Silly Polly Beast Review (PS5)

Silly Polly, you think you could escape?

Sometimes you’re drawn to things just purely based on the name and Silly Polly Beast was that for me. Who wouldn’t want to play a game named Silly Polly Beast? It’s even better when the visuals, gameplay footage, premise, and okay everything else was just up my alley. A girl can only take so many games that interests her but fall into a genre that she doesn’t like, not good at, or has mechanics that she doesn’t like. Anyway, I’ve been looking forward to Silly Polly Beast and I was excited to play it. So, how did it turn out?

Silly Polly Beast has you follow a young, mute, woman named Polly right after she did something that she can never undo. Technically, you’re not in the dark about this for long, but you hear the full context later on in the game. Anyway, the game starts with you seeing a quick text chain between Polly and her little sister Alice talking pretty vaguely about something the day before. However, it seems that everything ended up going wrong. Not only did the plan not go as planned, but when Polly makes her way to the shore where she was supposed to meet up with Alice, Alice isn’t there. Polly is still optimistic, thinking maybe it’s just taking Alice a little bit longer than expected, but Alice still isn’t at the shore after Polly wakes up after dozing off.

Things seem to still be going wrong, however, as Polly wakes up to her lighter being gone. The lighter that you learn Alice gave Polly. As Polly goes out to search for her lighter, she follows the trail that the mysterious dog left behind (which you saw took the lighter while Polly was sleeping). This leads Polly to cross over this log bridge that, of course, breaks when Polly was right over what you learn was an abandoned well. Except, Polly isn’t met with the bottom of the well and pain, but with a whole other world…and pain. Polly finds herself in a place called The Abyss and very quickly meets someone called The Tormented One. The Tormented One knows you don’t belong in The Abyss, but due to you having the makings of a hunter he offers you deal. The Tormented One is a prisoner and he tasks Polly to remove the seals that bind him in exchange for returning Polly to her world. The way to break the seals is to defeat the three demons whose life forces are linked to the seals. Polly can’t exactly refuse so she agrees to help him. Though, Polly isn’t entirely truthful as she ends up making the deal more to save herself and be able to search for Alice rather than helping The Tormented One. Well, purposefully helping him.

As you progress through Silly Polly Beast, you’ll fight your way through The Abyss, meet some friendly characters, visit some locations that are eerily familiar to Polly, find out what happened before the start of the game, and uncover the truth of The Abyss and The Tormented One.

I really liked the story here. The story was intriguing, really makes you want to learn what happened right before the game started and what’s going to happen next, and the lore was pretty interesting. It can be a bit confusing at parts, but that’s about it. For me, it was partly due to me mixing up some terminology, Polly not quite being a protagonist that you’d expect, and then just some plain ‘ole confusion that I just rolled with. I really liked how the story unraveled here, especially with how the mystery of what happened before the game started. You actually start knowing what she did, but not the specifics or the why; however we are pretty bias towards the protagonist. Then you learn more and man does it paint a picture. It may not be explicit, but it is enough where it’s like yeah I understand why Polly is the way she is and why she did it*. The way you learn about the past is also pretty unique and really helps paint a picture without going too much into it. Like painting the picture with broad strokes.

The ending here was so good as well. I was a bit worried about how this game would end, as it’s one that you can easily just botch, but the endings work pretty well here and were pretty satisfying. There’s maybe one or two things that were still up in the air, but it doesn’t really affect much other than it being something you wonder about.

I’m going to be a bit vague here, to avoid spoilers, but I also really liked how the story here was written and handled. You can actually read the game’s events as totally real and is actually happening or you can read between the lines picking up at all the subtleties that was put into the game. Or even a mix of both. You can even read the ending(s) multiple ways if you want to. There is a lot just brewing behind what you’re seeing and everything just clicks together once you start analyzing the game. Heck, I was still unraveling some things as I was writing my review. I love this about Silly Polly Beast and I can definitely see that doing a second playthrough can be beneficial as you can pick up on the hints and foreshadowing.

