Indietail – Miracle Mia

Today we’re taking a look at Miracle Mia by Shademare Studios who’ve provided me with a review-key pre-release. Miracle Mia is their first game and the studio describes it as “a weird, interesting and fun game”.

Developer: Shademare
Publisher: Shademare
Genres: Action, Adventure, Indie, Anime
Release Date: August 23, 2019
Reviewed on: PC
Available on:  PC
Copy received from the Devs 

But what is Miracle Mia actually about?

That’s a good question! It’s about Mia and Nia, two sisters, that accompany their big sister, Lia, on a train to their cousin Coco. On their way, they get attacked by the dangerous Geo – geometrical monsters from the Void. Using a tennis racket you fend off enemies and try to save Lia and the world from the Void’s threat, in this 2D-platforming-game.

The game consists of 24 chapters (and the prologue) with different areas and a variety of enemies. In the beginning, you’re fighting by waiting for the enemies to shoot at you and then fending off the shots, using the racket. Later you also acquire other means of fighting, like dashing through enemies, stunning people using an energy ball, beating the hell out of your enemies and lots more. Combat feels good for the most part, though the difficulty only rises slowly which lead to me getting a bit bored after the first four chapters. Near the sixth chapter, I also encountered my first few bugs and a few fps-drops although the game itself shouldn’t be that demanding. After that chapter, however, it all became playable again and the difficulty was rising, too.

A problem I can see with the game is the fact that Checkpoints are not spaced out evenly. In the beginning, you’re getting checkpoints after every small jump & run passage, even when you can’t die at that part. I guess there could have been fewer checkpoints, in the beginning, to make it a bit more challenging. Every checkpoint also fully heals you, making the game quite easy at earlier stages.

In later stages, you’ll encounter new enemies with different types of move-sets and also fewer checkpoints, making it a lot more fun. The story became less linear, too, which was a surprise since I would’ve stopped playing Miracle Mia after the first few chapters were that un-challenging. So, if you grab Miracle Mia for yourself, definitely stick to it for a bit more.

My favourite part about the game was probably the boss-fights. They all felt unique and I enjoyed them quite a lot! Especially when you had to first spectate them to understand their patterns! Really enjoyable!

Each area is quite linear, but now and then you can also find secret areas with optional mini-bosses that grant you a block for your health-bar, meaning that you basically can shield off one hit per shield. This shield also only charges upon checkpoints. Later you also gain a grappling-hook, a double-jump and Mirror Mode which is an AoE-stun that makes enemies vulnerable and more fragile.

The story had a few twists, which was quite a miracle for me, as I found it quite linear earlier on. It was entertaining and engaging, though the voice-acting of the game contributed to that, too. In most cut-scenes, there’s full voice-acting for the main characters. In a few dialogues, characters only say one word or something like a catchphrase instead of the full dialogue, which was quite nice to have.

As far as the presentation goes, it’s very anime-ish. The main characters look unique, though most of the Maidens look like Nia, which I found kind of weird. The environment felt different in each area and the music was quite nice, though a bit repetitive. There’re a few tracks that seemingly are played over and over again, though it’s also a rather small studio, consisting of a father-&-son-dev team (which is quite cute, tbh) and it’s also their first game, so I’m looking forward to later projects.

Do I recommend this game, though?

Well, there’re a few bugs here and there which lead to a bit of frustration. The music can be repetitive, the first few chapters are relatively easy and quite boring, to be honest, and here and there I encountered a few camera-issues with enemies attack from out of the screen, which was quite annoying. Also, the game is relatively short with 24 chapters at a playtime of about four hours…

But I still enjoyed playing it and while there’s a bit of room here for improvement, we shall not forget that this is the studio’s first game. So, I’d say that I’d recommend it to you!

Anyways, have a nice day!

Note: Shoutout to Rakuno for pointing out that my Info-box didn’t get saved. :D

This post was first published on Indiecator by Dan Indiecator aka MagiWasTaken. If you like what you see here and want to see more, you can check me out on Twitch and YouTube as well. If you find this post on a website other than Indiecator.org, please write an e-mail to me. Thank you!