Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus Has Some Truly Sadistic Platforming (Impressions)

Want to know what it’s like to play Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus? Imagine being put through your paces by a Care Bear with the voice and disposition of Full Metal Jacket‘s drill instructor. Because Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus‘s cutesy story, which takes is cues from Japanese folklore, is seriously at odds with its almost sadistically tricky platforming sections.

This Metroidvania’s premise is that you’re the titular Bo, a “celestial blossom”, half-fox half-flower. Putting aside the tricky question of parentage, you’re tasked with roaming a diverse 2D landscape, vanquishing enemies, making friends and and generally putting this fantasy world to rights.

Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus is certainly gorgeous and it has a flair for the dramatic. Two minutes after taking control of Bo, I watched a towering figure emerge from a volcano and stomp around the background, mercifully out of reach. But the knowledge that I’d surely face it later gave me the chills.

I hit a progress-blocking bug a few hours in (developer Squid Shock Studios has a fix in the works) but combat is a joy, whether you’re hacking away at ghostly puppets or battling a giant grumpy armadillo.

Bo has a certain floatiness to them, letting you drift over some of the nastier boss attacks. I appreciated that while all the bosses I faced gave me a real run for my money, they didn’t once refill their energy bars. Yes, I got stomped on by a giant ghost, but it didn’t feel the least bit cheap.

Defeating a boss bestows upon you a special ability, including being able to intercept certain attacks with your enchanted baseball bat. No, I’m not making this up, and dispatching an enemy with their own returned projectiles never failed to make me grin. And the way you acquire these abilities, slurping tea after defeating a boss, bolsters Bo’s reassuringly cozy feel.

But Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus’s platform sections are anything but cozy. Not only are they supremely tough, almost from the get-go, they seriously outstay their welcome. Bo’s floatiness is great for aerial combat but it’s a serious drawback when it comes to the game’s demanding, precision platforming.

Squid Shock has, mercifully, included a couple of slow-motion modes which make things a little easier. But there’s more precision jumping in Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus’s first couple of hours than the whole of any other Metroidvania.

After beating the cave-based armadillo boss and acquiring the side dash skill, I was looking forward to returning to the surface and using it to negotiate the chasm I’d spotted earlier. Instead, I spent the next twenty minutes trying to perfectly pogo off multiple lanterns and mushrooms, plummeting back to the bottom of the cavern when I missed just one.

I’m not just talking about a few of them either, this was several screens of near-vertical ascent. Then, back in the forest there were more demanding jumps, several side-dashes through spike walls and.. well, you get the picture. Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus describes itself as an action platformer, but its jumps are Dark Souls-level demanding. And while I ultimately persevered, I could feel frustration setting in.

Did I have some fun with Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus? Absolutely, and it’s enough for me to go back when Squid Shock squashes that bug. However, I’ll be bracing myself for more pogo-based trials and if you pick up Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus prepare to have your platform skills pushed to their limit.

Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus is out now on PC, Mac, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch. And if you need a hand, here are All Bunny Blossom Locations in Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus and All Infinite Kettle Fragment Locations in Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus.