Developer: Thunder Lotus Games
Publisher: Thunder Lotus Games
Rrp: £14.99 (Steam, Gog.com and Humblebundle)
Released: 28th July 2017
Available on: Steam, Gog.com and Humblebundle
Played Using: An Xbox 360 Control Pad
Approximate game length: 20 Hours
Long ago a war raged between the technologically advanced Valkyries and the eldritch works of the ancient Eschaton. The conflict brought forth horrors and
marvels the likes the world had never seen until one day both civilizations finally destroyed each other. Ages have past since, the rusting hulks of ships and twisted spires of stone pierce the desert sands, a reminder long since forgotten. It is here, in this harsh desert that we find Eshe traversing the wastes for reasons that are unknown to us.
From the creators of Jotun comes a metroidvania inspired by the writings of H.P Lovecraft (with some sci-fi thrown in for good measure). You play as a female wanderer named Eshe, who gets stuck in the caverns below a desert, a strangely lush and verdant cavern all things considered.
For the sake of full disclosure I was one of the Kickstarter backers for this game.
Just like with their previous game Jotun Thunder Lotus have once again opted to use hand drawn art and animation. The artistry of which is stunning and somewhat horrifying in some cases. If there is a flaw with this art style its that sadly you can’t really take it in as you’re usually fighting for your life. Actually that’s a problem overall, you don’t get time to appreciate the surroundings because of the frantic nature of the combat and the insane frequency enemies often appear at.
If you’re expecting a in-depth fighting system I’m afraid you’ll be sorely disappointed. All attacks (bar a long range attack unlocked later) are handled using a single button. That being said it’s a perfectly serviceable system and pressing the attack button repeatedly makes Eshe perform a combo attack ending in a heavy strike. Of course attacking isn’t the only part of combat, you have a dodge roll as well which, when used, makes you invulnerable for the time you are in the aforementioned roll. Of course, you can’t just spam the dodge roll over and over, each time you use it it uses up energy, and once your out you’ll have to wait for it to regenerate.
When you die you return to the Sanctuary, where you can spend your… um, actually they never give the currency a name, I guess I’ll call them ‘pieces’… Anyway, when you return to the Sanctuary you can spend these pieces on ability
improvements. These pieces are generally dropped by defeated enemies and destroyed objects in the world, how many pieces and how often they drop is influenced by the luck stat (which you can improve in the Sanctuary).With each purchase of an ability improvement the price of the others that are available goes up.
You gain new abilities at shrines, once you attain an elder shard you can chose to corrupt your ability which makes it much more powerful. However, if you resist you gain some extra abilities that usually help you in a more passive
manner. What I like about this choice is that it isn’t presented as a simple binary moral choice like you would get in most games. Resisting isn’t as simple as just pressing X. If you want to resist you have to find the right room in order to do so, same goes with embracing, although that’s a lot more sign posted.
The world is procedurally generated from a stock set of rooms that fit together like jigsaw pieces. Though the rooms are procedurally generated certain special
rooms will persist throughout your playthrough allowing you to use them as navigation points.
As you’re running and jumping past the obstacles in the levels you will periodically hear a horn or gong sound. That noise is your warning that a wave of enemies will be attacking you imminently. Unfortunately whether you’re dealing with a scant few or a horde is entirely up to chance. While I like this idea, it actually reminds me of what Valve termed ‘The director’ in their game Left 4 Dead, I feel that these waves occur far too frequently and the enemies become a annoyance after a while.
It also annoys me that your enemies ignore environmental damage… actually scratch that some of them (quite a few actually) just ignore the environment all
together, floating through solid walls without a care.
Some of the bosses are so massive that when the camera zooms out to show you them your character looks tiny in comparison. Unfortunately this can mean that
your character can get a lost among all the noise, especially with bosses that summon smaller enemies.
This is a game which embraces the mentality of getting back up and trying again. Each time you go back out into the world you’re a little stronger and hopefully wiser than you were before. The fact that perseverance in the face of adversity requirement to progress makes this game very easy to compare to the souls-borne games. That’s about the only similarity this game has though, for example, when you die you keep all the pieces you have collected. For me though this is actually a bit of a problem. It makes progress a bit too easy, it’s not that I want to have to go back and find all my pieces in the world again but some kind of penalty would make the game feel more challenging.
I hate to say this but while I do think this game is good there are cheaper and better products out there, Guacamelee being the first one I can bring to mind. That being said, this is by no means a bad game and I had a lot of fun playing it, but if I had to make a choice between the two games I know which I’d pick.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Guacamelee
Dead Cells
Salt and Sanctuary
