Stonefly Review

Flight School Studio's Stonefly focuses on feeling out of your environment. Annika is a tiny human living in a vast world full of huge trees and massive insects. You must navigate the vast, strange world using a mech-shaped bug. Your father stole the mech he built and you must survive the creepy crawlies.

It's simple enough: Explore the world, upgrade you mech, and discover what's missing. From a gameplay perspective, the main attraction is undoubtedly the multi-legged insect bot you pilot. You can customize your rig's colors and craft upgrades. These customizations will allow you to control how it moves, jumps and fights off enemies bugs. Stonefly is aware that the mech and its interaction with the world will be the most important thing in the game. These aspects have been carefully developed and sculpted by Stonefly.

You'll spend your time not fiddling with your ride. Instead, you'll be exploring the world and crawling or gliding across the many biomes. You move much faster in the air than walking on the ground, so it is not the best way to travel. Your mech can glide high in the air, and can glide for a long time almost anywhere. The physics of gravity slows it down and your mech can also jump back up by pressing a button.

Stonefly encourages you to keep exploring and moving, so it's easy to get on your feet. These carefully-constructed terrariums are full of varied terrain, secret unlockable cosmetics and alternative routes. It was always fun to fly around looking for whatever might be at the end or under this root. These biomes are full of charm and details. You really feel like you are part of a complex ecosystem that is managing without you.

Stonefly is an amazing game. You will want to take a moment to enjoy the beautiful scenery. Each background, character, and insect is rendered with a claymation texture that makes them look like clay models straight from a collector's collection. All colors are also brightened with vibrant cel-shaded hues. These range from pastel greens to deeper, earthier autumnal browns and oranges. Each biome has beautiful details like a flowing river or thorny vines coiled on the forest floor. Stonefly's landscapes are breathtaking from top to bottom. This is where the best part of Stonefly is found. Natureboy Flaco's soundtrack is also a delight, with a variety of beats that fight bugs. It's a great atmosphere that encourages you to keep looking around until the end.

Visual flair is also a hallmark of the bugs. To make their enemies stand out, each insect has a distinct color scheme with bold features that are prominent and bright. You can also recognize them by their shapes. For example, you might see a round beetle with wings that cover their weak points or smaller horned creatures which fire projectiles. Knowing the visual language of each creature will give you an advantage in planning how to move through the woods.

People with fear of insects should not be afraid. The bugs are never shown close up and the features of the bugs are often exaggerated. It's almost like a zoological wonder how different and unique each bug is from the others.

There are bugs in the system. Not the cute ones. (This is the only time that I'll make that joke). Navigation is great, but it becomes less fun when other bugs start to swarm you. Stonefly's combat system is inspired by Super Smash Bros. Instead of hitting enemies until they are dead, you damage them enough to flip them on their backs and stun them. You can then shoot wind at them to knock them off platforms or branches. You will need to lure your enemies to the edges and flip them or flip them to knock them around for a longer distance while other bugs eat quick bites from your distracted mech. While this juggling act can be quite entertaining and requires creative thinking, it can quickly turn into tedious enemy dogpiles. Or bugpiles.

You can also be knocked about by enemy bugs, which can cause severe damage to your mech. Upgrades eventually feel like an illusion of progress, as the benefits between upgrades diminish each time. Stonefly's combat feels unstable and unbalanced.

Unfortunately, the difficulty curve in this game is as simple as having more enemies fall on your head at once. This makes it less fun and makes it more difficult to complete the final encounters. It's wonderful when the game introduces new enemy types, and you need to reevaluate your approach. It's less stimulating to think creatively when you have to face off against a third wave of enemies. You can adjust certain combat factors, such as enemy stun time and knock back damage, using the Assist Mode. However, they don't take into account how the game was designed.

You can also track the progress of the game gates by using difficulty levels. Many narrative progressions revolve around building or donating a certain amount of games. There are six types of minerals that you can mine while exploring. You will need to go back to familiar places to find materials or track down blue flies. These will give you access to the 'Alpha' insect, giant beetles that carry tons of minerals and an inexhaustible number of enemies. The game allows you to fly and collect as many resources as possible in a limited time. This is a great change of pace, but it can also become repetitive once you have to hunt them down again and again. The game's story can be finished in just over eight hours. Most of the time, however, is well-spent.

These mechanical flaws are not a problem, but they do not detract the excitement and thrill of Stonefly's opening hours. It's overflowing with great ideas and a deep appreciation for the world it surrounds. It was a joy to learn the ropes and explore new areas. I also enjoyed creatively linking together various abilities that I had built for my mech. Stonefly captures Annika's childhood curiosity and wonder in its world exploration as well as the way it encourages you explore and play with your toys. There are some speed bumps but they don't diminish the game's appeal. Annika is a charming and relatable protagonist. Her enthusiasm for this beautiful world is hard to miss.