HIGH The payoff of the ‘rare scrap collector’ storyline.

LOW Locking quests by accidentally moving the plot forward.

WTF So we’re just not going to explain the zombie robots?

In an age of bloated development and enormous open-world maps, I can’t remember the last time I got to the end of a game and found myself thinking wait… is that all there is? So, if nothing else, at least Robots at Midnight found an exciting new way to disappoint.

I’m being glib, of course. As a 3D action-adventure with Souls-inspired combat, there’s plenty to like about Robots at Midnight. However, the further I got into the experience, the more I found myself thinking that this couldn’t possibly be the whole game that the developers set out to make.

Set in the distant future after all life on earth has been wiped out by some kind of an electrical event, the player controls a teenage girl who was thrown into twenty years of stasis to protect her from rogue bots. She’s now awake and has a chance to explore the rusted-out and overgrown remains of an extremely small section of the world’s surface. There are only four distinct areas in the adventure, with each one featuring the same basic threats as the one before it.

As with most titles that broadly fit into the soulslike format – explore a wrecked location, kill enemies with mostly melee combat, reset monsters at campfires – there’s not much content here other than combat, and it’s extremely simple combat at that. Robots at Midnight‘s fighting involves locking onto enemies and using basic combos, then blocking when enemies attack or parrying to stagger them and set them up for a vicious counterattack. There’s an arsenal of weapons, but they don’t have major differences — just variations in damage, attack speed, and stamina usage while performing the same set of attacks.

Over the course of the adventure, the player can unlock three special techniques that offer concrete combat advantages. The first is a super punch that interrupts any enemy attack, ragdolling even bosses. The second is a laser blast that’s perfect for wiping out groups of foes, and the last is a ‘super-parry’ with timing so fiddly that I rolled credits before getting the hang of it — although Robots at Midnight‘s extremely brief running time was a factor in that.

To the game’s credit, it has some genuinely interesting creature design. All of the killer robots have seen better days — decades without humans to run the factories that make their parts have left them struggling to cobble together whatever repairs they can. These robots don’t fight with high-tech energy blades, they stumble around with nailbats and clubs built from bundles of rebar they’ve crudely welded together. The fact that the enemies are barely holding it together reinforces that this is a world on the edge of collapse. This precarity is only heightened by the titular midnight. It’s not just what comes after 11:59 PM, it’s also when a horrible beam of red energy sweeps across the planet and gremlins reanimate all of the robot corpses, turning them into mindless killing machines – moreso than they already were, anyway.

Which brings me to the most frustrating part of the experience – just how underexplained the story is.

There are a lot of strange elements here – the aforementioned zombie robots, a robot cult that worships the light beam, a leather-clad robot who ultimately serves as the main villain… even for a Souls-inspired game, Robots at Midnight does a terrible job of explaining any of these pieces. The main character is very interested in figuring out what’s going on the in world – she just never has the chance to do so.

Robots at Midnight is promising, and if this were an Early Access title, I’d be excited to see where it’s going. The combat is solid (if basic) the art style offers a cartoony take on a world post-collapse, and the mechanics of exploration were satisfying from moment to moment. Still, the whole thing feels like an idea for a game, as what was in front of me for review felt miles away from being a full, complete experience.

Rating: 5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Finish Line games and published by Snail Games USA. It currently available on PC/PS5/XBS-X. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 10 hours of play was devoted to the single-player mode. The game was completed. The game contains no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game was rated T by the ESRB, features Violence. There’s constant human-on-robot violence and the game is set in a post-apocalypse, but there’s noting particularly traumatic about it. After all, it’s not like the player is ever introduced to any of the billions of people who were presumably killed offscreen. It’s fine for even younger teens to play.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: I played almost the entire game without sound and encountered zero difficulties. All information is provided via text, which cannot be resized. The game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, the game’s controls are not remappable.

The post Robots At Midnight Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

This is a transcript excerpt covering the score awarded to the Lies of P: Overture DLC on the So Videogames Podcast, Episode 443. For further coverage leading up to this review, please listen to Episode 442 and Episode 441.

