There’s a quote by T.S. Eliot that almost no one uses: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.” That’s because it’s a bit clunky and heavy-handed, and sometimes takes a bit to extrapolate the meaning. Steve Jobs, meanwhile, then took that quote, changed it, and misattributed it to Pablo Picasso: “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.” It’s a solid approach: you see someone else’s idea and, instead of trying to copy it, take the whole damn thing and tweak it to make it a better version, or at least a unique version, that’s all your own. There are many metrovidania titles out there, and many nods towards a certain insect-based hero that continues to tease, but never delivers a sequel. Thankfully, players who yearn for difficult, plucky, and endearing adventures have their own enchanting journey to take with Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus.

Awakening. Our protagonist blooms from the center of a massive lotus flower into a world of legend and mystery. You are Bō, a kitsune tentaihana (fox celestial blossom) and your coming means something extraordinary is about to come to pass. The land you know of is awake and alive with the lore of Japanese yokai, some friendlier than others, and just as many looking to harm than help you. Bō is aided by several spirits who recognize his importance, and they will slowly help Bō to discover new powers and abilities. But all the influence in the world may not be enough to help counter the spreading darkness, and Bō will need to use a variety of weapons, blessings, and split-second action in order to succeed. Will the balance of darkness and light be maintained? Or will the shambling gashadokuro symbolize the coming end of everything?

This feels like a moment where maybe I realized I’m out of my league.

Many players will instantly draw parallels between Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus and several other games, and those comparisons are fair. You’ve got a massive map that requires a lot of exploration and backtracking in order to figure out everything. You slowly find different powerups that’ll give you new access to new areas, and also allow you to deal with enemies and obstacles you haven’t seen previously. There are bosses, they are hard, and you have to deal with a lot of dying to figure out the right way to defeat them across multiple stages. Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus isn’t reinventing the wheel in terms of bare basics, so anyone who has gotten into a difficult action exploration game in the last decade will have a general idea of what needs to happen in order to progress.

Thankfully, the approach to combat and, more importantly, exploration is one of careful explanation that manages to be informative without handhold-y. Classic metroidvania titles often started with a very narrow scope and then expanded outward, both a product of the time and the storytelling direction. In more recent incarnations, the titles begin with a much larger potential and you then have to figure things out through the process of elimination. With Bō, the first few hours feel very directional as you begin to get a handle on the controls and concepts of combat, which are essential to growth in the game. Understanding the ideas of how striking something adds an additional jump or dash is crucial to further expansion, and Squid Shock has taken great pains to make a long-form tutorial feel more like a natural part of the game.

These flowers mocked me for FAR longer than I usually allow flora to do so.

Once things begin to open up, Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus quickly becomes a master class in the balance of action and art appreciation. The level of skill needed to further the game is incremental but constant, allowing you to further expand the necessity to use things like the daruma projectile weapon, which has incredible versatility in forms and being. The darumas become even more important the more you find, and some hidden factions could be a make or break in getting through the almost violently designed levels of maze-like traversal. I was playing on my Nintendo Switch and immediately opted for a secondary controller so that no chance was left up to errant Joycon drift when trying to time my jumps.

Additionally, the boss fights are engaging and frustrating in a pleasantly challenging way. When you take a title like Cuphead, the bosses are meant to be everything, so their difficulty is crazy high and their shift from different forms is a clear and present danger. By comparison, the bosses of Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus are more subtle in their phase shifts, giving players a reason to stay on their toes. In that same vein, you also need to figure out the general methodology for their destruction. Unlike, say, Hollow Knight, where the bosses might change their hitboxes entirely, most of what our little fox flower has to deal with makes their weakness known from the beginning and then gives you pause to figure out the how and why to accomplish it as the match progresses. It can be quite taxing, but, much like marathon training, it’s still rewarding even as it hurts.

You know, just a river goddess cheerfully crushing me with a tsunami. Usual hero stuff.

With so many difficult metroidvania titles out in the world (especially on the Switch), the question of “why this one?” will come from many players’ lips. The answer, frankly, is the charm and delight of the world of Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus. Overflowing with yokai and other old-world Japanese designs, players who enjoyed the aesthetics of Okami are going to LOVE how this game looks. While not as heavy with the watercolor inspiration, the saturation of reds and blues gives a distinctly heavy contrast to the dark and light ideas of the game, the entirety of the natural order, and the disturbance of some kind of invader. Think Princess Mononoke, but with less forest and more diverse biomes. You end up in all kinds of scenarios that demand you pay attention to the little details in the characters, the environment, and the set pieces.

And the characters! You could have had everything mute except for the one fox who occasionally dispenses insults and wisdom to  Bō, but instead you have this diverse cast of all walks of mythical beings who have insight, information, and occasionally colorful nonsense that makes the game so engaging. I loved every time I met someone new who had input on not only the next quest I had to conquer, but also my diminutive size. I loved going back to Sakura Village and getting my upgrades from the sentient Naruto piece who runs a ramen shop, or the umibozu who lives in a teapot and upgrades my own kettle. The monsters all match their specific areas, including snowmen in the wintery mountains and angry little gremlins that inhabit the shadowy woods. The recycling of sprites is low, and the creativity is high.

I’M SUPER CUTE, STOP DOWNPLAYING MY IMPORTANCE IN VISUAL KAWAII.

But all of this is to say that Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus has an appeal to it that kept me from engaging certain other metrovidanias on the same level. Take, for example, Ori and his magnificent duology. Those titles are undeniably fascinating and heartbreaking in storytelling, engagement, and exploration. Yet there’s a darkness to the design that puts me off from long-term play (weird to say about a game that’s all light spirit-based, I know). In spite of the omnipresent encroachment of evil, Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus has an effervescence that keeps you in high spirits and encouragement without the game being saturated with saccharin cheer or false positivity. It’s not just a game, it’s a tale that feels told out of time in the very best way.

While some might argue against its success based on visual and auditory points (the soundtrack is, as you might guess, evocative and perfect for this Japanese storyline), I feel that it’s important to differentiate on any excellent merit. You could have had a perfectly fine title with this level of acrobatic exploration and challenging combat starring a human in a straw hat, and it would have been similar (though several story elements would have needed to be removed). Instead, you have this iconic game where the main character can, if time allows, sit down anywhere to sip some tea and recharge his health. That’s incredible. You can hurl flaming darumas to take down enemies. You can become permanently airborne through the right level of dashes, hits, and rebounds to feel less like you’re jumping and more like you’re flying. Bō isn’t just a pretty face: he’s a contender for a character you want to see time and again.

Though the tale of Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus is easily contained to a single game, I can already feel myself wanting to return again, to see how much better I can ferret out secrets, collect all the things I missed, and see if there’s even more to the deeper tale of the tentaihana. Don’t sell yourself short just because it reminds you of another game: Bō proudly stands on his own two, adorable, little feet.

Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus is available now on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus was provided by the publisher.