Silly Polly Beast

It’s amazing to see independent game developers who work tirelessly on their passion, vision and to bring their ideas to life. Twitter showcases wonderful developers, working hard on their projects, and to see those projects come to life and see the light of day is something quite special… and is one of the very few good things on Twitter (besides Game-News, like, follow, and subscribe!). One such developer, Andrei Chernyshov, has brought their game, Silly Polly Beast, to life after 7 years of development! Finally, this ultra-stylish, action-packed, surrealistic ride through Hell is here, and I’m here to bring the review!


What the Hell is Silly Polly Beast?

Silly Polly Beast is a wild ride that sees us making deals with demons, shooting other demons in the face, venturing through neon-lit dystopian Hellscapes, and doing some epic skateboarding like your Tony Hawk on steroids.

We play as Polly, a young woman fleeing her home and wanted by the police. While looking for her closest friend, hoping to flee together, Polly takes an unexpected trip down a sewer drain, causing her to enter the underworld. While looking for a way out, she unexpectedly, and resentfully, makes a deal with a powerful demon, looking to escape their imprisonment, and Polly is going to help him do so.

Now armed and dangerous, Polly must venture forth and kill three powerful demons, and along the way, discover some harsh truths that confront her past and potentially redeem her for some nefarious actions. Silly Polly Beast is a vastly stylish, action-packed game which features some beautiful isometric shots, intense and brutal combat, and a story that genuinely has quite a bit of gravitas.


Silly, silly Polly

What stands out most for Silly Polly Beast is the visual style, artwork, and neon-lit vibes this game oozes. This is truly a stunning game to look at, and while some camera angles and the overuse of bloom at times do get a little annoying, I was thoroughly impressed with just how fantastic the presentation was.

Silly Polly Beast implements multiple types of camera work, from far isometric views, side scrolling tracking shots, Dutch angles, the loop, twist and track as you move, and fixed camera shots reminiscent of classic Resident Evil games. There’s a good deal of variety in how we observe and see the world, and 99% of it looks terrific. My only gripe is that some combat areas are a little difficult to gauge depth and aiming, since you aim and shoot with the right analogue stick, pointing a laser to see where your aim is (like RE4), and some angles don’t make this process easy. Thankfully, there aren’t that many, and much of the combat arenas are clear enough to understand where you’re shooting and giving you a clean view all around.  

I love the infusion of anime vibes, cell-shaded colouring, and punk aesthetics all rolled into one, delivering a truly vicious and staggeringly good-looking game. There is also a pretty great soundtrack here, whether it is ambient music or an outrageous punkish rock-out that accompanies a high-octane action set piece, all so well.  Along with all the small touches, it amounts to a visually striking and sounding game that eradiates substantial style, which enhances the Hellish and punkish journey Polly is going through. As for performance, Silly Polly Beast ran beautifully smoothly, with only a handful of times where I clipped into a wall, but these were at very precise points. And thanks to the generous checkout system, I didn’t run into something that ended my run, causing me to start all over again.

As for the plot, while simple and a little predictable, I did enjoy the worldbuilding and backstories to many of the characters, including Polly herself. It’s a good story on grief and guilt, with Polly being quite expressive even though she doesn’t verbally talk to other people. There’s a good supporting cast that flesh out the world and plot, with some vastly despicable and excellent antagonists to face off against. There was quite a bit of gravitas here, with nice twists and emotional moments enhanced again by the style, making for a visually stimulating story that kept me hooked until the very end.


Be the Beast … Deal the carnage!

The gameplay and pacing for Silly Polly Beast are much like its art style and presentation. It’s varied, wild, and manages to bring a lot of ideas together very well. Despite my personal having some issues with the core combat loop (more on that later).

What Silly Polly Beast does is combine different gameplay elements, with the main focus being on action, but adding in exploration, puzzle solving, and even changing those elements up to fit something more akin to a typical action game, or something representative of a classic RE game. There is straightforward shooting, manic boss battles, combat arenas that infuse action and lateral elements, skateboarding mini-games, and a section which very much felt like something I would experience in the Spencer Mansion.

There is a great variety to the gameplay loop, enough to keep things feeling interesting throughout the 12-hour journey I had, and not overdoing it, so that I felt lost or overstuffed from needless saturation. Everything had purpose, and for the most part, was fun to play.

The major gameplay vibes I got for a majority of Silly Polly Beast were something akin to 2017’s Ruiner, from Reikon Games. The over-the-top, isometric action/platforming has been done before, but oddly, there isn’t a wide market for it, compared to, say, old school survival horror clones. And there is a good reason why… It’s very tricky to pull off right!

Ruiner and The Ascent are excellent, tightly woven action shooters that focus on challenging, engaging, and highly rewarding gunplay, and combat arenas by offering great weapons variety, and meaningful character progression… and Silly Polly Beast does miss a few important beats these games nailed.

Now, I will say the general combat vibe is solid, there is a good understanding of challenge and for the most part, how to frame the challenge fairly. But when it comes to character progression, gear progression, or even having fun, impactful weapons that evolve over the game, there’s hardly any of that! I was staggered by the total lack of weapon upgrades, the huge restrictions here on what you can carry for both weapons and ammo, and the total lack of special abilities, or perks that would make the combat overall a lot of entertaining and thrilling.