Starting off with the DLC I mentioned last week, and I believe the week before — Lies of P: Overture. This is the expansion to Lies of P, the souls like featuring a theme that is kind of based around a fantastical version of Pinocchio coming to us from Korean developer, I believe their name is Neowiz. I think, the main game. Incredible stuff. I think it’s one of the, one of the only developers, I think, that really can hold their own with from when it comes to like, level design and just general gameplay flow. They’re not reinventing the Dark Souls wheel as other people have done, and which I think is a fine idea.

I certainly don’t think every game in the souls like genre has to be like Dark Souls. but neo is are clearly fans and lies of P. The base game is a pretty fantastic experience. It can be difficult, although I will say that this new DLC has included difficulty levels so it can be done. It can be done in souls like everybody pay attention. There’s easy, medium and hard and they work. They do not break the game. They do not, make things terrible. It takes the experience away from no one. the hard level is fucking hard. The medium level still pretty challenging. The easy level. It’s not a cakewalk, folks. It’s still difficult, but it is significantly easier than the hard level. So hats off, number one. Just right out of the gate. Hats off to neo is for adding goddamn difficulty levels. I know that all the get goods like whine and moan and kick and scream and no one wants the difficulty level and the souls like, but neo is proves you can do it and do it properly and successfully. It is great. I love, love, love that there are difficulty levels in this. It’s still a fucking great game. It doesn’t matter what difficulty, it’s still a great game. The mark of a great game, still a great game. Here it is. Okay. That said, okay, so the DLC is a I feel like it’s 15 or 20 hours at least, and it takes the main character P back in time.

So it acts as a prequel of sorts. And I, you know, it’s been a while since I played the base game of Lesa P. I didn’t remember the story beats, I didn’t remember the details. So as I was going through Lies of P: Overture, I was like, I kind of remember this, and I kind of sort of remember this. But when we got to the end of the DLC, it really brought things together and I was really quite impressed. But I’m watching my wife go back through Lesa P now. Quick throwback. If anybody was listening back then or if you know me or I’ve, I’ve talked about this a couple times. My wife was playing the base game of lies and P a while ago when it dropped. And there’s one portion of Lies of P, there’s only one, only one time in the entire game where they take away your bonfires, where you cannot leave the level, you cannot go and level up. You cannot go back and resupply. You just have to make it through the next battle. You have to, otherwise you cannot progress. And my wife got stuck. She was playing the game. She was low on supplies. She was in a bad way. She was actually going back to the hotel, which acts as your hub to respec as she got caught in this trap and she got so frustrated that she quit the game, but she saw me playing it.

She’s like, oh man, I wish I had finished that game. And I’m like, yeah, you had a good time, you should come back to it. So she did. Had to talk her into it a little bit, but I sold her when she knew that there were difficulty levels. And plus we knew where that catch point was. Right. So we knew it was coming. It wasn’t a surprise anymore. So she was well prepared this time. Went into it, blew through that boss like on the second attempt, no problem. And she got past it. Huge weight off her shoulders. I was so proud of her for coming back. And now she’s pushing on into the main game doing the DLC. But I bring this up because as I’m watching the wife go through the story, I’m kind of watching her play the main game again. I was like, oh, right. Like I remember all the characters and I remember all the narrative ties and all of the things. And so it’s making me really appreciate Lies of P much more. I, you know, I, I don’t necessarily advocate for replaying games unless you swing that way. I very rarely replay games, but if you are, or if you haven’t played lines up for a while, or if you’ve never played it it the DLC will make so much more sense and will be so much more meaningful.

