Maliki: Poison of the Past | Switch Review

If you’re a fan of the French webcomic Maliki, you probably already know this video game exists and have purchased it. If, like me, you’ve never heard of Maliki, then strap in! Put simply, it’s a video game centered around the cast of a French webcomic of the same name, now with time travel shenanigans!

Shenanigans!

The game starts out with the protagonist Sand (not Maliki) getting sucked into a time vortex after her town is attacked by mysterious plant monsters. She gets forced into battle with more plant monsters that are part of a larger and more evil being named Poison that is wreaking havoc across space-time. So Maliki (yes, that Maliki) recruits you to help her fight Poison and save the time-space continuum. Joining you are Fang, Becky, and Feminale, all long-time characters of the webcomic.

The standard gameplay loop has you venturing out into time portals where Poison has taken root. Being a game about time travel, you might expect to have to worry about paradoxes and whatnot, but the game has a simple explanation: Poison’s presence means time has stopped in the locations you visit, so people, animals, things, etc. are all frozen in place. You can create a temporary time bubble to talk to people or use time manipulation powers to move objects or activate switches, but otherwise you’re free to explore each area despite being from some undisclosed future time.

Time for Turns

Time being frozen also has implications for combat: because Poison is actively manipulating the flow of time, combat is naturally turn-based. You act along a timeline and eventually gain in-battle abilities to manipulate the timeline and move your turn further forward or backward in time, whether to restore yourself to a past state (basically just restoring HP/TP) or moving yourself forward to do a combo attack with another party member.

Outside of the time manipulation, there are four “elements” (normal, kinetic, nature, techno), with enemies being weak/resistant/immune/normal to each. Your party can hold up to four abilities that you swap around as you level up. It’s a decent system and a good excuse for why your party just stands around waiting for the next turn to happen.

Cozy = Farming

When you’re not hunting down Poison and saving the continuum, you’ll increase the size of Maliki’s Domaine, effectively your hub world. Here you can upgrade your gear, farm produce, and use that produce to cook dishes to give your team buffs. That said, the farming aspect always felt a little tacked on.

Unlike games such as Harvest Moon or Rune Factory where farming was your primary source of income, in this game, food just gets turned into dishes which become timed buffs. And since no farm area gives any kind of benefit or detriment to any particular variety of produce, there’s no real reason to go wandering around the entire hub when you can just focus on farming the ingredients you need for your chosen dish.

Final Thoughts

Maliki: Poison of the Past is $30 USD on Steam and Nintendo Switch, with about 12-15 hours of content depending on how often you get lost in the world (meaning both engaged with and literally lost because there’s no minimap or objective markers). It feels like a game made for its fans, but still intended to be somewhat accessible for people who aren’t familiar with the webcomic. Sand, the protagonist, is an original character, and you get a good sense of the main comic cast and their dynamic through the writing. The farming makes it feel like they’re chasing the ‘cozy’ meta tag, but the combat is challenging enough that first-time RPG players might struggle a bit.

It’s not a game that’s particularly impressive, either on a technical level or from a gameplay perspective, but it’s also not bad by any stretch. In terms of games created for and by a webcomic, it’s probably the best of the lot (and that’s admittedly a small pool). It’s certainly enjoyable for the average RPG fan, especially if you’re looking for a turn-based game with an interesting gimmick.

This review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy of Maliki: Poison of the Past provided by Homerun PR for coverage purposes. It is also available on PC via Steam.