The Messenger

As a demon army besieges his village, a young ninja ventures through a cursed world, to deliver a scroll paramount to his clan's survival.
Leveraging players expectations as a core game design ingredient, The Messenger is first presented as an 8-bit action platformer with a simple story, that unravels into an epic time traveling tale, eventually revealing itself as a 16-bit Metroidvania game packed with replay value and deadpan humor.