It's good! It's not great, it's not bad, it's good. For a $5 micro soulslike you can beat in an hour and change, it's as good as it could reasonably be. Like a lot of Sokpop's other titles, White Lavender is carried somewhat by its artstyle but this go-around it isn't doing all the heavy lifting.

White Lavender, as such a small game, is begging the player to bust it apart. It doesn't have time for a meticulously planned build or incremental upgrades. Stats come hard and fast, with stupendously generous scaling. A Might build made bosses melt near instantly, especially when I discovered you can animation cancel your heavy attack into 2(!) light ones. I doubt this sort of glass cannon approach was fully intentional, but it made even basic enemies rather harrowing at times. It lacks the eccentricities and mechanical je n'est ce quoi of an actual Souls title, but it satisfies a craving without committing oneself to the dozens of hours of a FromSoftware work. And it was good enough to warrant a second playthrough to get its speedrun achievement, that's gotta count for something.



Also there's a Big Hat Logan bug who wields, yes, a comically large spoon. And your boots look like they belong in RuneScape. There's a cotton swab weapon.

Cute!!!