NOTE: This review is part of my steam curator review and is the extended version. Check my steam curator page at https://store.steampowered.com/curator/39607348-Random-Game-Reviews-by-Labprofess/ . Follow appreciated!
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Mandinga - A Tale of Banzo in a game set in 1836 Brazil, a time where slaves from Northern Africa were to work on plantations in Brazil. Some of them were treated better than others. While most were living together in one big hall sharing virtually everything, few were privileged to have their own hut and their own belongings. In this game you play as two characters simultaneously: Akil and Obadelé. Fight the oppression you are faced with everyday by escaping the plantation and trying to bring peace to all other slaves. Overcome various character challenges together such as Obadelé’s violent nature mixed with Akil’s peaceful way of solving issues. Yet to succeed you both have to compromise to be able to work together. How you're going to do that depends on you, the player. Complete tasks, enter (and win) fights including roaming the gigantic game map in order to progress through the game's amazing dialogue and choice rich story. The characters both have different personalities and mentalities of life. They are also treated differently as slaves, and yet by chance form a team preparing to crush the violence and mischief that's enslaving their people. If you yourself are Brazilian or African, this game is a must play! I myself didnt know that slavery had spread itself to Brazil before this game. Heck, I didn't even know Muslims were in Brazil as early as 1836 until I played this game. You really do learn something new everyday.

This game has a pixel style. I rarely play pixel games as usually they are shovelware or just bad games, but I took a try on this one and I was not disappointed. The pixel style fits perfectly in the scenrary. I see that it permits smaller developers to make detailed and large maps without investing substantial energy and work into rendering models. I wouldn't exactly say the pixel graphics are cute as that is not appropriate considering the game is about slaves in Brazil, but I do say they look good and fit the circumstances of the game. However, even with pixel graphics, the graphics are amazing and clear. The pixel scale is perfectly done to correlate various structures and characters. Even the NPCs are detailed and not forgotten which I find amazing. I love the enemies of the game. This game uses different wild animals and if it cant do that, it just changes the color of two exact same animals. While minimal, I am surprised compared to typical JPRG games I have tried, where every second enemy looks identical to the one before. Would get boring real quick.

Lastly, I quickly want to mention some small issues to keep in mind (remember - this review is from the games Beta testing): One, the translations are 100% perfect with some grammatical errors here and there and the rare wrong word translation regarding time periods. What I mean is that the game might accidentally use a present word talking about the past or vice versa. It would also be neat if the controller support could accommodate more functions. Now, is this game worth it? For me it is at least. Let's break down why: for its price it comes with a long story to make up for its worth easily. Dialogue rich and amazing game map with attention to detail as well. Whats also neat is that this game connects to a real life historical aspect of slavery in Brazil. You might learn one or two things about that time period (or about the African culture) while enjoying a game. How cool is that? There should be more games that teach you real life lessons in an enjoyable and fun way. Hence, I hope this review motivated you to decide to get this game, and if you do, I hope you have fun :)