If you have recently played through the base game of lies and and your memory is fresh on all the characters and all the plot beats, because the developers really go overboard and in a good way, in a good way. Not a bad way, a good way. On the story in Lies of P: Overture, the story beats are great, and in general I really celebrate lies. because not only do they break the mold by adding a difficulty level, they break the the from soft mold by telling a story that is very easy to follow and easy to understand, and they don’t make it cryptic. I mean, there’s item descriptions to read if you want to, but basically there’s tons of characters all around and they’re like, hey man, here’s what’s happening. And they just fucking tell you. And it works. It works well, the lies of PR world is amazing. It’s really well fleshed out and believable and full of atmosphere. It just proves you do not need to hold back all the information in order to make a compelling experience. Neowise proves you can just straight up tell people what the fuck is going on, and even give them a difficulty setting to, and it’s still a fucking great game. So I love them for breaking the mold that way as well. The story stuff in overture is amazing, especially when you get to the end. I thought it was quite touching and quite sad, and I very rarely feel that way about games in general, and certainly not much about souls likes, but they really lean into the narrative and the characterization, and I really appreciate what they did there.

I’m not going to spoil anything, but it was really well told. There were lots of callbacks to stuff in the main campaign. Lots of characters made a reappearance, lots of like lots of those moments where you’re like, oh, that’s where that dude came from. Or oh, I remember that guy. So that’s how that happened. And you get like a lot of those moments which stitched up together really well, which I think is great. I love it a lot. So the DLC gives you an easy mode, which is great or, you know, difficulty levels. let’s see, what else do they give you? I don’t know, there’s like a lot of stuff. I think that just lines up does really well. Like for example, there’s lots of quality of life touches. They change little things. Like when you have enough experience to gain a level, it changes the display. So you know right away if you can. So you’re not wasting your time going back to your bonfire. They also tell you how many levels you have saved up, in case you don’t want to risk going to the next section, which I think is great. you could find that out already, but having it right there, on the screen just makes it so much easier.

They go above and beyond to make sure you can finish the side quests. Every time you get a new item or a side quest item, an icon appears on the fast travel menu. So let’s say, for example, you’re in whatever level and you get a new item and you’re like, oh, right, this goes to so-and-so back wherever they were. If you go back to the bonfire like you’re about to fast travel, they’ll tell. They straight up tell you they’re like, this is the guy. They show you a little icon of the character, and all the characters in the game have little face icons and you recognize them. So you’re like, oh, it’s the shopkeeper, and he’s over on this street. They tell you literally where to go Exactly. And it just saves you so much fucking time. You don’t have to like YouTube it all the time or look it up. They just are like, here, this is where we want you to go, and you go and fucking do it. And I will say that in terms of level design, they are very conscientious about making these side quests easy to finish, because most of the time the guy or girl or robot or whoever that you need to talk to is very close to the bonfire that you go to. So like, it’s not like you got to like, dig deep in the hinterlands and keep going and like, you’re gonna get on.

It’s like most of the time it’s like, just go to the hotel or go to the street and there’s a guy standing right there. Or like, you go to this room, there’s a guy right there. And I fucking love that. Like, it’s like it doesn’t take away from the game at all. It makes it very easy to fix these, fix these things you need to fix. Solve these problems, help these people out, get these side quests done. It’s great. It’s like a quality of life thing that I think is amazing. I will say that.. What else? They also are really nice about giving you warnings to, like, if you’re about to get into a not in the main game. I think they’ve added this after that happened, I think they probably got some pushback on that. The thing that trapped my wife, I think a lot of people were kind of mad about that. but like now, when I was about to go into the final leg of the game, like, big warning comes up, hey, man, you’re about to go into the final leg. This is the end of the game. Are you sure you want to do this? I appreciate that, don’t trick me. Don’t let me. Don’t let me make a mistake I don’t want to make. So I like that a lot.

so that’s good stuff. They add a bunch of new weapons. The bow, which is the first truly ranged weapon of Liza P, which is amazing. I love the bow. It does not break the game, but it is just so useful and helps out so much. It’s probably why there’s always a ranged weapon in every fucking souls game ever, because sometimes you just need it. They add a boss rush and a boss replay mode. I didn’t mess around with those very much, but they’re there if you want to. overall, I mean, so it’s the same base game of Dark Souls third person combat, really tuned, really tight. I think it works well. Great atmosphere, great story, great character. lots of quality light stuff. It’s really, really good stuff. I’m not perfect, though. It’s not perfect. So I will say a couple of things. really quickly that could be improved. I feel like, For whatever reason, I got backed into corners more often here than I ever did before. Like, I would be rolling around and, you know, dodging, fighting some guy and I would find myself backed into a corner and then the enemies would close in, and then I couldn’t leave the corner and I would just get, like, trapped, you know, corner trapped. And I was stuck. That happened like a notable amount of times. And I don’t know if that’s like level design or it might have something to do with how many of the enemies in Lies of P, especially Overture, are extremely, like, overly aggressive.

