The Chronicles of Teddy: Harmony of Exidus Review
Music Is Your Key to Exploration, Just stay in Tune
Chronicles of Teddy: Harmony of Exidus, also known as Finding Teddy 2 on Steam, was not what I expected. A little pre-game research taught me that Chronicles of Teddy: Harmony of Exidus is the sequel to developers Storybird and LookAtMyGame’s Finding Teddy, hence the “2” above. The first game is a point and click adventure about a little girl’s journey to retrieve her teddy bear that is stolen by the lonely spider King Tarant. Watching videos, gameplay looked fun and the puzzles deadly, but I made sure not to spoil the sequel fun by looking up anything on Chronicles of Teddy: Harmony of Exidus gameplay.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that although developers Storybird and LookAtMyGame stayed true to lore and beauty of Exidus, they have created a completely different gameplay experience with Chronicles of Teddy: Harmony of Exidus (CoT:HoE from now on). Shedding it’s point and click skin, changing it’s name, and adopting side scroller/platformer controls that feel at home on the PS4, CoT:HoE now aims at the leaderboards of Metroidvania.
After a beautiful start screen, the player learns that an evil magician Anguis has defeated spider King Tarant and stolen the throne. Fueled by hatred, Anguis seals off the gate to the world of Men and hides the four crystal eggs needed to open the gate among the pages of the Great Books of Monsters, which are also hidden away on the shelves in the Library of Worlds. Before the gates are sealed, King Tarant’s disembodied spirit flees to the world of Men, possesses our heroine’s teddy bear and lures her through the gate and back to the world of Exidus. What makes the introduction so entertaining, is that is it delivered to us through a video game the heroine is playing within her room. You can see her sitting in front of what looks like an old SNES below:
Gameplay:
CoT:HoE is all about exploration and experimentation, so don’t expect to be led around on a leash by following an NPC or a waypoint from area to area. Other than an initial image explaining how to dash, many aspects of the game lack explanation. Of course figuring out how to move about was straightforward with buttons to jump and swing my sword, but other controls like blocking (standing still) took some testing. This was frustrating at the start, but I felt more satisfaction from solving puzzles this way, especially after locating the Musicom.
The Musicom is a musical instrument that allows the player to talk with creatures and manipulate objects in the game world. The Musicom works much like the ocarina in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time or the distaff in Loom. With slots for 12 different sound runes, the Musicom pronounces particular words when played. All runes are found through exploration and puzzle solving. How will I know what each rune means? Well thanks to a handy Lexicon, aka dictionary, all words and phrases discovered from the tongues of NPC’s are at your fingertips.
The player will have use certain musical phrases to open doors, release traps, and even to defeat bosses. Feel free to experiment to find phrases previously unknown, but beware there can be consequences for saying the wrong thing:
CoT:HoE’s exploration and puzzle designs may shine, but it’s combat system feels dull. Most enemies are easy to kill with single swings of your sword, but harder enemies are really annoying to defeat. I found myself wanting a weapon with more reach as I became forced to slowly tap closer and closer to an enemy till they were just pixels away. This didn’t always work as tapping forward too rapidly would dash my player right into the enemy, hurting myself. To make matters worse these enemies can block well timed attacks with their shield and have bigger weapons than you. You can check out my struggle below:
Design:
Following in true Metroidvania fashion, not all areas and items are accessible to the player right away. Chests on high ledges, platforms across water, and even fruit hanging just out of reach, tease me everywhere:
It became clear that I would find player upgrades that would allow me to swim across water and jump higher. Finding an upgrade becomes even more satisfying when returning to previously beaten areas to pilfer much needed gems from chests. Gems can be used at a store in the Library of Worlds to purchase various upgrades such as a more powerful sword, stronger armor (different colored overalls), and extensions to you health bar. These upgrades aren’t necessarily needed to proceed further into the game, but definitely help you survive. Even though death only brings you back to the nearest area starting point, it does take a big chunk of gems from you. This can be prevented by purchasing an “extra life diamond” from the store for 80 gems, but you can only purchase one at a time.
I should state there is an item I can buy for 3000 gems that looks like a gold spider coin, that I have no clue what it does. It is the mysteries behind everything in the game that drives me to play more. For example, while exploring, many doors and platforms seemed to be guarded by red bug-like limbs. Standing near the door, I tried random combinations of runes and stumbled upon the correct sequence:
I had discovered the word “Iza”, and for some reason it made the red limbs retract. BUT WHY? And how come, when standing in specific areas I can hear musical phrases being repeated, that when mimicked spawn a firefly?
With more exploration I know sooner or later the significance of the fireflies while become clear. Exploration is the key to progressing. You’ll need to explore to find passwords written on walls needed to open doors, to listen close to new words, and to locate lost items to finish side quests. If you ever feel stuck, there is nifty hints system located in the Library of Worlds. Holding up on what looks like a tombstone with a “?” and a spider on it will reveal an image of an event you must make happen or a location on your map of an important item. These hints are vague enough to not spoil how the player must acquire certain items or what the player must say, and really doesn’t take away from the mystery. The map system does unfortunately give away whether or not you have collected all secrets in an area, similar to the map system in the Metroid game series. I’m hoping this is washed away by an immense map.
Presentation:
As a fan of 8–16 bit games, I can really appreciate the effort that was spent on designing CoT:HoE. The world is full of vibrant colors. Whether you are jumping along lush treetop canopies grabbing hanging fruits, trudging down treacherous caves picking up brilliant stones, or gliding through icy crystal castles carving your enemies to nothing, one thing is for sure: the art is a astounding. The vivid environments provide a worthy canvas for the many NPCs and enemies. Often NPCs are comically pixeled together creatures in contrast to the mythical giant guardians and dangerous intriguing bosses elsewhere.
Accompanying CoT:HoE’s rich environments is enjoyable 8-bit soundtrack. Moving along the swamp, soothing sounds crickets and frogs come to the ear, until the belch of a toad monster warns of incoming tongue. The yells and movements of enemies are awesome; just check out the distorted sounds the boss in my first boss fight made:
Conclusion:
Never before has metroidvania delved so deep into music and language to create a mellifluous exploration game like Chronicles of Teddy: Harmony of Exidus. Even though I hope I learn some kind of new battle ability that will spice up the battles, the fire is present in a vast array of puzzles and platforming. The game also has a sense of humor. One of my favorite moments was figuring out what to say to a forest guardian that wouldn’t let me pass. I tried many different combinations, all of which ended up enraging him to the point of killing me (video way above). When I found out that I simply had to say “please” when asking to pass, I couldn’t help but shake my head and laugh.
Thank you for reading. Nolan — Totaltoad
Chronicles of Teddy: Harmony of Exidus gets a 8/10 (Very Good)
Thank you to Zack Hage and Aksys Games for supplying me with the code and giving me this chance to share my opinion with everyone.
Check out my random video game videos on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd8mNw3LXaEC1AA5nxiThoQ
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