Magical Thief Silky Preview

By now, we all know the side-scrolling action platformer formula. The world’s in peril, so you choose a level, go through some stages until you reach the boss, destroy them, put them on a torture device, turn them into a doll, etc, etc… Well, Magical Thief Silky is one of those.

The magical fish (Uos) which inhabit Strokevia have been kidnapped, so it’s up to Magical Thief Silky (and friends) to put a stop to the kidnappers. In the build I played, I got to control both Silky and Keika across a couple of levels and defeat the bosses. Silky uses a sword, a gun, and a rocket launcher, while Keika uses a whip and a gun which can also fire at an angle, and you can swap between the two at will. Or if one of them loses all of their health.

While this isn’t the first platformer I’ve played with two characters, it is the first time I remember being able to restore a downed one’s health. When you have a quiet moment, you press a button and whoever is still vertical will snog the life back into them. I think it was about half health, and when I did it during a boss fight, I’d swear that they were invincible during the animation, which is a huge bonus.

The enemies are quite varied, with drones, zombies, ninjas, guys with guns, mechs, ghosts… Did I say “quite” varied? Honestly, the first level, set in a city, didn’t make me ready for the second one, set in a haunted village. To go from blasting swooping drones to having to kill a monster twice to ensure it’s dead is quite a switch.

While I enjoyed my time with Magical Thief Silky, I’m curious why it has to have the massive Silky or Keika on the left side of the screen at all times. You don’t have time to see huge, blue-clad pendulums swinging to and fro when you’re trying to navigate falling platforms! If they popped up occasionally, I wouldn’t mind at all, but they’re always taking up a third of the screen.

The voice acting, music, and pixel graphics are all great, and the gameplay itself is about the right level of challenging for me. When you rescue a Uos, it stays rescued even if you die, which is always the right decision in my opinion. And being able to resuscitate a character (though only once, I think) makes even the somewhat dodgy checkpoint placement remain fun.

Magical Thief Silky has no release date, but I’ll be keeping an eye and a wishlist on it.