GOOD GOLLY, MISS MOLLY!
Molly Medusa is an action adventure “Zelda-like”, reminiscent of the Zelda 64 games complete with puzzles and dungeons. The story follows our heroine Molly, who is an apprentice to one of the greatest sculptors, master Pygmalion. Unfortunately for our spunky ambitious protagonist she is being held back by her reluctant tutor who is far more concerned by his own artwork, and sees Molly as nothing more than an assistant. Our story really picks while Molly is on an errand for Master Pygmalion. Molly is tasked with purchasing a new chisel for her teacher, when she comes upon the
local merchant who offers Molly more than a tool. The merchant Trinket questions Molly’s ambitions and advises her to appeal to the demi-god Ceri. Apparently not knowing the rules for asking mystical creatures for favors, Molly clumsily asks for the ability to turn “skin into stone”. In an instant Molly is transformed into “Medusa”, now equipped with her new hair accessories that can literally turn skin into stone.

This is when one of my first issues with the game begins to rear its ugly head, this comes in the form of almost an apathetic reaction from Molly. We have to assume she is upset by her recent change, but we don’t really see Molly react to this transformation until a while later. While we are sort of in the dark about Molly’s emotional state, we are also in the dark when it comes to direction. For me this is an issue – I personally dislike wandering around a game for hours looking for my next destination. The scavenger hunt, so to speak, isn’t that bad at first, but becomes an issue with later dungeons. While the game is starting to open up to the player, we also start to see our limitations. Once you are able to locate your first dungeon, the game starts to really shine. While in the temples gravity has no hold on you and the puzzles, locks, keys and chest are everywhere. These dungeons are a delight, they are difficult enough to make it a challenge yet accessible enough to not be unachievable. I may take some heat for this, but as a Zelda fanatic I would argue the puzzles in this game rival many Zelda dungeons.

I would be mistaken if I didn’t at least mention that while this game borrows a lot from Zelda, combat isn’t one of them – in fact, the game seems to lack any real sense of combat whatsoever.

Molly Medusa: Queen of Spit gameplay

VERDICT
Ultimately I think this game would have been a success back in the Nintendo 64 era, and may be intriguing to some retro gamers. When it comes to performance, visuals and audio this game is spot on. I believe they could’ve given the protagonist more personality as the game went on, but we didn’t really see her grow very much. Its my personal feeling that it felt like the writing just fell off, which is disappointing because as the game starts the characters are engaging while Molly is incredibly likeable. The star of this is game is the dungeons and they are done very well, although the game cost $39.99. From start to finish it took me about 20 hours to beat the game, i can’t overstate just how engaging and entertaining the dungeons are. Although for 20 hours and what feels at times like an incomplete game, $39.99 seems like a lot to pay.

(Editors note: this was a game that we passed up on and requested Nema to write due to the camera issues that the game has. The unwieldly camera cause motion sequence that we have never experienced before and was thusly unable to continue. This is one other thing you may want to bear in mind if you are susceptible to such issues. Regardless, watch the video version of the review too to see if this is something you think will affect you.)