Constance‘s stronger point is what it attempts to do with its story. Along with Fearmonium, it’s one of the few metroidvanias to tackle heavy topics such as family issues, career burnout, anxiety, and depression. The game switches between Constance’s mind and her real-life experiences at work, where she tries to keep up with an increasing list of tasks while dealing with a barrage of messages, and at home, as she struggles to maintain her mental health while her condition continues to decline. The main issue is that it deals with these heavy topics in a somewhat shallow way without diving deeper into Constance’s head or providing interesting insights.
The game’s setting is a surreal, sometimes bizarre depiction of Constance’s head. The visual design is excellent, borderline impeccable, and sets Constance up to be a rousing success…but falters in its execution.
With the benefit of so many metroidvanias to draw from, Constance nailed it in some ways, but is surprisingly sparse in others. First, it borrows perhaps one of the best navigational additions in the genre from Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown with the picture-taking mechanic. You start with a few photos and find more with progression. By taking a picture with the snap of a button and saving it, you can label the map so you know exactly what movement upgrade is needed, and thus, when to return. It’s unlikely there will ever be a shortage of film.
Adding this mechanic shows the developers were aware of what fans of the genre tend to love or yearn for, so it is baffling to see other mechanics underutilised, with the warp being the most glaring. There are just six destinations – one per region – reachable by an elevator. Granted, the map isn’t the largest in the genre by a long shot, but it’s still not enough when considering how out-of-the-way some desired destinations are. There are also shortcuts, but even then, Constance often needs to take a very roundabout way to return to another room, repeating the same platforming challenges, sometimes in reverse.
While issues with platforming aren’t very noticeable for most of the main path, flaws arise towards the very end of the game, and in some of the optional areas or while trying to hunt for items for 100%. This playthrough ended up at 96%, but some of the later platforming, including one section required for Ripple Effect inspiration, doesn’t have precise enough controls to match the ambition of the more convoluted level designs.
There are times with spikes both above and below you, and at its core, it is clear what to do, but actually performing it is another story: pogo, then quickly air dash out of it, pogo again, slash the corruption, dash through more spikes, and so on in rapid succession. The controls simply aren’t tight enough for this, to the point of frustration and Constance repeatedly slamming her head into the ceiling spikes.
At other times, the grapple mechanic feels poorly implemented, requiring you to get the angle just right in real time to reach where you want to go, with the risk of otherwise being thrown into hazards or the abyss. The design at one point is downright mean; after a lengthy succession of grapples, the endpoint is above a long drop. Fail to respond in a split second and everything is undone, rather than simply dropping Constance at the endpoint slightly to the right.
While many puzzles are decently or even well designed, the more complex ones are head scratchers, including a room-length puzzle with three timed yellow buttons that are far apart and have to be pressed at exactly the right time, all while making complex manoeuvres to avoid spikes and acid below. There is very little room for error, and the puzzle is not forgiving. Games like Hollow Knight, Guacamelee!, and Islets demonstrate that involved movement with quick reactions can work, but those games have silky smooth controls.
This is a pity because at its core, there’s a ton to explore and find scattered around the six biomes, which should have made exploring fun. There are heart pieces (three increase max health), paint flasks (four increase max paint), erasers, and inspirations. These are often hidden behind breakable walls or tucked away behind puzzles. Inspirations are mostly passive benefits, such as HP regeneration from enemy hits, improved critical hit chance, and increased money, as well as attack enhancements like Saw Jump and Master Spear.
Like Tetris, each inspiration has a shape and can be placed on a small grid-like paper. At first, the area in which they can be placed is small, but finding erasers increases that area by 2×2 at a time, and it is fun to play around with the inspirations for maximum benefit, as sometimes their impact increases depending on placement on the grid.
There are eight brush techniques to help in moving around, though one of the most surprising details is that the standard double jump could potentially come late in the game, and after later research, some players have reported completing Constance without it! Careful use of some of the techniques, like the air dash, is essential for moving through the toughest parts of the game, as it quickly uses up paint. If the paint reaches zero, Constance becomes temporarily corrupted, causing her to take damage more easily and increasing the amount of damage she takes. Each additional use of a brush technique while out of paint increases the damage further.
First-time players should expect to take 10-15 hours to complete Constance, and slightly more for 100% completion. The game doesn’t exactly move at a brisk pace at times due to the roundabout routes required for backtracking, but enemies are generally easy to dispose of and lacking in variety to the extent that it’s easy to memorise patterns and behaviours without much effort, which at least makes the trodden path a little less painful. The most vexing foes are the underwater homing tablets.
Bosses are decently designed and imposing artistically, but can present an above-average challenge on default difficulty settings, with a few notable exceptions. Some are more annoying than tough for either spamming too many enemies or leaning too much towards platforming challenges rather than straight-up fights where you are learning a move set.
Constance introduces an intriguing mechanic known as the puppet’s curse. Usually dying in the midst of heavy exploring can be a huge loss. In Constance, it’s possible to restart in the same room, with the caveat that all enemies significantly gain in strength. However, compared to the potential to be sent back five, ten, or more rooms, the stronger enemies always feel like the best choice. Saving restores them to normal strength, though.
Some limited customisation options cut contact and spike damage in half, which seems more aligned with the normal difficulty in most other games. Alternatively, if searching for the last few secrets or backtracking becomes too cumbersome, both can be set to zero, mostly making Constance invulnerable as long as she doesn’t become corrupted from lack of paint. Other custom settings allow boss HP, Puppet’s curse, screen shake, and controller vibration to be set on or off.
