Developer: Tribute Games Inc.
Publisher: Tribute Games Inc.
Rrp: £6.99 (Steam) and £7.99 (Humblebundle)
Released: 18th August 2015
Available on: Steam and Humblebundle
Played Using: An Xbox 360 Control pad
The Wizard King rules this land with an iron fist and the common folk tremble at the mere mention of his name. No one stands against him and his army of monsters, well no one except the two bravest fighters of the land, Lea and Leo. Of course the Wizard King doesn’t take kindly to opposition no matter how meagre and has cursed the pair with the shadow of death. Now no matter where the pair run Death itself is always close behind them. Thankfully there is a way to shake off this curse, but its going to mean punching a lot of monsters, luckily that’s what Lea and Leo do best.
So what is Curse n’ Chaos?
Well it falls quite soundly into the category of arena brawler, even though it does have a few extra parts. But before I go into the nitty gritty of the game I feel I should make a special mention to the level of detail that has been put into the overall aesthetic. Much of this gave is designed to bring a sense of nostalgia, especially the slightly green colouration that brings back memories of my old Nintendo Gameboy. This attention to detail also goes into the sound design, the little sounds that the items make keep that nostalgic feeling going and it has to be said the music for this game is great. Extremely catchy, to the point where I have found myself humming it without realising.
The most important part of any brawler (arena or no) is the combat. The controls are a bit on the stiff side with moves locking you into place once you’ve decided to commit them. When you take into account the number of enemies that can be on screen at once (which is a hell of a lot) you quickly find that there is no way you can avoid taking a hit. To be certain that it wasn’t just my own ineptitude that was causing this I let a friend of mine try the game out and he seemed to find the same thing.
Somewhat mitigating this flaw is the fact that your attacks affect all creatures that are in an area, meaning you can defeat several enemies at once with a single hit if timed correctly. This can be especially potent if that attack happens to be one of the several that causes double damage, such as the jump kick or uppercut.
At the start of each wave a timer starts to tick down from sixty seconds. If you run out of time Death appears and begins to pursue you. If you have the misfortune to be hit by one of Deaths attacks you lose a life, regardless of how much health you have. Thankfully, upon defeating the last enemy on screen, Death disappears and the timer gets reset.
You’ll have to defeat ten waves and a boss battle before the next level becomes available to you to play, and yes, even the boss battles have the timer.
It has to be said though, the variety of enemy types is impressive. I only ever managed to get to level two and I count no less than twelve enemy types to deal with, not including the bosses, each with their own attack patterns for you to learn.
In manner somewhat similar to Devil Daggers, the enemies have a set pawn pattern. This means over time you, the player, learn to anticipate when an enemy will appear.
The more enemies you kill without taking damage the higher your combo chain will be (which is just called the ‘chain’) and the higher your chain is the better the drops your enemies produce, including the coins. If you suffer any damage the chain disappears, which is to be expected.
Items are a large portionof the game, and as was mentioned previously, the greater your chain, the better the item to drop. Your character can only carry item at a time, however, you do have a helpful owl, named Owly who can stash a single item for you to be able to recall later.
Defeated enemies don’t only drop items though, in fact most of the time they tend to drop coins. These coins can be used to buy items which you can take with you into battle.
You can also mix items together to attempt to unlock higher level items without discovering them through getting a high combo chain. This can be done in the mixing section that is found on the main menu.
This game loves to swarm you with enemies. Obviously the aim of the game is to manage how many are on screen at once but it’s very easy to find yourself inundated especially since enemies tend to appear in groups. I’m sure that the difficulty of this game would be mitigated by having a second player involved, but playing in single player it’s downright gruelling. For me I found that it was hard to tell if I completed a wave through skill or luck.
There aren’t many arena brawlers out there, actually… correction, there aren’t many good arena brawlers. So the question is, where does Curses n’ Chaos fall?
For me I found this game to be good as a quick distraction but I certainly don’t have the patience, or skill for that matter, to really stick with it. I think its the way the controls respond that puts me off most, I dislike feeling like I’m damned regardless of my choices.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Devil Daggers
Kung Fury
Towerfall Ascention
