This review contains spoilers
It's a fun game, but it's too easy to trivialize it and kind of ruin it for yourself. Use a melee build if you want it to feel more satisfying. Definitely does not compare to King's Field/Shadow Tower/etc games.
The levels are all relatively enjoyable to explore for me, the music is very hit and miss, some things sound pretty okay, others sound pretty dire, I guess that's subjective, but some of it just sounds so ill-fitting and amateurish relative to other tracks. The ballroom track made me laugh because it sounds so dire.
I actually don't really get why people cite King's Field and Shadow Tower so much when talking about this game, it plays nothing like either game, this just plays like a unity game feeling like a cheap imitation at best, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it still plays fine and feels fun, but it's not as rewarding as either of those games and many things like the combat feel far less impactful or tense. I think if you played King's Field/Shadow Tower for like 2 hours, or watched a YouTube video/generic video essays, you'd feel it's more strongly related to these games. It's just too watered down in many aspects to feel close to those games. This game feels like its own thing, so it's unfortunate it's bogged down in this comparisons.
I just don't feel like I am going through a giant interconnected world like I do with a King's Field game, where I can often end up lost, the areas here are easy to memorize and navigate through effortlessly. But, like I said above, they are still enjoyable to go through.
The enemy designs are really varied and interesting as well, though, none are really all that interesting to fight. Oftentimes when you backtrack for secrets (the secrets are usually pretty cool!) they just feel like tiresome cannon fodder.
Some of the secrets feel a little dumb though, like standing in 1 spot and staring at a specific thing for X amount of time. What's the point other than to have it be a secret club thing/something you have to look up? Just pointless and dissatisfying to me. Specifically on the wiki at the current time, it reads,
"The player must stand near the corner of the nearest bookshelf and stare through the loop for a solid 15 seconds or so, and then a message will appear at the bottom left of the screen saying "UWU", giving the player the weapon."
I get it's intended to be a fun, cute thing, but it just feels corny/childish. Maybe I am too old and bitter in all fairness? It's hard for me to say...
Overall, it's a fun game, but compared to other games that the game is supposedly imitating, I think it does a bad job at imitation and misses the mark on what makes those games special and why they possess passionate fans nearly 3 decades later.
I could ramble about minor gripes too like how I think it's dissatisfying the pool of weapons that can be upgraded at the smith is pretty small, but these are just minor nitpicks that probably don't bother a lot of people. I could also be extra petty and say how certain things feel like they're trying to appeal to a tumblr/internet-addicted teen audience, but it's never shoehorned in enough to detract from the game much.
Really this just feel like a solid, fun, adventure bogged down by some mediocre elements and trivial challenge. It doesn't really hold up to the classics, but there's nothing wrong with that. Great, accessible entry point for people that might be curious if they'd like these kinds of games and to see what they're all about, or people that struggle with older style games.
The levels are all relatively enjoyable to explore for me, the music is very hit and miss, some things sound pretty okay, others sound pretty dire, I guess that's subjective, but some of it just sounds so ill-fitting and amateurish relative to other tracks. The ballroom track made me laugh because it sounds so dire.
I actually don't really get why people cite King's Field and Shadow Tower so much when talking about this game, it plays nothing like either game, this just plays like a unity game feeling like a cheap imitation at best, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it still plays fine and feels fun, but it's not as rewarding as either of those games and many things like the combat feel far less impactful or tense. I think if you played King's Field/Shadow Tower for like 2 hours, or watched a YouTube video/generic video essays, you'd feel it's more strongly related to these games. It's just too watered down in many aspects to feel close to those games. This game feels like its own thing, so it's unfortunate it's bogged down in this comparisons.
I just don't feel like I am going through a giant interconnected world like I do with a King's Field game, where I can often end up lost, the areas here are easy to memorize and navigate through effortlessly. But, like I said above, they are still enjoyable to go through.
The enemy designs are really varied and interesting as well, though, none are really all that interesting to fight. Oftentimes when you backtrack for secrets (the secrets are usually pretty cool!) they just feel like tiresome cannon fodder.
Some of the secrets feel a little dumb though, like standing in 1 spot and staring at a specific thing for X amount of time. What's the point other than to have it be a secret club thing/something you have to look up? Just pointless and dissatisfying to me. Specifically on the wiki at the current time, it reads,
"The player must stand near the corner of the nearest bookshelf and stare through the loop for a solid 15 seconds or so, and then a message will appear at the bottom left of the screen saying "UWU", giving the player the weapon."
I get it's intended to be a fun, cute thing, but it just feels corny/childish. Maybe I am too old and bitter in all fairness? It's hard for me to say...
Overall, it's a fun game, but compared to other games that the game is supposedly imitating, I think it does a bad job at imitation and misses the mark on what makes those games special and why they possess passionate fans nearly 3 decades later.
I could ramble about minor gripes too like how I think it's dissatisfying the pool of weapons that can be upgraded at the smith is pretty small, but these are just minor nitpicks that probably don't bother a lot of people. I could also be extra petty and say how certain things feel like they're trying to appeal to a tumblr/internet-addicted teen audience, but it's never shoehorned in enough to detract from the game much.
Really this just feel like a solid, fun, adventure bogged down by some mediocre elements and trivial challenge. It doesn't really hold up to the classics, but there's nothing wrong with that. Great, accessible entry point for people that might be curious if they'd like these kinds of games and to see what they're all about, or people that struggle with older style games.