Who remembers the Game Boy Advance, or simply ‘GBA’, as the fans call it? Released in 2001, it was the fourth of Nintendo’s portable gaming devices, following the steps of the massively successful Game Boy Color, and it had a fantastic library of games: Wario Land 4, Metroid Fusion, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Fire Emblem — just to name a few, and if you happened to be a fan of platformers, there was no shortage of interesting titles to play.
The best GBA platformers were simple, direct, fun to control, and had plenty of things to collect, making the on-the-go sessions bite-sized and enjoyable. And that’s precisely what Beard Blade does.
Beard Blade is a platformer that’s visibly inspired by GBA era platformers, such as the aforementioned Wario Land 4 or Klonoa: Empire of Dreams. Developed by the indie-team-of-two Glovebox Games, Beard Blade hopped on Steam on July 20th, 2021, marking the first game the studio made: and what better way to start off than with a simple, yet enjoyable title?
Our story starts with a group of goblin-like monsters digging up one of the seven dragon ball- I mean… a shiny artifact from the ground, but before they can get away, a cute sheep wastes no time and gobbles up the precious artifact, running away with it. They give chase and end up in Branson (our protagonist)’s farm, and, unable to distinguish the sheep, they make a mess out of the situation and end up kidnapping all the sheep — waking up Branson in the process, who proceeds to run after the kidnappers.
After a quick search aboard the kidnappers’ ship, Branson meets with a prisoner named Forbeau, who says he was captured by the same sheep-kidnapping gang: The Smuglins. A quick breaking of handcuffs later, Forbeau, who claims to be something of a mage, rewards our hero by using his magic in Branson, saying it “has different effects for each person”. Lo and behold, in Branson’s case, it gives his mighty mane metamorphic powers, transforming it into different weapons, such as a fist, a spiked ball, and of course — a blade.
After causing some property damage exploring the ship and finding a spiffy and heroic-looking set of clothes and cape, Branson meets the Smuglins — and their leader, Orzo. But before they can talk about the misunderstanding over a game of chess and a few cups of tea (or duke it out, you be the judge) the sheep that ate the precious treasure begins to glow and causes an explosion, sending sheep, hero and foe alike scatteredly flying towards the nearby Pimento Island, where Branson must find and rescue his herd of sheep and perhaps find out what the Smuglins are up to with that shiny artefact.
And so begins our quest! A simple plot, but an efficient one, and one that takes sort of a backseat throughout the game, in true classic platformer fashion. From here on out, it’s just the core gameplay and a few cutscenes sprinkled here and there. The game has the classic level by level progression where you help Branson do some platforming, fight some Smuglins, and eventually find one of his sheep (at the end of the level) — and a few extra things, if you’re the explorative type.
Branson controls very smoothly as you run, jump and beard your way through Pimento Island, one button to jump and other to attack — very to the point and easy to grasp, but as your adventure continues, Branson can even rock a few extra moves such a slow descent (sort of akin to Rayman’s helicopter hair), a Mario-style ground pound (using his beard as a wall of bricks) and a claw-like attack (using, what else, his beard) to hang onto objects and propel himself upward. Throughout the way you will find a myriad of coins that you can collect to spend on Forbeau’s barber shop to grant Branson said abilities and more, and each stage holds six Orzo coins, two treasure chests and two collectible cards. Sounds like a lot of collectibles per stage, which means stages will be pretty long, right? Well, not exactly.
You see, much like Wario Land 3 on the Game Boy Color (which is a game I have spent more hours that I can count on), Beard Blade has a day and night system, and certain parts of the stage will only be accessible in either day or night, and because of that, only half of the collectibles will be available in each time of the day, making the trek through each stage relatively short and perfect for small gameplay sessions.
The collectibles themselves are the aforementioned coins, treasure chests that can contain a, well, treasure, or a CD track that will unlock a song of the game for you to listen… Or at least it’s what I think it does, because I cannot for the life of me get the Sound Test to work. It’s in the options menu, but the game doesn’t seem to load my acquired tracks before I pick a save file, and when you pick the save file, the options menu in-game doesn’t have the Sound Test. Maybe it’s a full completion reward?
Either way, the collectibles are not that significative in the grand scheme of things: The tracks (supposedly) give you access to the sound test, the cards tell you a biography of each foe and character you encounter, and the treasures have a fun little description of each one.
Given that the game counts how many Orzo coins you have at the bottom of the screen in the map, I imagine they might contribute to a secret ending or a bonus in the end, but in later stages the placement of the collectibles start to be put in very mean spots — some of them cannot be collected directly (as in they literally teleport away from you), some of them are behind hidden walls in which you must crouch to get in (so if you’re like me, you’ll most likely be rubbing against the wall trying to find what are you missing until you remember you can crouch) and my personal pet peeve, the ones that require previous knowledge of which of the branching paths to take, which will more often than not make you replay the stage at least once more for day or night — Though you can simply exit the stages from the pause menu once you got the items you missed.
Visually, Beard Blade’s sprite quality is amazing and has quite a lot of detail to it. There’s a certain look to a GBA game, one that’s similar to the SNES but with a touch more detail and in a smaller screen — and Beard Blade prefectly replicates this look, with the added bonus of no pixel tearing when being put in fullscreen mode. And just as more proof for the GBA comparisons, the native resolution of the game is about 486 x 304 windowed (about 17 x 10 cm or 6.5 x 4 inches).
Areas feel different from one another, not only there are different gimmicks for each area you visit — some more fun, some more annoying (I’m looking at you, Michi’s Cemetery) — but in the same stage the layouts of day and night versions change things up a lot and it keeps the game visually varied and distinctly polished. Sure, you will run into a couple of stages of the same theme: the beach area, the forest area, and even a mansion, but that doesn’t mean each area doesn’t have its fair share of originality — and even some surprises.
That variety can also be applied to the music: every area sings a more energetic or upbeat tune for the daytime and a more tranquil, mysterious or even spooky tune for the nighttime. All of the soundtrack can be found on Spotify and Apple Music, so give it a listen if you’re in the mood for some 16-bit jams — You might find yourself chanting along a few of them during your day. My personal favorites are Annatto Forest (Day), Shallot Shipyard (Both) and Michi’s Manor (Day).
In conclusion, Beard Blade is not without its snags — The dirty placements of some collectibles, a few collision bugs here and there (shoutout to the one that got me stuck and had me restart the stage), a few annoying stage gimmicks and somewhat anticlimactic final bosses and ending — and I know I didn’t get all collectibles, but it didn’t bother me because my 8 hour journey through Beard Blade was still an overall fulfilling experience that scratches that GBA-platformer-sized itch (Can you believe I’ve had that? Specific, I know) and will definitely be a game I revisit in the near future. And hey, perhaps I’ll finally get that 100% completion run. In time.
Beard Blade is available on Steam and if you’re into the Wario Land series, nostalgic for the GBA or just a fan of platformers, this is a game you definitely should check out.
