This one has to be the most herky jerky, broken game I've ever played, and it's actually pretty fun. Also, it obviously plays like a VR title, but it's not. Like I played Neon White, Super Hot, and when a game convinces me that medieval parkour is cool, how can I not?
I don't know if people play this for the leaderboard or score, there's no perfect way to play this, anything can go wrong. From chain grabbing ledges, catching ropes, to even simple stuff like sliding under a blockage. Like, it wants to be simple, easy, and accessible, and the challenges are more annoying than actually challenging. Still has the good stuff to look over those.
But like how cool is the stuff here? It's hard not to get into them, I like that it's like a quick brawler as well as a platformer. Pretty minimalist art style, and environment design, combat feels addictive I know that, so does the parkour when you're pulling it all combined.
So your knights prepare for a siege, but it's just one big knight who quickly dispatches all of you after blowing the door wide open. You just with a small opportunity managed to sever his arm, which he got impressed with, and decided to drag your carcass to his own hell.
Yeah, this game starts off pretty crazy. Slowly also learning the ropes, getting a little cozy with the music, maybe the game will open a bottle of champagne, and open up a bit, adding a little backstory. Nope, it's his shadows constantly talking down on me, losing my balance, fumbling about. I fell off, often times for clumsy reasons, but I was starting to figure it all out.
With WASD, and mouse, I had to familiarize myself with the button prompts, everything does happen quick. There's the option to freeze time for focus, but some maniac thought input Z would be the wise choice (clearly wasn't). Ringers on wall for extra, both for climbing and wall running.
The shining ringer for grappling hook is where things get excited. It takes me to the next area with such heightened verticality, separated through intense traveling and falling before resetting back. Now, falling doesn't mean it's a bad thing entirely, unless the score grade reached S, which will downgrade to an A sadly. Also, combat factors into the score.
Got no weapons, just kick or slide kick, then press shift to grab a nearby one. It's simple to kill them unless you're surrounded by bugs. Actually, for this I would suggest using headphones, I didn't try moving too fast to avoid motion sickness, but noise is important, and it helps to avoid damage, as well as faster clearance. Even better, right at the end of each level, the game shows my score, and then tells me all the new move I've found, that's also encouraging.
Things evolve, it goes from swinging, bouncing, jumping, and running up finding the right path to breaking even wooden surfaces so that enemies would fall down, groups of them even. Just from an hour of goofing around, and getting my butt handed, I slowly became the maestro.
There's still a bit of a learning curve, especially if it involves something like roadblocks which I need to jump, and stomp with a sword to get through as some red ball only makes squishy noises, insulting me till it goes away. But it does comeback in a few seconds. Ok, who designed this damn thing? I wanted to even get an item, yet this contraption wouldn't budge.
What makes the parkour, and combat resonate so well, are the options there. There are multiple paths, even if others are tricky. Spikes on the wall, with a well positioned and timed kick, will easily eliminate anyone. Including the damn spiders. I hate those things, they got everywhere so fast, and some don't die from fall easily. Even with enemies that can parry attacks upfront.
I stopped feeling bad about playing terribly, and started to experiment wherever I could. Hell, for montage reasons, it seems heck more fun. I even noticed things like the indicators below, if understood, even more useful. Learning more of its concepts in gameplay.
This isn't an entirely unique games, like run and gun action types have existed for a while now. But I like how it is trying to differentiate itself. The great thing about Indie games are that it's developers experiment quite a bit. Trying new things as well.
I don't believe it is that derivative, honestly putting more work, this could have been something else, entirely. It also has hours of content to grind through, and things increasingly gets more challenging. Newer weapons including a bow show up, and from what I've seen in the trailer, I'll be facing even spinning blades, shooting arrows with bombs at multiple targets.
It lacks polish, better tutorial to familiarize oneself, and maybe add a little more story here and there. I get the teases, and small tidbits, but ah, you got to give something, a reason why I'm doing all this. I also went into one area after trying so hard to platform, then find out it has nothing. That kills it too, parts of the area feeling like it was just left there or unfinished.
Enjoyable game with destructible environment. Cost like 17 USD. Then again, should be less, games out there of this type do so much more, covering more grounds in terms of content, and gameplay. Not saying it gets old fast, hardcore players will really get to enjoy this one, that I can tell.
