music is understated and tranquil. There’s also this short little song that plays every time you come across the ghost-looking girl (I think it’s the main character’s sister) and she runs away, and I adore the bells in this song. The music is just really well produced like that in general.

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