Shattered Tale of the Forgotten King Review

[Michael {United Critics}]

This review was made based on my experience playing on a Ryzen 5 3600, 16GBs of ram and a GTX 1650, be mindful that my experience can differ from yours depending on the hardware.

Shattered - Tale of the Forgotten King (STotFK) is an open world-ish RPG that is heavily inspired by the souls-like games made by Fromsoftware. Like any souls-like game, this game has a dense and obtuse story and lore that makes it really hard to describe what is happening in the game and even less why it is happening… But basically you are inside a simulation and you have to kill bosses because reasons… If you want to know what this game’s story is, look for a video about it, because frankly I didn’t understand it well.

In order to save you time reading this review I would like to mention that his game is an ambitious indie game made by a studio of around 10 people and it is really janky. If you are allergic to jank, this game is not for you.

Questions you might have if you're interested in playing it:

• What is it exactly that you do in the game?
  
  Like most games inspired by the Dark Souls saga: you explore dangerous dungeons, fight hard trash enemies and bosses, find cool secrets, go back to your base to level up and improve your gear. There is also the “if you die you drop all your currency”, “all enemies respawn after dying or resting at a bonfire” and “limited healing items” mechanics.
  
  STotFK offers very simple platforming and combat mechanics that are really not worth explaining. If you ever played any 3D platformer or souls-like game in the last 10 years you will be very familiar with them.
  
  
• Will it make my eyes bleed?
  
  I love this game’s art style, everything is screenshot material. Just be aware that STotFK uses low-poly models and if you are looking for “visual fidelity” this game offers none. I think this game is practically visually perfect: from the very simple but good looking character models, to the stylish and very expressive 2D sprites that are used to represent characters in cut scenes and the stunningly beautiful levels with great lighting and impossibly beautiful architecture… Everything is a pleasure to look at.
  
  
• Does it have a good story?
  
  I don’t think this applies for this genre of games. STotFK is a bit different from the norm and gives you walls of text to flesh out the work, but most of it is cryptic and written to be vague or open to interpretation. All I can say is that I liked the setting, but as for “story” I don’t feel qualified to say if it is good or not.
  
  
• Does it have a good soundtrack?
  
  It’s rather boring, not bad, just extremely bland. When you are exploring, the OST does its work and gives you something to listen to. But when the OST requires to give you an emotional vibe, it falls flat. I don’t know how to describe it… Imagine you are eating an ice cream made of only water, it has weight and texture, but it doesn’t have any flavor.
  
  
• Does it have replay value?
  
  There are a couple of optional bosses, lots of optional areas and tons of items to collect. I won’t say that it has “plenty” but if you like the game and want to get the most of it, there is enough to keep you busy.
  
  
• Does it run well?
  
  Most of the time STotFK runs “fine”, you know 60 FPS 1080p max settings. But the game’s open world bits ran at 30 FPS despite me lowering the video settings and resolution. Plus, there are several glitches and this game loves to crash after launch.
  
  
  
• Is it fun?
  
  For the most part, yes. This game loves to shake ups things with 2.5D platforming, traditional 3D souls-like action. For me it is sufficient to make this game feel interesting enough to keep progressing but I have to admit that sometimes this game gets frustrating and unfair.

So what is Shattered - Tale of the Forgotten King?

It’s what happens when you really want to make a Souls-like game and innovate over the base of the genre but you are a small indie studio without a big publisher to back you up.

I think by now you are really curious on how this game is “open world-like” but not just a regular open world. It’s simple, the game’s hub level is a huge and empty area in the middle of the map that you have to explore in order to find the doors that lead to the small and well-designed dungeons that are inspired by Dark Souls. All that I can say about the open world level is that it’s bland, large, boring and poorly optimized, but the dungeons are by far the best part of STotFK. It’s a joy to explore them, they have multiple sweet secrets that reward exploration. Furthermore, you can break the level design with the jumping mechanics if you are clever. I'm not sure if it is intended, but this is something that I really enjoyed.

Something that you have to know is how kind of broken the IA, path finding and sometimes the game’s NavMesh are. Enemies bug out and sometimes disappear to never be seen again, get stuck in this game’s clutter or sometimes in a place where they can’t hit you but you can hit them.

I already mentioned how you can break the exploration with jumping, but be aware that you can break combat with jumping too. Most of the enemies’ attacks don’t deal damage if you are not at the same height level as them. but you can damage them. Even when SToftFK’s combat is already too easy and doesn’t require much to exploit it, this trivializes most of the encounters.

The combat is not really deep or fun, you have a light attack, a heavy attack, if you hold the input on those you have a more powerful variation and a parry. All of these mechanics have some jank attached to it, the parries sometimes don’t register but what bothers me the most is how janky and unresponsive the attacks are. It's hard to describe but it feels too slow and weightless at the same time. It’s not all bad, but I never managed to enjoy how this game’s combat feels, maybe it’s something related to the fact that I have played way too many Dark Souls and Elden Ring, but STotFK’s combat doesn’t feel right to me.

Things that I like about this game:

• Amazing visuals
  
  
• Amazing level design.
  
  
• Awesome atmosphere.
  
  
• It’s a cinematic experience.
  
  
• This game is sometimes unintentionally hilarious.
  
  
• Platforming is fun.
  

Things that I dislike about this game:

• A general feeling of jank over pretty much all of this game’s aspects.
  
  
• The AI is kind of dumb.
  
  
• The sound design feels lacking.
  
  
• It’s a game way too easy to break and exploit.
  
  
• This game is mostly well optimized, but when the game chugs, it really chugs.
  
  
• All the weapons are the same sword but with different colors and different stats.
  
  
• Some mechanics are way too obtuse for my taste, even for souls-like standards.

Is this game worth my hard earned money?

For most players: no… But if you are the kind of person that wants a different flavor of a “Souls-like” game, doesn't mind jank and all the shortcomings that I mentioned in this review… if you find it on sale, it’s an interesting, beautiful and fun-ish experience.

Rating: 6/10
Fun but very janky

Reviewer: Nova