Stonefly

Stonefly is too weighed down by unwieldy combat and grind to get off the ground.

This gorgeous microcosmic mech game just about survives its more frustrating moments.

Piloting insect mechs in a beautifully tiny world is a breeze, but heavy resource grinding stops this adventure taking full flight.

You can float about and gather materials as you please, which is pleasant, but the game doesn't quite have enough to hold your interest. Sadly, the story aspect falls a bit flat — the main thread is interesting but the writing isn't particularly engaging, and any cutscenes lack impact. Overall, the game is a tranquil journey through a unique world, but it doesn't quite have the narrative pull or gameplay bite that it needs.

Stonefly had all of the right parts to create an impressive and cool-looking machine, but unlike its heroine, it wasn't able to fully assemble them properly.

We kind of expected the vast exploration of nature through the perspective of insects, but there were more faults than there should have been. While the color and graphics including the combat system were unique, questionable narratives, repeated actions within a narrow space seems to be more stressful than fun. Perhaps a little more thought process could have polished the motivations, which would allow players to sit through the gameplay more thoroughly.

I want to love Stonefly. It has all of the right pieces to make something great. When those pieces come together, though, the fit isn’t quite right, and the resulting whole has its share of holes. This is a game that’s big on concept and playfulness, but translating those qualities into something that you interact with as a player fails to cleanly make the jump. Most specifically, the game play isn’t quite there; the mechanics are all fine, but the balance is off in some crucial ways that disrupt the experience and cause the game to get in the way of itself. Stonefly is at its best when its showing off its beautiful artwork and telling its story, and the parts in between where you fight lots of bugs and gather too many resources feel in opposition to that side of the experience rather than in service of it. I still enjoyed a lot of my time with Stonefly, but this feels like an experience that would have benefited from being shorter, and more focused on exploration and its narrative.

Stonefly is a beautiful work of art waiting to be explored!

Overall, Stonefly is an interesting experiment for Flight School Studio. There are some moments to genuinely love in its presentation and action. Unfortunately, the plot pacing and inconsistent combat can create some real frustration. It doesn’t seem sequels are Flight School’s style, but I definitely look forward to the ways they take the lessons from Stonefly and apply it to their next project, whatever it may be.

It’s to Flight School Studio’s credit that, though the clashes at the game’s core left me underwhelmed, the whole thing didn’t feel hollowed-out. This is down to Annika, who sits at its heart and drives it on.