Gorgeous Art and Fun Battles Make ‘Maliki Poison of the Past’ a Must-Play for Any RPG Fan (Review)

Before experiencing the demo build of Maliki: Poison of the Past, I was completely oblivious to the grand world of Maliki. With over 20 years of past adventures to try and catch up on after beating Maliki: Poison of the Past, I’ve been officially drawn into this world more than I could have ever anticipated. Fantastic writing, wonderful characters, and a wide world to explore make this an absolute joy to play. Plus, the addition of some cozy elements makes it even more unique. Maliki: Poison of the Past is full of charm and will hook you almost immediately.

Everybody and Everything Is Adorable as Heck in ‘Maliki: Poison of the Past’

The first thing that grabbed my attention about Maliki: Poison of the Past is just how adorable everything is. Characters, outside of gorgeously rendered animated stills during conversation, are short, squat, and cutesy. Even though they’re tiny, they’re all rather mighty, with each character bursting off the screen with personality and pure joy. From humble farmer Becky to techno-geek Fang, the roster of characters here is fairly small. But each of them makes major waves when they need to.

I stepped into the shoes of Sand, a character who finds herself isekai’d into Maliki’s world. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s going to be the saving grace of Domaine. When I first started my adventure, I only had a few specific locations I could travel to. The rest of the world was chronologically frozen in time, and I had to do my duty to unfreeze it. No pressure or anything, right?

Thankfully, exploration is a joy, with each of the characters who joined me on my adventure offering a unique puzzle-solving mechanic to keep things interesting. Rather than just going from point A to point B, I needed to swap between characters on the fly to use their specific skills to progress further. It made the exploration much more intuitive.

The Battle System Is Complex, Yet Easy To Understand, Making Combat a Blast in ‘Maliki: Poison of the Past’

Beyond the fantastic art direction, something else that helps Maliki: Poison of the Past stand out from its turn-based contemporaries is its battle system. Temporal actions, such as “Sliding” around the timeline, help add a bit of complexity to an otherwise straightforward combat system. I could “rewind” time slightly to recover health and TP I had used during the battle, or skip the timeline “forward” to duel against a creature I was fighting against. It’s interesting and takes a bit of time to get used to. But once I mastered the art of temporal manipulation, I became a combat machine.

Each character has a standard, or Normal, attack, as well as several special attacks. These special attacks all have a specific typing associated with them and could be used to expose weaknesses in specific monsters. Kinetic Damage, for example, could do plenty of damage, whereas Physical damage may be resisted. I had to plan my battles accordingly, or I could find myself in trouble rather quickly.

To be fair, there were a few instances where the combat system was more frustrating than fun. One example was when I was facing off against a creature that was immune to all of my standard attacks. I had gotten lucky, however, and faced off against it in a Duel, where it inexplicably took damage from one of the attacks it was resistant to before. It was confusing, sure, but it did feel like I also uncovered something magical in that exact moment.

An Interesting Narrative and an Excellent Score Kept Me Feeling Like I Was on Cloud Nine

What had me drawn in even more than the adorable art and great combat, however, was the soundtrack and the writing. Maliki has a lot of history behind it, and even though I would be considered a new fan, Maliki: Poison of the Past has me more than ready to start digging through 20 years of history. The writing here is incredibly witty, entertaining, and charming. While there is no proper “voice acting” in the game, each character has more personality than most AAA studios can squeeze into the biggest blockbuster.

And the soundtrack. I can’t get over this soundtrack. Every track in Maliki: Poison of the Past is gorgeously done. No matter where I found myself, every musical note hit like a ton of bricks. Music is produced by Starrysky and Motoi Sakuraba, so it’s easy to see how the game continuously just knocks it out of the park on the musical front. I can’t count the number of times I just paused what I was doing to soak in the music. If you have the chance to play this one with headphones on? I strongly recommend it. You don’t want to miss the soundtrack.

I Have To Be Honest, I Didn’t Expect To Love ‘Maliki: Poison of the Past’ as Much as I Did

I’ve spent a lot of time in my life playing turn-based RPGs. The same can be said about other “tie-in” games, with most of them being uninspired at best, and abhorrent at worst. Maliki: Poison of the Past is one of those rare games that sticks out. It’s gorgeous, features a fantastic soundtrack, and is just a joy to experience firsthand.

If you’re the most devoted Maliki fan? You’re going to love everything here. If you’re someone being introduced to the franchise for the first time, like me? It’s enough to get you more than interested in learning everything you can about the team. I now need to discover everything I can about Maliki and her life.

Verdict: Highly Recommended

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Maliki: Poison of the Past is available now on Steam and Nintendo Switch. A code was provided for the sake of review. Reviewed on PC.