Wife Quest Review

Wife Quest tells the story of Mia, a former warrior, whose husband, Fernando, is unfortunately kidnapped by the dark elf Morganna. It’s up to Mia to gear up and head off to battle against Morganna’s army of seductive monster girls and rescue her defenseless farming husband.

Wife Quest is a 2D action platformer where our heroine Mia will use her sword to take down the monster girls standing in her way between her hubby Fernando and his kidnapper Morganna. Our protagonist can jump and attack at first, but as you explore the game, you’ll be rewarded with additional perks such as a shield that allows you to cause damage to enemies either by returning their projectiles or when enemies run into you.

Although the shield comes at a price as it has a magic meter; once depleted because it suffered too much damage, you’re out of luck until you die. Once you’ve beaten enemies, they will either drop coins or health; the former allowing you to beef up at the shop on the overworld map and the latter refilling your health. There’s also a really strange mechanic that once enemies are downed, you can execute them (the game refers to making them suffer for some reason), but it’s quite inappropriate. Mia will either choke them from behind (think… doggy style) until she dies. Or she’ll bounce on her enemy’s lifeless butt… but the victim makes a sound similar to… moaning. While I get wanting to completely off your enemies, these interactions are quite unnecessary.

One neat feature is the ability to return to the world map and continue at a later time in the level. For example, if you need consumables during a boss fight, return to the world map, visit the shop, and return to attempt the boss battle. The game also has a bit of Metroid-vania and Mega Man inspired gameplay. Early levels will have seemingly unreachable areas, but taking down bosses rewards players with skills that will allow you to return to previously cleared levels and reach the once inaccessible area. Completing the game rewards players with Magic Mode; a new mode where players can play the game with all of Mia’s skills and unlimited magic.

The game looks great with its highly colorful 2D 16-bit pixelated sprites. Each area, while having a bit of similarity, has its own unique theme, color palette, and level design to ensure a diverse challenge from level to level. The enemy design does feel a bit limited, but I can imagine there are certain limits in designing fairies. Interestingly enough, there are a few unique visual tweaks such as Mia’s face in the top left corner changing on her actions or weapon changing colors after purchasing power-ups. The soundtrack is fair and enjoyable. But nothing really memorable or problematic.

Although the game does have quite vital flaws. The first is the controls/movements. While Mia controls fine on large platforms, trying to do precise platforming to moving and very small platforms, it feels icy/slippery causing you to fall unfairly from platforms if you don’t “calculate” your jumps properly. Also, the boss battles drag the game down. While at first, they come off as challenging, they require the patience of a god because the boss will either throw you unavoidable projectiles until your shield’s health is depleted or force you to remain on higher platforms.

Another frustrating aspect of the game is that it will often put some enemies ahead of you out of sight so that once you land on a platform after a tricky jump or move the screen forward simply by running, you’ll come across enemies, more often than not that fires projectiles, at the last minute giving you zero opportunity to either dodge or block causing uncalled damage.

Wife Quest is a fun 2D action platformer with a twist of Metroidvania and Mega Man. Alongside its quirks where the game does feel a bit unbalanced where the levels provide a fair, yet challenging experience whereas bosses are pedal to the metal frustrating where patience and practice are key to winning. Wife Quest is definitely a hidden gem that needs to be experienced; although if you’re a fan of the genre, mind your expectations.