Now onto the gameplay! It’s pretty easy to learn and get the hang of, but challenging once you get into the nitty gritty of it. You start out with the staples of Polly’s loadout and you’ll unlock more as you progress through the game. However, at the same time, the game does throw more challenges at you. Well, first up is exploration. This one is pretty self-explanatory. Each chapter will have you visit a new location where you’ll be exploring, aiming to do what you came there for, and fighting your way through. There is also a hub-like area, but don’t get too attached to it. You will mainly be walking or running through, occasionally going through portals that connect to other areas within that location, but there is a bit more here. There is some light puzzling throughout the game, with one chapter bringing it to the spotlight. The puzzles here are simple and mainly just ask you to pay attention to your surroundings and do what you need to do to be able to bring down the spikes so you could progress. Like breaking these larvae sacks or dragging corpses. Though, that latter one does get a bit old. You can also open up shortcuts and Polly’s phone lets you view her equipment, the items that she picked up, and look at her text messages (whether it’s rereading previous texts, reading the texts Polly uses as a journal to jot down quests, or when you get anonymous texts after you do a certain ritual). Oh and yeah, there are rituals here that allow Polly, and well everyone else down in The Abyss, to be able to do things they otherwise wouldn’t be able to do.

However, there are some environmental hazards that are here to keep you on your toes. Like, you have to deal with the Fog. There are some invisible walls here, of course, but you’ll notice some particular dark spots in areas that stick out since locations are decently lit up. This is because The Abyss is host to something called The Fog which you can’t see with the naked eye and requires you to have an item that will light up when you’re close. The Fog is visualized by red fog and red hands forever grasping towards those that are near and, if you get to close, it will deal a bunch of damage with some harsh spikes. There are also some spots where you can just fall off of cliffs, resulting in a game over. No respawning and losing some health here.

You’ll eventually also have to deal with traps. These can be pretty annoying and hard to really get a feel for their radius. Like how close is too close and how far is too far away. I had difficulty with this for the first half of the game until I noticed it finally clicked. There’s one that explodes if you get too close, but can be destroyed, and one where it’ll extend spikes to hurt you and can’t be destroyed. The Fog and the traps deal a ton of damage so you really have to be careful. Especially during some particular sections. Luckily, you can actually use the traps against your enemies.

On that note, let’s get into combat! You will be fighting a lot here. A lot of the time, you’ll be able to see the enemies hanging out or patrolling around (there’s even some areas where you can get a full view before going in), but sometimes they’ll pop out in surprise. To defend herself, Polly has the skateboard that she picked up and can carry two guns. The skateboard is Polly’s melee weapon, which you can do a normal attack or throw it, which will allow you to hit something a bit further away and acts as a heavy attack. However, the skateboard does deplete Polly’s stamina. Polly also has two guns, one that is a part of her basic loadout and one that is an extra gun. The Demolver, I don’t think I have to tell you what type of gun this is haha, will always be with Polly and is upgradable. The Demolver is what you’d expect, all you have to do is point, make sure nothing is in the way, and shoot, but reloading it is a bit different. You can find bullets if you explore off the beaten path, but this is to increase the max ammo capacity it can carry. Instead, the Demolver is reloaded with bloodthirsty souls which you can get from soul barrels or from enemies.

In contrast, there’s the other, extra, gun Polly can carry. You actually have a choice between four, but you can only carry one and you find these while exploring. The different guns correspond with the usual gun types and vary in damage, accuracy, and ammo capacity. You’ll also have to rely on finding ammo either through exploring and destroying boxes or hoping an enemy drops some. You also have larvae, which Polly can use as bombs to deal damage to grouped up enemies. Or, you can feed larvae to this stump that will take out a random enemy. Be warned, though, as the stump can screw you over. One time, it exploded a bomb enemy, alerting all of them to me instantly. Another time, it just exploded a regular bomb, absolutely wasting the larvae. You best believed I reloaded to get back my larvae. Like I mentioned before, you can also use traps to your advantage here. Enemies can even hurt other enemies through certain attacks and I believe by the bombs they themselves throw.

There is also some stealth here as Polly can just flip up her hood to hide her identity. The stealth here is simple, but works as you will get an indicator of how aware the enemy is of you and I never felt it was unfair. Sure, some enemies can just happen to walk into where you’re at, but that’s it. However, the enemies here are a bit different as instead of their vision being a cone, they can actually see all around them. This doesn’t mean you can’t sneak past them though (well, as long as there’s enough room to) and there are some areas where you can approach it with stealth. Polly also has a dodge, which luckily does not require stamina to use.

The enemy variety here is actually pretty good here. Technically, the game only has two different enemies, but within those two there are a couple variations. Like Embers are the basic enemy types, but there are the skinny ones that are the easiest enemies and the fat ones that are the harder variation that even has an annoying charge attack. There’s even a chance for Embers to mutate into a harder version of itself. It’s more common with the skinny Embers, but rare for the fat Embers. There’s also the masked enemies which I’m pretty sure are Masked Shadows. The masks determine their rank and how difficult they’ll be to defeat both in terms of their health and what they can do. As you progress through the game, the harder variations of the enemies will start to appear. There’s also some specialty enemies, like ones that locks the portal until they’re defeated or walking bombs, and there are also these things that will increase their defense until you destroy them. Enemies can also increase their defense for a short time, throw a rock or bomb, and have their own unique attack or action.