I found that to be quite true. And it’s not just my imagination. As I was watching my wife play the game, she was rolling around and dodging guys and getting back stabs pretty easily. And that was all going fine. And then when she got to the DLC, she was not able to do that anymore. Like the dodges weren’t working. She couldn’t get the backstab in. I think they have really reduced the ability for me to move around. They want you to parry more often, which is a bad idea. so I think that, I got trapped in corners more often than I would have liked. That was not fun. I’ll say also that some of the bosses are just like so fucking super aggressive. Like, it’s really it’s really annoying. I did complete the DLC and I can think of like 2 or 3 bosses that just like they’re in your face constantly, like you barely have room to breathe. You barely have room to, like, use a health potion. And in lines of pee, you have to juggle a couple things, like you have to sharpen your weapon during a battle. You have to take like life potions. If you have any other supporting items, you have to kind of like mess around with the D-pad to kind of navigate those. And when you’ve got a guy stabbing you in the face with a sword 17,000 times and he never backs off, it’s really hard to do it.

So I feel like the bosses were a little bit too aggressive. a couple in particular, but overall I think they just turned up the aggression too much and they don’t give the player enough time to breathe. And that kind of goes hand in hand with the paring and the dodging. I think both these things need to be fixed. I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but like, when you try to dodge Eliza, it’s, like, impossible. I feel like you can’t dodge anything anymore. you have to be, like. Like pixel perfect with your dodge to get that tiny ass little window of iframe invincibility frames. But like I was, was not dodging anything. And in fact, I was failing to dodge so often I had to change my play style. And P, his left arm is,mechanical and you can swap it out for different things. And there’s a shield arm, which I barely ever used in the main game. I only used it for like, I think two bosses and I never touched it otherwise. But in this I actually equipped it and left it on the whole time because I was having such a tough time dodging that I needed like an extra shield to kind of get through some of these sections, which to me feels wrong.

I feel like that you should be able to dodge out of the way. That should be a viable, tactic. I mean, that’s pretty viable for most souls games. It’s kind of a basic fundamental principle. So I feel like the dodging needs to be tweaked. You need more iframes or to make the animation quicker or something. It needs to be tweaked because dodging just does not feel viable. And I will also say the parrying Is tough. The timing on it is really tight and it’s also very unimpressive when you do it now. We have recently talked about Expedition 33 on the show. It’s definitely going to be one of my games of the year for sure. It’s a wonderful experience, but they take pairing to a whole new level where you just parry everything, and when you do, you get these awesome animations. Feels amazing and I feel like they have just raised the bar on parrying every game from this point forward from now until the end of time. If you’re going to do a parrying, it’s got to be a badass parry. Otherwise, why do it? And in P they don’t do badass parries. It’s like you. You parry, and if you do it correctly, you get like this tiny little flash of like red light. And honestly, it’s kind of tough to tell that you even parried. Like the enemies often don’t rock back, they don’t get stunned. There’s not much that happens other than the fact that P does not take damage, so it’s kind of like a survival tactic, but it’s not cool.

