Teslagrad (Nintendo Switch) Review

The game opens a boy fleeing across rooftops and through back alleys, being chased by a group of red-coated soldiers. There is no preamble establishing the story. No dialogue between the characters. No Star Wars style crawl setting out the history of what is going on. History, though, is very important in Teslagrad. No, all there is is the little boy, running, fleeing, into a castle where "show, don't tell" is the heart of the game. The young boy explores the strange, Steampunk castle, finding artefacts granting special powers, then along the way he reveals the history and truth of his country.

Starting out, the nameless child is powerless, with just the ability to jump as he takes his first steps into the castle. The game immediately introduces a land filled with puzzles, with the young boy having to jump and scramble his way through dangerous environments and often avoid deadly aspects of the scenery. As he progresses, he finds items to help him progress. First off, there is a pair of gloves that can imbue metal items in the castle with positive or negative magnetism, identified by a red or blue glow. There are some smart puzzles, having to magnetise an object that pushes or pulls others and has a knock-on effect to other items, requiring quick thinking and quicker movements to navigate all the moving parts.

Electricity and magnetism are the heart of the gameplay and the gloves are just the first step towards mastering them. As the game continues, the young boy gets a pair of shoes charged with electricity that allow him to dash/teleport forward small distances, straight through small obstacles. This is very important when he has no way to fight back against the dangerous things lurking. Then the boy finds a cloak, which can be imbued with a magnetic charge, letting him utilise magnetic fields to fling himself across areas and cling to magnetised sections of the environment. That is all before finally finding the "Teslastaff" which can fire out a beam of charged electricity at foes.

Adding more powers to the boy's arsenal does not make the game any easier; in fact, if anything the puzzles get more challenging. There's no health bar here and a single misstep means instant death. There are many points where those missteps will be a regular occurrence, too, as there are numerous jumping sections - including one particularly torturous one involving rising up through a huge elevator shaft, teleporting through electrical currents - which will cause some serious frustration... but, in a good way! It's not just puzzles here, either, as there are boss battles scattered throughout, too - five in total. That may not seem like a lot, however, and it shows how brief the game is. There is some padding out of the lifespan thanks to 36 collectible scrolls to hunt down, hidden away in particularly difficult to reach areas.