Talent Not Included
If the talent isn’t included then… what am I gonna do?!
Gameplay
Talent Not Included has three different characters that have their own specific abilities. I only got to the first two in the First Hour. The third character is a mage named Gundelf and he is the most different. Both of the other characters are melee-focused while the mage uses a magic missile-like ranged attack. This is very different at first but the core of the gameplay is more about platforming rather than combat. To this end, the mage also has a glide to augment jumps and a teleport instead of a dash or roll. The mage definitely has the most complex levels to match the more advanced movement abilities.
As a whole, Talent Not Included is short but sweet. I finished everything is about two hours but it was a comfortable time. I tend to lean towards shorter experiences that don’t drag which is how I would describe Talent Not Included. I didn’t try to 100% complete every level or anything so most levels took about five minutes. The stand out levels were definitely boss fights with patterns and phases to learn.
Talent Not Included resembles what I would expect from a mobile game. You can quickly pick up and play and there’s the equivalent of three-starring levels for longevity. There is local coop to make the experience a bit more fun and it’s fast and loose enough to encourage yelling at your friends/friendship. I would say that the look and charm went a long way from me with Talent Not Included.
Narrative
Talent Not Included has a pretty loose story to string you along from level to level. The narrative is delivered through back and forth dialogue at the beginning of each chapter and after each mid-chapter boss fight and the bulk of the story setup is in the intro cutscene. I wouldn’t be surprised if the story was made up after the fact to justify the visual aesthetic but who knows. At best the back and forth between your character and the bosses is fun and at worst it’s seconds of text that will keep you from the next level.
Aesthetic
Talent Not Included is nothing if not good looking. The game is fun and all but the art style really carries the game for me. From the time I saw the first trailer, I liked the look of the game and I thought it was pleasing for my entire time playing. The way that new level elements just swing into place from one of the rotating floor axles is a thing that makes you think it could actually work in some weird way. There are times where the level swings into the foreground and blocks new platforms coming from the background but that situation is pretty rare.
Thrilling Conclusion
Talent Not Included is not awful. I’m awful at it sometimes, though. The mage levels got kind of hard at the end.
Talent Not Include was played on PC with a code provided by the developer. You can find more info on Steam — https://store.steampowered.com/app/485260/Talent_Not_Included/
