Murasaki Baby

None of the stress matters in the end, though. All that you care about is getting Baby back to mummy, and the excited grinning and hopping she does after you navigate a tricky segment together is worth every moment of frustration along the journey.

Helping the little girl through her nightmarish tableaus is engaging if you are able to get invested in the absurdist universe. I was definitely able to do that during Murasaki Baby's couple of hours.

The puzzles in Murasaki Baby are very diverse, but do not expect too much hours of gameplay. Within a short 2,5 hours you will finish Murasaki Baby, but boy is it a sweet 2.5 hours… This is something you have never encountered ever before.

Though it's extremely brief and perhaps a bit undercooked, Murasaki Baby is a thoughtful adventure with some clever mechanics. It's primarily buoyed by its superb art and sound direction, which expertly toe the line between creepy and cute. While some deeper puzzles would have been nice, Murasaki Baby is ultimately a nice addition to the Vita's library.

Still, Murasaki Baby does a great job of introducing a steady climb towards multitasking where inputs on both rear and front touch panels require delicate planning.

If you’re looking for an original,stylish adventure with an amazing soundtrack, this could be the perfect game for you, but keep in mind that after a couple of hours it has nothing more to offer.

Despite my distaste for all the hand-holding, Murasaki Baby's mesmerizing art style and strong emotional backbone left me too invested to let go.

Overall Murasaki Baby is a bit of originality sprinkled with easy to medium puzzles, a short story you have to put together and enough content for a few hours of play.

Murasaki Baby shows a twisted and fascinating style and several intriguing ideas. However, beyond its shortness and tangled controls, it fails in establishing a strong and emotional connection between the player and Baby.

It may not be perfect, but at the very least, its strange, twisted heart is definitely in the right place.

It’s easy to love its bunny-shaped boogeymen and characters spouting gibberish on a surface level, but this stylistically stunning, inventive little game never quite grows up.

We made it one of our favorite games on PS Vita since we saw it during the gamescom 2013. More than its Burton-style, Murasaki Baby seemed to offer an interesting gameplay, perfectly suited for PS Vita. But the game is too short to be remembered. Only 2 hours will be enough to complete the four chapters of the journey, without any possibility of a new game plus. At least, it won't be bad for your wallet.

Not again. On one hand you got loads of interesting puzzles and a bizarre atmosphere, on the other a sometimes totally useless touch or gesture control.

While undeniably quirky, rather rote. [Dec 2014, p.81]

It's a shame that the game is occasionally let down by its control scheme because it is anything but derivative and its visuals, excellent sound design, and mechanics can coalesce to create moments of real impact. [Issue#154, p.126]

This baby could have done with more time in the dev womb. [Nov 2014, p.90]

Pleasantly hellish in places, unpleasantly hellish in others. [Issue#254, p.70]

Murasaki Baby seems more like a lost opportunity than a success due to an uninspired control scheme and gameplay mechanics that are too simple.

The sliding backgrounds and other elements are initially clever, but they ultimately don’t gel or grow in any interesting ways. You only have a handful of different backgrounds to choose from at any given time, so finding a way past the next obstacle is only a matter of trial and error – if the obviousness of a solution doesn’t hit you immediately. Finding that balance is tricky, and Murasaki Baby’s superficiality is further dragged down by the annoying controls.

The visual style of the game is striking, but the touch-based controls make it clumsy and can cause large amounts of rage. Murasaki Baby makes a great airport game: if you have the patience and an awkward portion of time on your hands, it’ll definitely keep your mind preoccupied.

Murasaki Baby is a wondrous artistic and emotional creation that is ultimately let down by the game’s stubborn dedication to touch controls.

Still, it is gorgeous - there's no denying that. Gorgeous, stylistically interesting (if derivative of Edward Gorey) and with some wonderfully creative ideas behind it, Murasaki Baby is a game to welcome with open arms. It's just not a great game to welcome with open arms.

Murasaki Baby is born of a weird yet inspired artistic approach, subtly expressed through the gameplay's metaphorical dimension. Despite a rough execution that stresses some design and ergonomic issues, Ovosonico therefore managed to create a fulfilling emotional experience.

Ovosonico have attempted to create an original, thoughtful title that takes you on a journey of discovery through the eyes of a child. It feels a shame to blame Murasaki Baby for the poor controls of the Vita, but it wouldn’t work on any other platform – it’s been tailor made for Sony’s handheld. While it would have lost the connection with Baby that the front touch screen gives, having the sticks control her and the balloon would have improved things no end.

Most of the success of Murasaki Baby relies wholeheartedly on its art style, and thankfully it does pull the game pretty far. But, the puzzles are more about execution than thought, and even though the story felt like it went much deeper than I had expected for a portable title, it still falls short from being memorable.