Recent reviews by Graxur

Post Reply Edit:
After knowing the development start time and end results, I think the devs could do with some support as the they came up with is proven to be good, but end result could be improved a significant amount. And sorry for assuming rip-off as the games really are too similar.

Good luck on your improvements or next game attempts!

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I don't usually write reviews and I don't dislike many games but there are some things that need to be made clear with this one.

TL;DR buy Dead Cells instead if you haven't and keep away from this rip-off.

Going into this game, I was expecting to see a Dead Cells type of rogue-like platformer with maybe some interesting mechanics, a different take on the genre for some change, and some fast-paced gameplay with some hard decisions to make about which items to keep and which ones to leave behind.

What I found was nothing of the above except the "a Dead Cells type of rougue-like platformer", and to an extent that made me feel irritated. I've seen and played enough games to tell the difference between inspiration, clone and rip-off in my opinion, and sadly I have to mark this one as a rip-off.

PROs:

• Item swapping for on-the-run customization
  
• A town system that could allow for relatively easy implementation of future improvements
  
• Feels responsive at times
  
• Creates high hopes and some thrill during the first 15-ish minutes of gameplay

CONs:

• Feels clunky most of the time
  
• Too repetitive (I understand this is a rouge-like and should be repetitive but I'm talking about seeing very little addition to variety through levels and you deal with all the creatures in the same manner)
  
• Damage all the way to one-shot everything makes creature mechanics meaningless for the most part
  
• No i-frame on roll means you must dodge by getting out of the way, precision in timing isn't rewarded at all

Now lets go back to the "Dead Cells rip-off" part of things as without that I'd be willing to spare the comment and go about my day thinking "another unpolished game that could have been so much more". Zombies with short range horizontal attack, check. Archers with exact same animation, pretty much the same model and exact same attack, check. Prison guard with pretty much no mechanics and basically no additional threat compared to a zombie that losing more health if hit, check. Textures that make you feel like you're playing the first level or the Ossuary over and over again, check. Chest that give you some extra rewards for exploring the map, but don't really provide a feeling of achievement, check. Elite creatures with a star above their heads that you laugh at because they have no additional mechanics, check.

I can continue with the list but I believe this should be enough to make and prove my point. It's very easy to find all the similarities with Dead Cells, and just as easy to see how they haven't even been implemented on a comparable level. And to give an idea about progression, I died twice, which actually makes me feel very bad right now, and that was enough experience to let me reach the first boss without any issues. One item drop with high damage is enough to one- or two-shot pretty much all enemies. Then came a boss, who kept on running at me in a straight line and swinging a dagger to deal some considerable amount of damage. At around 50% health mark, she became "invisable", started swinging her daggers while still running at me in a straight line to deal what I assume is some more damage than before. That was the point I gave up on the game, died to see how much gold I would lose, closed the game and came here.

If you don't think this is review is fair, please do comment on the things that I've missed because I'd love to see the game in a different light and get some fun out of it, but until than I've safely marked this game as "shouldn't be supported" for myself.

I can see that some thought has been put in for the game, I understand the dev had some inspiration from Dead Cells, but what I don't understand in making a game that can be best described as a cheap copy of Dead Cells, making it worse in all possible aspects and not even trying to hide the fact that it's a Dead Cells rip-off.

Even after all this, I feel like I should add some positivity assuming the devs want to make this game into what they initially envisioned, as it feels like it's been intended as something more but was released like it currently is due to lack of money, experience or whatever else it may be.

Points to improve on:

• Movement isn't too bad, but the platform edges causes weird stuff to happen when approched from certain angles, or when trying to do a "last pixel" jump. Feels buggy, should be "fixed".
  
• Dodge has very little purposed besides moving faster when you have to travel the whole map with nothing to fight on the way, and ducking below horizontal projectiles. Adding an i-frame to dodge to make timing more rewarding is a decent and proven method, but with the level of enemy complexity it would break the game.
  
• Enemies feel like they all have same movement speed, most of them run to the character in a straight line at constant speed and start attacking as soon as they are in range. Some variety in enemy movement or attack patterns would make the game more rewarding.
  
• Jump attacks hit multiple times with each hit dealing a comparably low amount of damage for a potentially higher DPS. The animation lock during the attack on the other hand, makes sure you will get hit in return unless you kill the enemy straight away. Result, player gets punished for using jump attacks, in pretty much all scenarios that seems like it would be a good time to use it.
  
• Graphics can be improved, sometimes it's quite hard to distinguish background from walls and platforms. Could be a personal issue but having to move closer to the monitor to better distinguish textures is quite bad in multiple aspect with health being the major one.