There are 4 weapons in the game, with two of them being somewhat underwhelming by the halfway point, and for me, I only came across one weapon upgrade for the pistol. I could have possibly missed any other upgrades in the game.. but I’m pretty certain they don’t exist. And this is quite baffling since weapon upgrades would help balance the combat later in the game, with many encounters becoming tedious grinds that felt quite unfair. But also adding in some character progression flair that gamers love.

It would be like if Batman in the Arkham games never got new gadgets or combat moves, simply ending the game just as he started. Or in Doom Eternal, if the Doom Slayer just had the pistol, shotgun, and plasma rifle, with no upgrades, or other abilities to make him even more of a badass, but also capable of handling the increasing challenge.

Now, some encounters are pretty great fun, when I saw there being thought and reason in the arena design, and enemy positioning. There’s a fantastic boss battle where a dude with a big eyeball is playing a music box, which summons enemies (yeah, there are a few moments like this…), and you have to deal with him and them. But there’s also a massive swinging blade that cuts through the middle of the arena, being deadly to you, but also to everyone else. It’s awesome! Most of the boss battles are also quite thrilling and enjoyable, with one seeing you solve some minor environmental puzzles to weaken the boss itself, and one featuring a giant woman who spews acid at you.

Truly, there are some fantastic combat sections and set pieces in this game. And even some of the ones which could become annoying, due to the layout of the arena or other factors, were interesting, and didn’t overstay their welcome.

But the lack of character progression, weapon upgrades, abilities, and the lame melee attack only brought about tedium and frustration for a lot of other moments. There’s also the RNG, which is kind of all over the place. Since you carry a limited amount of ammo, you have to rely on drops from fallen enemies, and the RNG can be either very generous or kick you in the balls while you’re down. There are also things like enemies giving themselves shields, making them invulnerable for a short time, or healing themselves randomly, which did happen quite a bit. Annoying when you spend all your ammo, and a couple of dudes just heal up and continue to beat you down.

I wouldn’t mind … if the guns I had become stronger, or held more ammo. Or if my melee attack was better, opening new attacks and manoeuvres. Or, if Polly obtained some awesome spells/abilities of her own to help out. You do get a spell, which is quite awesome, which shoots massive spikes from the ground and basically kills everything in a small radius. But this is very limited, seeing it a couple of times, and the wind-up for it takes too long. Allowing enemies to disrupt you easily.


Polly wants a weapon upgrade?

It does sound like I’m hammering the combat quite a bit, and I do believe there are some major missteps with Silly Polly Beast, as the lack of progression, aside from HP and stamina, which comes in randomly, makes you feel underwhelming and a little ill-prepared for the bigger, tougher moments. When you get half a dozen bullet-spongy enemies, a boss that is so fast and bullet-spongy itself, and a poor RNG moment, it can equal a bad time. There were a few of these, but I do believe that with a tweaked RNG, the impact of these problems can be lessened.

And there were still some excellent moments here. I loved the fun little skateboarding mini-games, which allow you extra cash to buy supplies (which is great, as supplies are a little too pricey). There was a selection of great set pieces I thoroughly enjoyed, including one in a swamp that had explosive enemies coming towards me, and I could only move slowly through the area. Or, the best section is set in a key story location, basically Polly’s home, which she dreads returning to, and everything is a side-scrolling version of a classic RE game. Being a massive environment, you explore, find key items, backtrack, and having to deal with a stalker enemy. This section was brilliant, and if the whole game were this, I would’ve been utterly fine, and more so with it.

While there are some big shortcomings with Silly Polly Beast, the good stuff truly outweighs those and makes up for it with such impressive features and moments.


Overall?

I will be honest, there were a few times I was not enjoying myself with Silly Polly Beast, wanting to just quit and never speak or see this game again. And while I did grind, pushing through the ill-thought-out combat moments… I’m glad I did overall.

While there are missteps with the combat theory, RNG, and lack of meaningful character progression in mechanical terms, Silly Polly Beast is an impressive and enjoyable video game. I was hooked, I was having fun, and I immensely enjoyed the story, art style, and those brilliant moments that worked.

I have a lot of respect for developer Andrei Chernyshov, who had a clear, beautiful vision for a video game, and even with the moments I thoroughly didn’t like, there was much more that was clever, thoughtful, and utterly entertaining. It’s very clear we have a talented designer with a knack for style and substance, with Silly Polly Beast being a great game you should check out.

And hopefully there will be some post-launch balancing to iron out those rough edges! Otherwise, stellar work right here!

++ Fantastic art style and presentation. Truly staggering!
++ A great, heartfelt story that brings some good twists and thematic moments
+ Some excellent set-pieces, boss battles, and level design

-- Lack of character progression, vast restrictions, and lack of weapon upgrades is disappointing
- RNG can be very annoying
- Combat balancing is needed for the tougher moments


The publisher kindly provided a review code of Silly Polly Beast