Nothing scares me like tight spaces, heights, and endless, seemingly gloomy holes. And there are few games I crave more than a grave platformer that can make older audiences feel the childlike wonder that the classics provide.
I read it Lorna’s bait could be that game. The first cinematic I saw featured the main character preparing to deliberately jump into a hole in the ground; I was afraid it might be long enough to span the entire Earth.
Lorna’s bait this seemed like a challenge I would have to overcome to get the platforming experience I was hoping for.
At first glance, Lorna’s bait is very basic. You can jump, slide, and climb platforms until you reach the place the game wants you to reach. From the very beginning, the only tool at your disposal is a climbing gear, which you will operate to freely climb the many walls in the game.
I say it quite freely, because that’s how it is Portal allows portal only on white walls, Lorna’s bait allows players to only climb vertical walls made of climbable rock. Pickaxes allow you to move up, down, left, and right for a constrained time while you position yourself in the right place to safely jump down or jump to the next platform.
That alone would have been enough to keep me playing until the end, but I was pleasantly surprised to unlock more mechanics that enhanced my climbing skills and the fun I had while climbing. There’s wall running, wall jumping, and a grappling hook to traverse areas, like in Pathfinder Apex Legends.
The rest works as you’d expect. Fall into a bottomless pit or onto the ground from a high enough height and you’ll be given the option to restart from the last good position you were in, or from the beginning of the chapter.
On the graphic front, Lorna’s bait frosty deceive you into thinking this is a PS1 game with improved textures. Still, the gargantuan size of the play areas would probably melt Sony’s OG console in a second. Lorna the retro look adds charm and a welcome sense of unease to a game that’s meant to make the player feel trapped in an endlessly alien, uncaring, and at times surprisingly handsome world.
Lorna’s bait also takes a cold minimalist approach to storytelling. Set-up is done through low cutscenes that show off the vastness of this world. Then, you can scan areas of interest to learn more about the haunting megastructure that your character—and many others before her—have been trapped in for hundreds of years.
World Lorna’s bait will seem familiar to anyone who has read it BLAMELike Tsutomi Nihei’s manga, the main character finds himself in a high-tech hellscape so huge that every creature, living or imagined, seems petite. I love this choice for a platform game. It conveys a grandeur never before seen in games like Tomb Raider Or Uncharted. These series have shown us a lot of gigantic areas, but they have always been equally focused on showing us the miniature details. In Lorna’s baityou never feel like you’re just exploring one level – you feel like you’re exploring an entire planet.
Like Connected by a chain, Lorna’s bait will probably be a hit with the speedrunning community. I have no doubt it will be, as it is a prettier and much more mechanically demanding title. Still, I was a bit surprised to learn that Lorna’s bait actually feels like a puzzle game. It starts out as basic as any other platform game. Then players must clear a path of obstacles or find increasingly complicated ways to complete the supposedly basic task of getting from point A to point B.
Even with the amazing mechanics, which makes Lorna’s bait where its level design really shines is in its terrifyingly huge spaces, leaving the player feeling helpless as they think about how to get to the next checkpoint. Then, once they clear their minds, the game makes players feel like true post-apocalyptic sci-fi invaders as they finally overcome the next obstacle.
Lorna’s bait will require you to be quick on your feet, precise in your placement and timing of your jumps. Even if you are just trying to escape from a megastructure, Lorna’s bait will provide quite a challenge. But once you overcome the main challenge, the game is still full of collectibles placed in even harder to reach places.
Luckily, Lorna’s bait doesn’t waste your time. The creator of the game knew this would be a very intense trial and error. Players can restart their run at any time from the last time they were safely positioned on the platform closest to the target, without a loading screen. I’ve tested the restart option many times – guess if I did it on purpose or not – and it works very well. Too many platformers have trouble saving the player’s last good position before a fatal, misplaced jump, or saving the platform they were on before, wrongly making it the restart position. Lorna’s bait is free from this sin.
As for what I didn’t like, the sheer size of the play area makes it challenging to figure out where to go next at times. The game’s plot conveniently introduces a guide bug into our character’s field of vision, but it’s not observable all the time. Players can toggle the marker at any time to know exactly where they need to go, but I would have preferred to just have a diegetic clue, like the game intended.
Still, it’s more of a minor issue than a major problem. As for what I liked but many may not, well, Lorna’s bait is very demanding. The whole trial and error aspect of the game can be off-putting for some. I totally understand players who might not want to die more times from a single jump than from a boss in Ring of Fire. Even I found myself deeply frustrated at times, but that frustration disappeared as soon as I conquered each of the most demonic jumps. Many players may not recover as easily, and I completely understand that.
But if you like challenging platform games like the remastered version of the original Destroy Bandicootit’s very likely that you’ll like this one. Along with the above-mentioned Connected by a chain AND Justant, Lorna’s bait proves that the platforming world still has a lot of mechanics to explore. It also reveals just how inhospitable and absolutely terrifying platformers can be—in the coolest way possible.
