Review

Written by Rachel Mangan | Edited by Jade Swann

In a stunning Slavic-inspired journey through beautiful art and lore alike, Mira may just be beautiful enough to distract you from the question: is it a point-and-click adventure, or a visual novel with extra steps?

A World Of Ghosts Awaits

The main aspect of Mira that you can’t ignore is the effort put towards the art. Every scene and character is displayed through stunning illustrations, with unique creature designs leading you from the human world of Javia to the spirit world of Navia — or Nawia, as several typos will contest. Gorgeous worldbuilding aside, the grammatical errors are a bit distracting for a game that relies so much on story. This is easily forgivable, though, as English is only one translation offered, and the native translation is likely closer to correct.

But boy is the story something. An intricate drama held over the course of centuries is put in the player’s hands to follow along. If you’re wanting to do more than follow, you may be disappointed. While advertised as a point-and-click adventure, the handful of puzzles in Mira are easy at best and a few lazy clicks away from solving at worst. With a litany of symbolism and art expanding as you venture through the fantastic world of Navia, you would think codes and puzzles would abound, but every puzzle you’ll find in Mira operates on a trial by failure system, meaning nothing you see before or after holds much significance. You simply click at random until you luck into the correct solution. You won’t need the note pad for this one. It’s simply too easy to bother paying attention.

Witches, Deities, and More

Which is a shame, because you’ll sorely want to pay attention to everything going on in Mira. The scenery begs for attention, which makes it all the more saddening that so little of it comes into play, or can even be interacted with. For how short the game is, I would love the chance to click everything and have Mira offer some flavor text. Anything to give the effort put into the art more appreciation. As is, you are given the lexicon, a menu of lore that updates as you play and offers insight into the world. How Mira comes to learn and document these things, I have no idea, but it’s an interesting read and gives the run time some much needed padding.

Family Drama on Another Scale

What is likely the most disappointing about Mira is the teasing potential for more. The world builds so many stories, and the player must read though so many of them, that the scope of the game feels a bit small for what is offered. Eons of family squabbles that Mira is dragged to the epicenter of sounds like a great time, but it simply isn’t explored enough to make it more than a charming, wonderfully rendered story. You’ll want to pay attention to everyone mentioned and every interesting creature involved. You’ll beg to explore the world further and see what it offers. But, unfortunately, it doesn’t offer much.

Buggy hitboxes for text prompts, occasionally unresponsive prompts, and minimal environmental interaction leaves a lot to be desired within the game’s mechanics. Aside from the simple puzzles sprinkled throughout to slow you down, you’ll also encounter a few moral choices along the way. The outcome is a bit vague, and the options are few for the Steam page’s selling point of deciding the world’s fate. As with TellTale’s late installments, you likely won’t be sure what real impact your decisions make, but there will be a line or two scolding you for making the “wrong” one.