When you defeat enemies, there’s a chance they can drop money, bullets, souls, or health items. It takes a couple seconds for Polly to heal, but it’s pretty easy to find time to heal during combat. For masked enemies, they’ll also drop their mask the first time you defeat them as well. However, the majority of enemies do respawn when you leave the screen and go back.

As for bosses, Silly Polly Beast has mini-bosses and bosses that end the chapter. The boss designs here are pretty good and has some good variety in terms of how different they are between each other and how it challenges you. I really liked how some bosses even incorporated some puzzling aspects in them. It really makes you be aware of what’s happening as you have to figure out what you need to really do.

There’s also a shop that will appear every so often. You do need to pay to be able to buy items, but if you ever need emergency health items or bombs, you can go here. Though, it’s quite expensive.

While Silly Polly Beast is a linear game, there are some optional things that you can do here. There are a couple side quests here that you can choose to do if you want to. You don’t have to do them, but you do get a reward for doing so, both lore-wise and getting a helpful item. There are a couple actions you can do that are tied to achievements and items that you can pick up if you go off the beaten path (like increasing your max bullets for the Demolver). There’s also a cosmetic that you can save up and buy in the shop (it’s very expensive, definitely recommend using a 50% off coupon). The shop also has a secret room where you can use the masks that you collected to unlock the item that is tied to that ritual circle. Which can be a cosmetic or a lore book. Oh, and for cosmetics, you’ll be able to unlock different jackets, different skateboard designs, and masks that Polly can wear.

If you were a bit sad that Polly uses the skateboard as a weapon and doesn’t ride it in lieu of, say, a dash, well I’m glad to say that there is a skating minigame here! You can skip it if you want to, but the skating minigame challenges you to skate through a long stretch without eating it against a wall. Polly is killed in one hit here, but I did find the skating minigame pretty fun and it was satisfying when I finally got to the end. Plus, you can pick up some money if you overlap Polly with it. There are three skating minigames here, which increase in difficulty and how much of the track is randomized. The first two don’t have much randomization, but man does the last one go all out.

In addition, there are two endings each with two different variations. So four endings if you want to count the variations as separate ones. The ending you get depends on the choices you made along the way. Some choices are more subtle in how they affect the future, like affecting the dialogue or colors Polly’s character, while some have more of an obvious affect. I won’t spoil how you get the different endings, but it has to do with Polly’s demon parts and you have to do at least two playthroughs (or three if you’re dumb like me).

Oh, and there’s an early ending you can get at the very beginning of the game, so 3-5 endings. I picked the choice that sends you to the ending just to see what would happen and to be funny. The game did not disappoint and I’m so glad it didn’t do the usual “asking again and again until you pick the choice we want you to pick”. You’ll know the choice once you get to it.

Despite some annoyances that I had, I did really like the gameplay here. I wasn’t too worried about how it would feel playing Silly Polly Beast. The gameplay footage made it seem like it was smooth, but weighty, and that was true when I played it. It felt nice to play and it was a great idea to have a weighty melee weapon and two guns. The skateboard also felt like a nice middle ground between fast and quick weaponry (which I prefer) and weighty and slow weaponry. The guns also were really nice and were definitely satisfying to use. I’d say the control scheme is a bit weird starting out, and it personally did cause me to take some hits, but I did eventually get used to it. There are also a lot of nice little details here. Like, while there are no health bars for enemies, you can tell if they’re close based on how they visibly look. And not only that, but the way the enemies carry themselves change on low health and they get a bit more sluggish and have themselves open more. For the most part, the enemies do choreograph their attacks well too, though there are some that feel like they happen a bit too quickly and sometimes you’ll find yourself being hit without realizing it. It’s hard to explain as it’s more something that you feel, but there’s just something missing that causes you to not feel like you got hit despite actually getting hit. I did also like the enemy variety and the boss (mini and chapter enders) battles here. I’d say there were two maybe three times where it was a bit

I also really like all of the locations and how they were designed. As well as the enemy and Boss (mini and chapter enders) battles here. I’d say there were a couple times where it was a bit unclear what you had to do, some of which I felt there could have been a bit more feedback (like the mini-boss about half way through the game), but that’s it. The game also does a good job with tutorialization, balancing straightforward “here’s the button” tutorials and tutorials where you learn by doing it. I also really liked how Polly is upgraded, though I do wish it wasn’t just her stamina increasing.

