Lords of Exile caught my eye awhile back. It wears it's Castlevania inspiration on it's sleeve. From the look and even gameplay it's clearly obvious this is what it wanted to be. The graphics are quite good, having that nostalgic 8 bit horror feel and typical vania soundtrack to go with it. On paper Lords of Exile is exactly that and what you expect, however while playing it, it felt pretty mediocre and then after finishing thinking back on it I think slightly below average retro platformer. The fundementals of a good game are there but there are so many half baked ideas and mechanics that the game feels unfinished. Not to say it's not polished or glitchy but on a concept level.

It's a classic 2D sidecroller with about 8 levels about 7-8 min average playtime. It has the standard vania sub weapons that you can collect and use with limited resources. You have your dagger, the classic vertical axe throw, bomb and a homing boomerang and thats it. There is nothing original there. 90% of the time you only find daggers and axes and the weapon refills are so plentify I wonder why they even made it a mechanic in the first place. I can understand having the classic archtypes if you wanna be a spiritual successor but create something of your own as well. The game is actually pretty easy. You will not find the classic vania difficulty here. Most everything dies in a single hit and bosses are the only thing that pose a real threat. To make matters worse most of the bosses are too poorly designed and you can simply outpace their damage output from mindless slashing or stand in one spot to avoid most damage all togather. The final boss is the only boss that posed any real challenge and the only one that I thought was above average.

There is no exploration this is a pure sidescroller, so no metroidvania replays or alternate paths nor secrets to discover in the stages. There is a simple shop where you can buy items or health but the game is so easy and has such little options it feels completely unessesary. Even more head scratching are these slot machines in each level to get more gold or items. Feels like an unfinished idea for a bigger game. It makes no sense here. The worst of all though is the spirit helper mechanic. You can unlock a spirit that helps as you play the game. Which is a neat idea to add functionality to the game but the problem is that there is only two of them the entire game and they only serve a single gimmick function. One for clearing blocks and one for grapple hooking fixed jump gaps. Totally worthless mechanic. Would make sense if they served some platforming passive upgrade or make a unique attack or something. There is a small upgrade for your character as you beat each stage and while the first half of the game was quite nice they just got lazier and lazier as the game went on. Another half baked idea. There is no lives system and checkpoints are plenty. Die on a boss you can infinitely try again. I think a larger emphasis on story or alt paths and endings would have helped flesh this game out better. This is only a intro and ending scene and they are quite genaric.

After beating the game once you unlock another playable character, boss rush and a speed run mode. While nice does feel like rather light and standard. Lords of Exile looks nice and sounds good so it might catch your attention but after playing a couple of stages quickly loses it's shine. Worth it for a single playthrough if you can get it cheap cause it's easily beaten in a single sitting.

It’s clear where Lords of Exile got its inspiration from. Still, the game has some little touches of its own and its challenge is very interestingly balanced. You get 8 stages with bosses at the end and often mini-bosses in between. You also unlock speed run, boss rush and a second playable character after completing the game. You mostly try to beat enemies and stay alive because there are death pits and if you get hit by enemies, you can easily fall to your death. You have some traps, jumping, climbing, gambling, 2 shadow skills and 1 upgrade after every boss. Now most of it sounds basic and perhaps boring but the way they’re done can be a bit different sometimes. Jumping is unique in that you only execute a double jump when you’re about to fall instead of instant the moment you make your first jump. There are some horizontal and vertical climbing sections where you also need to be careful not falling to your death. The 2 shadow skills are mostly used for platforming. One breaks blocks to get through a level and the other is kind of a hook that brings you to the other side. Upgrades are stat increases mostly like stronger attacks, more ammo with the throw weapons but also how you get double jump. Gambling is pretty much a slot machine where you pay money to win prizes like more money etc. There are shops in the stages where you get three random items you can buy like more health, throw weapons and shield.

So let’s start with the good stuff. The graphics look charming with the retro style. The stages are pretty varied, there are a decent variety of enemies, all the bosses are unique (& awesome) and there is even a lot of effort put into some of the mini-bosses. With some of them I thought they were bosses at first because they look so cool and intimidating. The game has some Asian style setting and you can see this with some of the Japanese kanji used correctly in certain spots. It’s a nice touch. The music sounds wonderful and always keeps me energised. Playing with the second character, Lyria, is fantastic. She’s so nimble and has long ranged attacks by default. It was a great reward unlocking her after completing the game. Remember me bringing up death pits and the game’s unique challenge? The game is pretty challenging and you will die BUT, the game has frequent checkpoints. So you don’t have to retry big sections often. Same before every boss. This is a great decision since you get some challenge but you’re also given the opportunity to learn and not repeat sections too often. You’re still incentivised with playing good in order to not die but the fun is not taken out of the game by punishing you too much. The achievements are also excellent. They’re fun and there is a decent challenge with no damage boss rush, but they’re all doable with a bit of practice. It took me over 10 hours to get them all.

Now on to the not so good stuff. Gambling honestly feels pointless aside from the 2 achievements attached to it. You have enough money, drops and shops that you can easily ignore it. And that’s fine to be honest. I prefer having them all instead of being forced to gamble. The 2 shadow skills also feel basic, they don’t really add much to the platforming. There is one bug with boss rush but you can get around it until a patch is released. Double jump is okay for the most part but it can be clumsy with boss fights. It might appear that it doesn’t register sometimes, it’s just very strict. But hey, I guess this was also part of the challenge.

I had lots of fun playing LoE. It might not be super original but it was entertaining and scratched that itch. I appreciate how your time is respected with checkpoints and fair achievements. I paid €11 and think it’s worth it.

Lords of Exile es un magnífico título de acción y plataformas con un marcado estilo retro de 8 bits de NES. Imprescindible para los amantes de los juegos del pasado y los píxeles como puños, muy recomendable para los jugadores sedientos de aventuras y de acción directa tipo arcade, una oportunidad para los más jóvenes de conocer como era los buenos juegos del pasado. Quizás no sea para todo tipo de jugadores, pero para los que somos objetivos de este género es obligatorio.

La historia es la clásica del "héroe caído en desgracia busca venganza", simple pero efectiva. Su jugabilidad es divertida y te hace disfrutar sin ser excesivamente desafiante, y los combate con los jefes finales hacen que merezca la pena morir una y otra vez para conseguir superarlos. Si Lords of Exile hace todo bien en un apartado, es en el artístico, ya que su pixel art es una maravilla y su banda sonora una obra maestra que ponerse en bucle si quieres ir a vivir una aventura en contra del mal o a dar un paseo por el campo, tu eliges, pero escúchala y de paso prueba el juego, que seguro que no te arrepientes.

Leer análisis completo en Retro & Pixel Press: https://retropixelpress.blogspot.com/2024/02/analisis-de-lords-of-exile.html