Silly Polly Beast is a super stylish survival horror game with a strong focus on punishing combat and a dark narrative that answers the question, “What if John Wick went to Silent Hill?”
You play as Polly, a young girl trapped in The Abyss, trying like hell to fight her way out. Her journey through the underworld is spread over five chapters, each with a boss encounter waiting for you at the end, as the story is told to you through inner monologues and flashbacks.
These short story beats not only push the story forward but give us a sense of who Polly is as a person, and what happened to her in her past to get her here. But if you want to know the how and why of it, you’ll have to play it for yourself.
The first and only thing I had ever seen about this game was the launch trailer, and story-wise at least, it gives almost nothing away. I went into this one almost completely blind, and I think you should too. However, I will warn you now that it deals with a lot of heavy subject matter that could be triggering for a few people, and a couple of scenes even had me wincing. It is not for the faint of heart, but if disturbing psychological horror with bombast is your thing, I think you will get a lot of enjoyment out of it.
Combat in Silly Polly Beast is insane and will test both your skill and your patience as you die over and over again. The words “Silly Polly” flash up on screen each time you do, somehow even more mocking than the standard “You Died” we are used to since Dark Souls made sadism mainstream.
Luckily, Polly has a pretty effective arsenal at her disposal. Her main weapon for taking on the hordes of the underworld is the Demolver, a revolver that fires bullets called “Steel Messengers”. It can initially only hold six bullets at a time, which can only be replenished at locations called soul barrels littered around the world or from random enemy drops. It is possible to find additional bullets hidden throughout the game that upgrade your capacity by one each time.
When playing on a controller, you aim with the right stick and fire with a shoulder button, but aiming does not lock on. Just because there is a target on an enemy does not mean your attack will land. This can be tricky at first and frustrating at times, especially when fighting multiple enemies at once, as ammo is scarce and a stray bullet can mean the difference between life and death. However, it never feels unfair.
In addition to her Demolver, Polly also has a skateboard. This can be used to break boxes and barriers in your way, but mostly it is for melee combat. Each swing reduces Polly’s stamina gauge, and the initial size of the gauge means she is limited to a four-hit combo early on. However, once she grows stronger and her stamina increases, so does the size of her combo, making it even more effective.
In addition to being swung like a bat, her board can be thrown, which I only really used for destroying explosive traps. Just don’t stand too close. There is a skateboarding mini-game that sees you zooming down a tunnel, popping shove-its over obstacles, and dying instantly if you hit anything. Retrying sees the tunnel randomly generated into a new layout, so learning where you went wrong is not an option. It’s all about quick reflexes and following the money collectables along the way to lead you down the right path. But if that’s too much for you, there is an option to skip these parts and get on with the main game if you find them too difficult.
As effective as the skateboard is as a melee weapon, it can get frustrating to use at times. The more savvy enemies will hop out of the way, leaving you to swing at the air where they used to stand. It constantly knocks weaker enemies back, forcing you to miss the follow-up strike of your combo, and it can feel inconsistent on when it does or does not interrupt enemy attacks, causing you to take what can feel like cheap damage at times. But that is most likely just a skill issue on my part.
Polly also has access to Demon Larva, which can be thrown like a grenade for area-of-effect damage, or fed to “Stump Killers” to take out a random enemy in the current arena. It’s a cool mechanic, but it is easily exploitable because if it doesn’t take out your intended target, you can just die and try again. On both of my playthroughs, I found throwing them into groups was the more effective choice. Eventually, Polly can find and carry a sub-weapon, like a shotgun for powerful spread damage or a submachine gun for rapid fire. These can only be replenished with ammo drops from fallen enemies or from the weapon store, but they are absolute game changers when it comes to turning the tide of battle.
Every time Polly enters a room, the game auto-saves, meaning if you enter a room with no ammo, no healing items, and barely any health, you are stuck there until you win. It can feel broken at times, and it will be a deal breaker for a lot of people, but it is all part of what makes the game so fun. Each combat encounter is like a puzzle to be solved.
Dying and respawning is almost instantaneous, and there is no backtracking, so you are back to the action within seconds. The same enemies respawn in the same places and walk the same routes again and again, giving you an opportunity to try a new approach each time. I will admit there is some RNG involved, but if you keep retrying, eventually the first enemy you kill will drop some shotgun ammo or a healing item, and the playing field starts to feel level again.