It’s not impressive, it doesn’t feel flashy when you do it, and it’s just not good enough anymore. They you need to parry, and when you parry, it’s got to be fucking like, stylish and flamboyant and badass. It’s got to be on the par of, like, expedition 33. They have just they have changed pairing forever. So props to Sandoval Interactive for that. And coming back to to doing pairing and PM like am I even pairing? Is this even happening? What’s even going on? I don’t understand anymore. It’s not enough. So they need to like fix that for sure. What else? Anything else? the only other thing that I kind of want to complain about, just to just to get it off my chest is. It’s like a, it’s like a, it’s a hit and a miss. It’s a hit in that like, developers let you respect so many things you can respect, you can disassemble your weapons, you can mix and match your weapons to make weapons that fit you. You can respec your own skill tree. You can respect the items that go into your mechanical arm. And if you want to rearrange those things, you can, which I think is great. You can basically respec anything in the game except weapon upgrade materials, which drives me fucking crazy.

I don’t know why they would let you respect basically everything, but not this because you find so many weapons and sometimes you just want to, like, experiment with them, right? So like, for example, my wife started out with the strength based weapons and she spect for that. And then after a while she’s like, oh, you know, I really like this. I like the agility weapons better. And I’m like, yeah, I like agility as well. So she respect. But she had sunk a lot of materials into strength based weapons by this point already. And you can alter them a little bit, but you can’t just fully respect them. I’m talking about get all your fucking materials back and just put those materials into something else. Why not? You went all the way on all these other systems, which is great and I love it and I respect you for that. Why would you not go all the way on the final system? I don’t see the logic here. And what I think it is, is adherence to the formula that FromSoftware laid out. I think they’re following it for whatever reason. They were willing to break the mold on so many things, but on this one, they were not willing to break the mold. And I just have to I have to say it’s a bad call, because you find so many weapons that you want to experiment with them all. You want to try them all, find favorites.

They’re great weapons, and especially in the DLC, there’s so many cool weapons to use that I wanted to try every one of them, but I didn’t have enough materials for all of them. And so I feel like just give me the materials back. Like let’s say for example, you can only maximum upgrade, maybe like three weapons. Okay, that’s fine, I can leave the other ones on upgraded, but if I want to switch, I will take my mats back and I will still only have three upgraded weapons. And honestly, what does it matter anyway? What? Does he even fucking care? I mean, you made these weapons. Do you want me to use them? Do you not like why did you create them if you don’t want me to use them? What is the value of locking me into weapons? When you let me change basically everything else in the game, it doesn’t make sense. I think it’s a mistake. I think it’s a genuine mistake. And I think, neo needs to fix that for next time. If you could take your weapon material upgrades back, that would be the fucking perfect thing, because then you could really mix and match and change your build and explore how the game plays and find something that really works. Why don’t you want to do that? I think you should do that. They’ve gone three quarters of the way. You might as well go all the way.

So that’s one of my other complaints. Other than that, I mean, so all that stuff said, all the stuff I’ve just ranted about, I think Lies of P: Overture is a pretty amazing DLC. It’s chunky. It took me, I believe, 15 to 20 hours, which felt like just the right length. It had story ties that were absolutely strongly tied to the main campaign. This wasn’t just like a tossed off, like one off. It was like it really called back to like, central characters to things that happened. Like it made sense. It explained a lot of plot holes that people thought were plot holes before. It plays well, it adds great weapons. I mean, the bow itself makes the DLC worth it, but like the Wolverine claws or the exploding sword, or the gun blade and stuff, or the arm that shoots blades, like there’s all sorts of stuff that I think are amazing you can take back to the main campaign. Overall, Lies of P: Overture delivers a lot of value. Great story, great gameplay, lots of new weapons to play with and it was a good length, too. Ultimately, I felt very satisfied by the time I finished it. It was a little bit on the difficult side. A little bit. Enemies that are too aggressive. And I got backed into corners a little bit too often. Could have polished up some of the spots, but you know those are those are small things.

Lies of P: Overture is pretty outstanding stuff, and this is a great way to do DLC. Other developers who make soulslikes should pay attention to how it was done here.

