Ebenezer and the Invisible World

From Alastair Sim to Bill Murray to the Muppets, I’ve seen a lot of adaptations of Charles Dickens’ classic book – A Christmas Carol. But while I’ve certainly rooted on Tiny Tim and cheered when the curmudgeonly Scrooge has his change of heart, never have I pondered the greater lore that is only hinted at the classic tale. Where did the ghosts come from? Do they visit other misguided Londoners? And, most importantly, did Ebenezer’s new outlook on life stick after the holiday season? These are just a few of the questions answered in Ebenezer and the Invisible World, a brand-new side-scrolling adventure game that is the Christmas Carol sequel you never knew you wanted. Will this weird follow-up fill your heart with the holiday spirit, or will it make you say bah humbug? That’s what we’re about to find out when I review Ebenezer and the Invisible World from Orbit Studio.

I don’t think I need to introduce you to Ebenezer Scrooge, because I’m pretty sure that everybody already knows the story of A Christmas Carol. He was a miserable old man and even worse boss who was visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, where he has a triumphant change of heart and embraces the holiday spirit. God bless us, everyone, or so says Tiny Tim.

Ebenezer and the Invisible World picks up a few years later, suggesting that because Scrooge had a taste of the ghostly world, he is now connected and able to see and interact with other spirits. As it turns out, Ebenezer is not the only cold-hearted miser to have his Christmas ruined by a bunch of ghosts. The same thing happened to Caspar Mathus, but instead of having the intended results, the intervention unleashed something in him and allowed him to bring a powerful being from the other side. Because of this, deceased British naval officer Eric Fellows needs somebody who is not only part of the living world, but can also do battle with the evil spirits haunting 19th century London. So, who do they call? A sixty-year-old rich dude who uses a cane to get around, of course.

Okay, I’ll admit, the whole set-up is a bit preposterous, but it does lead to a fun (albeit flawed) action/adventure game that fits squarely in the Metroidvania sub-genre. This is a game where Scrooge will run all over old-timey London in order to help friendly ghosts and collect items and powers that will open up new parts of the map. It’s a formula that we’ve seen a million times before, but it’s done well here with a festive Christmas twist and compelling setting to explore.

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The fact that you’re taking on different quests helps to differentiate this game from a lot of the other games in the genre. You’ll typically need to find a letter or some sort of evidence that exonerates a ghost and brings them peace in the afterlife, while other quests can be as simple as helping out the people of London by repairing the light fixtures. Some of these are optional, though a lot of the missions will result in you learning some sort of new skill, such a double jump, slingshot move and the ability to dash through certain kinds of doors. All of these moves are tied to the ghosts, so when you perform them, you’ll see the ghost helping Ebenezer jump higher or go places he normally wouldn’t be able to go.

There’s actually a surprising amount of things you can earn throughout the course of the game. It goes well beyond the abilities that will open up new parts of the map, because you’re also collecting new weapons, including everything from whips to ghostly axes. You will also find items that will give our hero perks and advantages, such as pointing to hidden treasure, traveling underwater, increasing your speed, attracting gold and so much more. There are thirty of these perks to collect, though you can only equip four of them at any given time. You’re going to need to make some tough decisions.

From there, things largely play out as you would expect. You thoroughly explore London’s streets, the observatory, the asylum, the cemetery and even the Mathus factory, all while taking on a number of challenging bosses, helping out our ghost friends and slowly revealing Caspar’s nefarious plot. The level design is fantastic and the developer does an excellent job of world building, giving each and every part of the map a unique identity that you will immediately recognize. This is a game that gets most of the fundamentals right, making it yet another fun Metroidvania-style action game.

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Unfortunately, Ebenezer and the Invisible World has a whole host of technical and execution problems that are constantly getting in the way of a good time. A big problem is that Scrooge just isn’t that much fun to control. He’s slow and sluggish, prone to taking cheap hits that take way too much damage. The platforming bits are fine, but everything falls apart the moment you need to go up against a tough enemy. The first thing you’ll notice is that pretty much every ghost requires three or four hits to defeat, which will usually give them enough time to lob two or three bombs at you.

All this is made worse when you see how much health a single attack will take off of our hero. Look, I get it, Ebenezer is an elderly man, but who thought it was a good idea to have a single projectile take off half of his health? And it’s not like you just have to grind for experience points in order to grow stronger, because there’s no leveling up. About the closest thing we get is equipping a new weapon, but most of the stronger whips and axes come with huge downsides (limited range, annoying dead zones and more). And that assumes Ebenezer even attacks when you press the button. I kept running into this frustrating situation where Scrooge refused to swing his axe. I kept pushing the button, but nothing would happen. It’s almost as if each weapon has a cool down that the game doesn’t tell you about, so you’ll constantly run up to an enemy, only to have to retreat because Ebenezer refuses to attack. That’s really annoying.

There are also some weird graphical problems that plague the entire run of the game. While I like the overall look of 19th century London and was impressed by the attention to detail given to each location, there are times where the game looks half-finished. There are big chunks of London’s city center where you can see incomplete portions of the background. It’s almost as if the thing that was supposed to cover up the unfinished bits didn’t load in, yet this happens throughout the game.

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And speaking of technical problems, this game is full of them. Ebenezer and the Invisible World comes to us from developer Orbit Studio, who most recently worked on the fun Haunted House remake for Atari. That game was littered with frustrating bugs and glitches, including a few game-ending technical problems that left a bast taste in my mouth. You see the exact same thing in this game. I kept running into the problem where our hero would accidentally jump off screen, making it impossible to advance the story. And then there are the many, MANY crashes that always come at the most inopportune times. I counted more than twenty crashes, with most of them happening in and around the same part of the map. My heart would skip a beat every time the dip to black transition between rooms took an extra couple of seconds to load, because I knew that meant the game was going to crash on me. And it just kept crashing over and over and over.

There are other problems, such as frustrating boss battles that don’t even pretend to be fair and some clunky storytelling, but those barely feel relevant considering what else is wrong with Ebenezer and the Invisible World. And that’s a shame, because there are a lot of things to like about this game. I dig the level designs, the stylish art, the atmospheric tone and the impressive variety of weapons, items, abilities and helpers to collect. You can tell that a lot of time has been put into making every part of this map stand out, and I would love to be able to recommend a Christmas-themed adventure game for the upcoming holiday season. But in its current state, I can’t. Bah humbug!