One aspect that I really wanted to spotlight was the perspective changes, which Silly Polly Beast handles flawlessly. As you’re playing, the game switches between being a side scroller and letting you explore a 3D environment in which the camera angle changes from just slightly angled compared to the side scroller perspective to full on top-down perspective. This could have been a problem, but Silly Polly Beast manages to seamlessly transition you into these different perspectives. I never was confused on whether I was in a side scroller or 3D segment of the game, not even when it switches on the same screen. You might be a little thrown off when you first go into the top-down perspective for a little bit, but that’s it.

However, to be honest, I wasn’t really enjoying my time with Silly Polly Beast. I was starting out, but it steadily dropped after Chapter 1 and then raised a little bit again towards the end. As I was reflecting on my time with Silly Polly Beast, I came to understand that the reason I wasn’t really enjoying myself wasn’t because of the game itself but because of my expectations. Everything about this game is solid, but I think it was because I honestly didn’t expect this game to be hard. Yeah, Silly Polly Beast is deceptively hard. I’d even say it’s brutal. Of course, there are some small design choices that also didn’t help. Like how the soul barrels gets extinguished during most fights. There are definitely some fights that I do feel are better with them off, but it definitely was a struggle during the first half of the game. I think part of that was also because I had the impression that the skateboard was more of a last resort. Yeah, I don’t really know why. The enemies and traps did also annoy me quite a bit. Like enemies shielding themselves can be a bit annoying, some enemies can hit you multiple times with one attack (as Polly doesn’t have i-frames after being hit), the fat Embers have a lot of i-frames for their heavy attack which was annoying as you just waste bullets, and the surprise spawning can get a bit annoying and screw you over. Especially during the side scroller segments where you have less room (and especially if Polly’s movement is being hindered). For traps and the Fog, it’s annoying with just how much damage they deal to Polly. I honestly just let myself die so the game would reload so I wouldn’t continue with less health. I did also have trouble with telling if I was too close to a trap, like I mentioned before, so I had trouble for the first half of the game.

Not to mention how you can just screw yourself over due to various things which was where most of my frustration came from. This is partly due to the autosave and partly due to the soul barrels distinguishing when the fight starts. The game autosaves on every new screen, which sounds good at first, until you’re low on health, have no health pickups, and you’re one hit away from dying. You just have to hope an enemy drops a health item or souls and you don’t take any hits whether it’s from enemies or from the environment. And considering how hard the game is, yeah it’s pretty annoying and frustrating. I played this game mostly on Normal difficulty, which honestly felt more like Hard difficulty (and oh my gosh I fear what Hard difficulty is like). I did go down to Easy if I found myself stuck so I can have a couple more hits I could take, making the segment a little bit less frustrating, before raising it back. I will say that every time I stopped playing and told myself I was going to drop this game, I did pick it back up some time later and ended up progressing. So, yeah. Part of it may have also been my upset mood that I often was in while playing.

Luckily, it does seem like the game does fully heal you before a boss battle if your health is too low (or just does, but I’m not sure since I either went into a boss with full health or a sliver of health).

There’s also some choices that seem good, but kind of fall apart when you think about it more. I did like the stealth, but as I was getting further into the game, I wished I was able to stealth kill enemies or be able to have enemies go back to patrolling if I didn’t get spotted for a certain amount of time. The shortcuts and enemy respawning also seems good at first, but it doesn’t exactly make sense. There’s not really that much backtracking here. I can see respawning enemies being a way so the areas don’t feel dead, but it’s more annoying if you accidentally leave (like if an item drops right by the exit). I also just had such little health that it didn’t feel worth it to fight them again for the chance of them dropping a health item.

So, yeah, all in all Silly Polly Beast was unexpectedly harder than I was expecting and there were some other design choices that just twisted that knife in me, but a lot of aspects of Silly Polly Beast are pretty solid. I was not enjoying a lot of my time playing the game, but at the same time, I kept coming back. I wanted to like this game and I guess deep down I did. And trust me, I am not shy about dropping a game nowadays. I have seen that the developer(s) have been balancing the game since release, some of which were aspects that I was annoyed with, and I’m glad the game is being tweaked. A patch came in for PS5 after I finished my playthrough so I’m not sure how it’s like. Though, it makes me wish I waited a bit before playing haha.

