Figment 2: Creed Valley is an upcoming adventure game that takes place in the human mind.  It is scheduled for release on October 15, 2022, but if you’re not inclined to wait, there is a demo on the Switch that grants players access to the game’s first level (though I saw videos online that showed an additional location available in the PC demo…).  The main character is Dusty, who represents the Mind’s courage, and he is accompanied by a little red bird named Piper that I hear will be playable in co-op.  While the main story involves restoring order after the Mind’s Moral Compass is damaged, our goal in the demo is to vanquish the Mind’s fear of the dark, a large and hulking creature called the Black Hog.

Aesthetically speaking, Figment 2 has a nice art style that I feel is reminiscent of Bastion.  Just based on the demo alone, I didn’t really have an opinion on the music, though the game’s boast that each Nightmare has its own theme song isn’t really something that I was feeling too positively about after listening to the Black Hog’s gruff singing about darkness and whatnot.  It could certainly be a unique feature, but I suppose whether or not it’s a positive one depends on the quality of the songs.  Though it’s already clear from the demo that the voice acting isn’t the best, with the worst culprit being Piper.  And seeing as she’s one of the main characters, I’d imagine we’ll be hearing her shrill voice quite often.

As for Dusty, his moveset consisted of attacking with his sword and dodging.  From what I read online concerning the original game, people said the combat was one of the weakest aspects of the game.  And from my own experience with the demo, I, too, felt that the combat was pretty average, not terrible, but not great, either.  What I felt more positively about were the puzzles, which involved turning on and off lights with these light bulbs and navigating thick clouds of smoke with spotlights.  They weren’t exactly super interesting puzzles, but they weren’t bad for the very first level of the game, either.  We also encounter the Black Hog several times, and each time we spend most of our time dodging his attacks until we’re finally able to shed light on the situation (literally) and finish him off once and for all.

Figment 2 looks like it could turn out to be a pretty creative game, and seeing as I enjoyed Psychonauts, a similar series that explores the human mind, I’d be interested to see Figment 2’s own take on the subject.  Almost.  Because on the other hand, the gameplay wasn’t really engaging enough to motivate me to try the full game.  While I’m unsure of Figment 2’s eventual price, the original Figment sells for $19.99, but I’ve seen it go on sale for $1.99, making the estimated 5-6 hours more worthwhile.  So if you’re interested, perhaps it would be worth trying out the first game for cheap to see if the Figment games are really your thing before spending full price on the upcoming sequel.