After the frustration that Hollow Knight: Silksong gave me, it might be a good idea to avoid similar games. But after seeing footage of Constance not too long ago, I couldn’t look away. I was immediately drawn to its visuals, and it gave me the impression of a more approachable game. From the very first moments of this game, I held my attention. Even with some of challenging sections, I couldn’t put it down.
A story within a story
When I began formulating my review for Constance, I wanted to avoid spoilers. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop other outlets. I’ll do my best to avoid specific references, but there are some key elements worth noting.
There are two Constance characters in this game. There is Constance, the hero, who is exploring a magical world. But that world is the construction of Constance, the real person. The “human” Constance is struggling with life. She’s overworked, stressed, and unable to manage the real world. The world that hero Constance explores uses her real-world struggles.
The game does a great job of juggling the two. The real-world sections only account for about 5-10% of the game. You’ll spend the majority of the game exploring the ‘magical world’. But those moments where you’re the real-life Constance, they are well-designed. I won’t go into specifics with what you’ll do, but they serve as a nice palette cleanser. Especially as they follow significant boss fights.
Your standard adventure platformer
As Constance, the hero, you get an adventure platformer. Those familiar with games like Celeste and Hollow Knight will feel right at home. Even without the experience, this game does a nice job of ramping up its difficulty and other aspects.
Constance has her basic attack, which she does with a paintbrush-like sword. On top of that, she has other abilities and attacks that will unlock through the course of the game. While she has extra abilities, they come at a cost. A second meter, which resembles paint, allows you to perform those actions. These grant you more powerful attacks. You’ll use this resource to traverse different areas. There is a risk/reward with using these. If you drain the meter, you can still perform actions, but then it takes away from your health. Because of that, you have to be mindful of when this happens.
Constance can also find “inspirations” that give her bonuses to her skills. These can increase your attack strength, give you access to more info on the world map, among others. You could go through the game without finding all the inspirations or special skills. While struggling with the game’s final boss, I decided to explore in the hopes of finding things I missed. While exploring, I found an area I had skipped over. In this section, I unlocked a few more inspirations and Constance’s double jump ability. Having that opened up even more of the world to explore.
To be clear, the double jump isn’t necessary to beat the final boss. It’s a good thing to have, but they didn’t make that fight any easier. But it did make me think about what else I may have missed out on.
Still, there is a challenge here
While I found the game easier in comparison to Silksong, it’s by no means an easy game. There are plenty of challenging sections here. From reflex-intensive platforming sections to multi-phased boss fights, nothing is too easy. The platforming sections will test your patience. In most cases, you will have to switch between actions. One false move will result in having to start over.
On the boss side of things, every fight has a specific formula that takes a few tries before you see the pattern. Even the game’s final boss fight, while challenging, has a formula. What I also liked is that there is plenty of randomization with the fights. Yes, the setup is the same, but there are small changes that keep you on your toes. Once you finish a fight, you feel like you accomplished something.
There is only one sequence that gave me a lot of frustration, and it’s a late-game scenario. It’s not quite a boss fight, but a section where you need to flee from a “Maw”. Here, you’ll need to traverse around many platform sections. It’s one of the few parts of the game where you have to be near-perfect with your movements. One false move will result in death.
One last thing to note with regard to difficulty. There is an option in the game’s settings that allows you to turn off all combat damage, which makes you invincible. I didn’t end up using this, and only found it by chance. So I don’t know if they added this during my pre-release access or if it was there all along. If you are struggling, that option is there.
I want to go back
Constance completely surpassed my expectations. I know this is going to be on my list of favorite games of 2025. Everything from its interesting world, characters, and combat kept me engaged. After seeing the credits roll, I knew by the game’s tracker that I still had over a quarter of the game to explore. I can’t wait to jump back and see if I can find what I missed.