I do have some negatives. I did go over a lot of them already, but there are a couple more. Like the shop prices are so expensive. A health item is 75 Money (that’s literally what the currency is called here) and a larvae bomb is 100 Money…with the 50% off coupon. Yeah crazy right? I actually didn’t buy money until I was in the last chapter due to it being my last resort and I didn’t want to go into the final boss with no health items. While I do love the flavor text for the difficulty modes, and how it connects to the wooden bear trinket, I did wish it told you what it affects. From what I could tell, the difficulty determined how much damage you took and maybe how much you dealt (I’m not too sure about the latter). Luckily, you can change your difficulty mid-game so if you find yourself stuck you can lower your difficulty and then raise it back. Or raise it if you find the game too easy. I also really wished there was a manual save system. A part of me understands why and thinking about it, it really does play into the narrative; but another part of me wishes that I could save. Especially when there are three key choices (well, one of them is more being careful while going through the chapter, but still) that does determine what ending you get.

This isn’t as much of a negative, but more of a preference, but I wish Polly’s overworld dialogue looked more like a thought bubble rather than a speech bubble. It is pretty easy to forget that Polly is mute, especially since other characters’ dialogue boxes have a slight difference to them. Though, granted, I’m not sure if that’s intentional or just a limitation of the game’s engine.

Silly Polly Beast’s visuals and sound were great. I really liked how each location was designed. Sure, it’s all grungy and dirty, but honestly I really liked it. It somehow avoided having all the locations look the same and I think it helps that all the locations are different enough and how they all end up tying into the greater narrative. I liked the enemy designs too; as well as the character designs. The character portraits all look so nice and I really like how humans and Shadows have different art styles. I especially love the way Polly looks both in her character portrait and in her 3D model. The horns that she gets fits perfectly with her too and the only thing I wished was that her tail had a little bit more life to it. So it feels like it’s an extension of Polly rather than a cosplay tail I guess. My absolute favorite aspect of Silly Polly Beast in terms of visuals was the Chapter 4 boss (I’m going to be vague here so it’s a surprise). I know the boss is terrible and horrible, but man, was her 3D model so gorgeous. The only thing that was missing was that the boss’ hair needed more physics to it, especially considering the poses they had the model do. There’s also some nice small details here too, like how Polly uses her phone to talk if it’s not a yes or no answer or how much the narrative ties into how everything looks; and the game does some really cool things with its visuals.

In terms of horror, I wouldn’t say it’s scary, but there are certainly some jumpscares in terms of surprise enemies spawning in and there are some parts that really get morbid. It did also scare me a couple times. So while Silly Polly Beast isn’t really scary, it does have that perfect look and atmosphere for horror that it’s always bubbling underneath the surface.

The soundtrack here is also really good. It’s a mix of music tracks and more atmospheric tracks. I found that they all fit with the location and scenes that they appeared in. Especially the battle theme. I can also definitely see Polly listening to the music tracks as it definitely seems like the type of music she would like. The sound effects were also great and really gives that extra oomph to everything. Silly Polly Beast isn’t voice acted, but it does have what I believe are called barks. They’re sparingly used, well if you don’t count the ones that happen during fights like the sound Polly makes when she gets hurt, but it was a treat and I loved Polly’s visceral “NO! >=(“.

Lastly, the performance here was great. The majority of the time, the game ran smoothly and I had no problems. There was only one time the game lagged on me and it was during a skating minigame (which did mess me up, but it didn’t annoy me and it’s not like I didn’t die a couple times before and after it happened), towards the end of Chapter 4 the game strangely had longer than usual loading screens, and there was one time when an enemy clipped through the wall. Other than that, Silly Polly Beast plays beautifully on the PS5.

Verdict

My feelings on Silly Polly Beast turned out to be a little bit complicated. I had some ups and downs with this game, and a good handful of moments where I did tell myself I was going to drop this game, but ultimately I’m glad I ended up playing it to the end. I think it says a lot that I kept coming back to the game because I liked the story and characters so much and I wanted to see what was going to happen. The combat encounters and traps may have annoyed and frustrated me, but everything else around it from the visuals to the story was great. I may have even caught myself thinking about going in for another playthrough to get the achievements and endings I didn’t get. Which is a bit of a surprise.

I’m neutral on Silly Polly Beast, but leaning towards cautiously recommending it. I’m not sure how the game is with the balancing patch yet, but as long as you’re expecting a hard game go for it. I also think the quality is there for the price the game is asking, but I do understand if some would want to wait for a discount.