Honestly, the combat in Silly Polly Beast is amazing. Controls are tight and responsive, and you feel completely in control the whole time, even when things are getting out of hand. Polly has a dodge roll with generous i-frames, and for once, it does not drain stamina. Stamina will not regenerate while rolling, but you are free to dodge without restriction, and it makes the difference between combat feeling challenging instead of unfair. That kind of balance needs to be appreciated.
As I said up top, this is a survival horror game, so the heavy action is thankfully interspersed with moments of downtime and sections of light environmental puzzle-solving and exploration. The puzzles in question are far from taxing and usually equate to nothing more than dragging an object somewhere, collecting enough masks to open the way, or navigating hazards using some unexpected but well-implemented and fun flight mechanics.
These puzzles are at their best when they are the main focus of an area. One of my favourite bosses in the game is like one giant combat puzzle to solve, and getting that “eureka” moment when I figured out what needed to be done, followed by the exhilaration of trying to pull it off while being attacked, was, as they say, palpable.
As for the downtime, not everyone Polly encounters is an enemy. There is a base with a medic you can talk to who will give you a healing item if you are ever without, and a mysterious kiosk you can visit where you can buy health items and ammo and trade mask items you collect from special enemies for rewards. You can eventually unlock a way to quick travel between areas, so you’ll be coming back here a lot throughout your journey.
Ammo and health items have a maximum carry capacity, but to be honest, I was getting battered so often that I was never able to carry more than two or three healing items at a time because I was constantly using them. Things like key items, skateboard designs, and new clothes take up their own space in the inventory, so item management is not a thing in this game. If you were hoping for a Resident Evil 4-style inventory system to match the similar gameplay, you will be disappointed.
One thing I love but never fully utilised is the fact that a lot of combat encounters can be avoided entirely with the help of a stealth mechanic. By putting her hood up and keeping her head down, Polly is able to slink past enemies at a distance and remain undetected as long as she does not get too close. It is possible to unlock masks to give her a better chance of sneaking past certain enemy types. It is a great mechanic that offers a completely optional stealth to help you get past some of the encounters you are struggling with, and it is nice to see a stealth mechanic in a non-stealth game that doesn’t suck.
Much like how I feel about the combat, I love the slower moments and exploration in Silly Polly Beast. One of my favourite sections in the game is almost completely made up of exploring and puzzle-solving, almost like House Beneviento in Resident Evil Village, and I find the general balance between combat and exploration to be almost perfect.
Wrapping things up, I need to talk about the visual and sound design. I absolutely adore this game’s aesthetic. The almost Don Bluth-meets-anime-inspired character designs are slick and stylish, and the mix of bleak, almost realistic war-torn streets combined with Persona-esque weirdness creates a package that is absolutely striking at times.
The design of the Embers, this game’s enemies, manages to take something that would not be out of place in Silent Hill and do something original with it. The story and world-building are fantastic, and despite being a little tropey in places, the predictability of certain aspects of the story feels deliberate because we are constantly being drip-fed with context clues.
From what I can tell, the main art, story, and development was all by one guy, Andrei Chernyshov, with later help from publisher Top Hat Studios, who have been on an absolute winning streak lately with games like Crypt Custodian and Paper Animal Adventure under their belt. The fact that the lion’s share of this game was made by a solo developer is mind-blowing.
The game opens with the words “A Game By Andrei Chernyshov,” which I thought was as funny as it was bold because I had never heard of him. After playing this through several times, seeing all five endings, and unlocking the platinum trophy, I can tell you Andrei Chernyshov is a name now firmly on my watch list, and I cannot wait for his next project, 5.5 Rooms (and I hate visual novels).
I also want to mention the frankly excellent music in this game. From what I can see, it comes from an artist called BassNPanda, and it is fantastic. It is a great mix of heavy bass and cyberpunk electronica, with absolutely filthy chugging guitar riffs that would give Mick Gordon a stiffy. It is one of the best soundtracks I have heard in a while, and I would love it to become available to buy in some form.
Overall, I would happily say Silly Polly Beast is one of the best games I have played this year and a total surprise. I had never even heard of it until the launch trailer randomly popped up in my YouTube feed. I do not know why I decided to watch it, but I am glad I did.
I love the challenging combat, although I will admit it had me absolutely raging at times, much to my fiancée’s amusement and annoyance. The middle phase final boss can absolutely get fucked and almost ruined the entire experience for me. If you know, you know. But other than that little blip, I have no complaints about the challenge or overall difficulty. I thought it was pretty bang on.
To be honest, I do not really have any notes. This game is excellent and well worth the fifteen-quid asking price. Check it out, buy it, support indie devs.
