When your soul lives forever, you can die as many times as you need. Persephone is a gruesomely cute and perfectly frustrating puzzle game where you use death to your advantage.

If you know the lore of Persephone and Hades, traveling to the Underworld through a puzzle only makes sense. When you are dropped into the first level of Persephone, it seems that the only way out is to…die? The key to this 2D isometric puzzle game is to decide when and how to use your character’s death, abilities, and surroundings to your advantage. Created by Momo-Pi Studio in Bulle, Switzerland in an attempt to “explore the next level possibilities of death”, Persephone combines the elements of puzzles, surprise, and calming tones.

GRAPHICS 10/10

Graphics are key to keeping Persephone true to its theme. Using soft, 3D, doll-like graphics reminiscent of games like Ooblets and many recently popular indies, the constant death of Persephone is shocking at first, yet not gruesome. The deaths of Persephone end in an almost ragdoll plop with little theatrics, keeping her far from human. 

While you grow attached to the curly redhead, her deaths are never too horrifying to prevent you from leaving a body lying around. 

Each chapter has a different theme, reminiscent of the levels of hell. This helps differentiate between available abilities and tells a story as you go deeper into the game.

SOUND QUALITY 9/10

Usually, I am pretty picky on sound quality, and not a fan of anything outside of orchestral, dreamy, and Final Fantasy-esque music. However, Persephone really challenged this. I can still hear the sound effects in my head, and even when playing stages over and over, the tunes were not so repetitive that I was driven crazy (which is pretty rare for me with puzzle games). Nothing is overwhelming, and the overall choice of sound brings a sense of peace to a game that is about dying and difficult puzzles.

GAMEPLAY 9/10

The gameplay of Persephone is fairly intuitive and easy to pick up. I really enjoyed the fact that the tutorial is fairly basic. When you first encounter a pit of spikes on the first level, you soon realize that the only thing to do is walk over it. I still remember my shock in realizing, “Oh my god, I was supposed to die?” There are also hidden levels and optional areas, which are great for players who need a little more challenge or want to go back after completing the storyline. I really enjoyed these additional levels as someone who gets very easily frustrated and needs a break at times. 

My only critique is that not every movement felt intuitive to the controller—at least for me. This could have been the result of my addiction to using a standard mouse and keyboard, or just the adjustment of using a joystick in a gridded game. There were also certain parts where I got stuck on levels and needed to phone a friend, but I believe that is just part of the process of a puzzle game.

CHARACTERS 9.5/10

Part of what drew me to this game was the lore of Persephone and Hades. A goddess of spring drawn to the Underworld is a story I love to see interpreted in different ways. I easily fell in love with Persephone, a cutesy, tan, curly-haired redhead who wasn’t too adorable to kill over and over. She looked and acted like a little plushy or ragdoll, which really added to the fun aspects of this game. All the characters have the same squishy ragdoll appearance, but there aren’t really any other characters featured besides the enemies. The characters do not have vocals or lines, but you can see Persephone’s personality through her actions and reactions to each level.

STORY 10/10

As mentioned before, I am a huge fan of Persephone’s lore in mythology. This game does her story justice and puts a fun twist on her trip down to Hades by requiring her to sacrifice herself a few times on the way. I really enjoyed that the storytelling was done through the levels, items, and power-ups instead of flat-out telling the player what the premise was. I have played far too many mobile puzzle games with a story in the beginning followed by puzzles that have little to do with the heart of the matter, other than perhaps a theme. It was very refreshing to be able to piece together similarities and form my own canon as the game progressed. As someone who consumes way too much Persephone and Hades media, it was a great way for me to meld the knowledge I already had with my own imagination. Throughout the story, I found myself constantly rooting for Persephone and her love for Hades, which you can see through the generous sacrifices she makes to find her way back to him. There is a second book to this story that I have yet to complete, and I am all too excited to experience the rest of the journey.

OVERALL 9.5/10

Persephone is a beautiful puzzle game filled with interpretive storytelling and great brain teasers. If you are a lover of Greek mythology, solving levels, or a good old cutesy-but-gory theme, then this is the game for you.

The version of Persephone reviewed was the Xbox version, released on November 5, 2020. Persephone is also available for Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, and Steam. A free demo is available through Steam.