Stonefly is one of the more artistically bold, ambitious, and mechanically conflicting entries to the indie space in 2021. Known for titles like Creature in the Well and Manifest 99, developer Flight School continues to solidify and refine its hand-painted style through environment, enemy, and character design. While exploring the storybook-inspired world in a bug-sized mech is initially exciting, the gameplay loop and combat mechanics starts to get old and frustrating as the game progresses, preventing it from achieving its full potential.
The story of Stonefly centers around Annika, the daughter of a brilliant mechanic who loses her father's mech and goes on a journey to get it back. Soon after leaving home, Annika meets the Acorn Corps, a group of renegades that take her under their wing as they search for something called the Crystal Phantom. This journey takes them across three biomes that are filled with materials to mine and "buggos" to fight, but doing so involves farming many materials to purchase skills and upgrades for Annika's mech.
Farming and upgrading is at the core of Stonefly's gameplay loop and makes the whole experience feel a bit disappointing in its execution. The world that Flight School created is at its best when players enter a new biome for the first time and glide around the environment carefree before reaching the objective. Once it's reached and the base camp is set up however, the only reason to return to each biome is to track down colossal buggos known as Alpha Aphids, whose back serves as a combat arena where players must gather all the materials they can while surviving waves of buggos until time runs out.
Reducing exploration down to primarily tracking Alpha Aphids (which doesn’t take long) is a shame because flying around each biome is a blast. The art and level design are deeply layered, and the tiny sense of scale is constantly at the forefront. Each branch and leaf feel massive and though Annika feels physically small, her presence does not. She makes the player feel like they could go anywhere and do anything - but instead, they have to go to the same three arenas over and over.
This rinse and repeat mission structure is Stonefly's biggest issue. A notable example of this occurs mid-game, where Annika has to gather materials to fix an Acorn Corps mech. To get the amount needed, Annika must track down and make it through multiple Alpha Aphid arenas utilizing combat mechanics that feel inaccurate and underpowered. Annika then has to decide whether to use the hard-won materials to upgrade her mech in order to keep up with the rising difficulty or to complete the mission, since each option requires a large amount of the same materials. This gameplay loop takes far too long and results in a mission that should take 15-30 minutes to complete but ended up taking almost an hour.
Stonefly has a couple missions like this, and it just gets in the way of its incredibly engaging story, fantastic music and sound design, and the non-farming gameplay it provides. The score ranges from ambient, acoustic instrumentation to powerful electronic songs, neither of which ever feels out of place. The music combined with the highly stylized art direction only improves the emotional journey of self-discovery and building confidence that players take with Annika.
Over its roughly eight hour play time, Stonefly brings up a bunch of conflicting feelings. Its combat mechanics and gameplay loop can be frustrating and unengaging at times, but its story, art direction, and music create a lush and wholly unique world that's hard to walk away from. Stonefly may not be for everybody, but it is definitely worth checking out for players who enjoy the grind or just want to experience a heart-warming and visually engaging story.
Stonefly is available on June 1st, 2021 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Screen Rant was provided with a digital PS5 download code for the purpose of the review.