And the score for this content is 8.5 out of ten. Excellent stuff.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This content was developed by Neowiz Games and Round8 Studio, and published by Neowiz Games. It is currently available on PC, PS4/5, and XBO/S/X. This copy of the DLC was obtained via paid download and reviewed on the XBX. Approximately 18 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the content was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game has received an M rating from the ESRB and contains Blood and Violence. The official summary reads: “This is an action role-playing game in which players assume the role of the puppet Pinocchio in his search to become human. From a third-person perspective, players explore environments, collect items, and battle various enemies (e.g., puppets, mechanoid creatures) in melee-style combat. Players use swords and mechanical arms with ranged attacks (e.g., Puppet String, Flamberge) to kill enemies. Boss battles depict more prolonged combat against larger enemies. Battles are highlighted by slashing sounds, cries of pain, and large blood-splatter effects. Some environments depict bloody corpses and large blood stains on the ground.”

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available. 

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Every line of dialogue is accompanied by written text, and I personally found the font size to be easily readable. Sound is completely unimportant for playing and enjoying this game since there are no audio-only cues for incoming attacks. I played it for some time with the volume turned fully off and had no problems. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: This game offers a controller diagram and the controls are remappable. The default scheme is similar to other soulslikes, meaning we use the circle button to run/roll/dodge, the shoulder buttons are for light and strong attacks, the square button is for using items, the left stick is for movement and the right stick handles the camera.

The post SVG REVIEW Lies Of P: Overture appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Absolutely breathtaking vistas and art style.

LOW The amount of backtracking.

WTF Jesus Christ that’s a LOT of blood.

Every videogame teased in 2025 with a sword-wielding protagonist, believe it or not, is actually Dark Souls. To call the third-person action-adventure subgenre overplayed is an understatement — and few recent titles do enough to differentiate themselves from their medium-defining forefathers.

Hell is Us is the first time I’ve played a new title that takes notes from the soulslike genre, but instead of lurking under its shadow, walks in a different direction proudly. 

The player assumes the role of Remi, a career soldier who was shipped away from the civil-war-ridden country of Hadea as a young boy. Now, his personal mission is to get back into Hadea, find his family, and uncover the mystery of a society-altering calamity that sent demon-like creatures to prey on Hadeans on both sides of their civil war.

These creatures are the single plot device that keeps the story moving forward and leave the player asking all kinds of questions — what are they? Why do these beings move so weirdly? Why are they all white with a gaping hole where a face should be? The player must untangle this puzzle by talking to Hadean residents, picking up clues, and solving puzzles that take Remi across the country. 

Instead of going the typical soulslike route and focusing on combat, Hell is Us lives and dies by committing to the soulslike form of quest design. This means other than the opening dialogue sequce and talking to characters about what they need, it’s up to Remi and the player’s intuition alone to find quest items or the way forward. Puzzles require a little extra brainpower, whether it’s for a main quest, side content called “good deeds” to help civilians around Hadea, or when solving puzzles to get items. 

I can understand that this type of quest design may not work for everyone. Sometimes I’d go for entire hours of gameplay before I’d find an item and try to think “Who does this go to? Was it that person asking for ID cards? But I’m also not sure this is the right item?” It can feel like a mental balancing act at times. But other than a few sections prone to lots of backtracking as I got used to the quest design, like the beginning Acasa Marsha area and the hills where Remi learns more about his father, Hell is Us sold me with less handholding.

It’s established early on that everything in Hell is Us’ map pulls on mystical and religious lore to set the backdrop for the country’s conflict — entire towns were set ablaze, gigantic temples worshipping false gods were constructed, and civilians were ruled by hatred. The world of Hadea is broken beyond repair, and it’s easy to see why Remi was sent away by his parents.

Easily the strongest point of Rogue Factor’s design philosophy was putting the carnage of Hadea’s civil war on full display. Corpses line the streets of towns, blood runs through buildings, countless bodies hang limp from the little remaining vegetation that was left between bombings and flamethrower attacks. 

Among all of these depictions of carnage are smaller, more intimate moments — things like a vista looking across a mountain lake next to a field of azure flowers, or a massive statue of a creature and its gaping maw where a mouth should be. A burning town in the distance creating a nearly perfect sunset was haunting. 

Among the civilians, soldiers, and religious iconographies shrouded in smoke are the bright contrasts of Hadea — the creatures. Violently thrashing about like drunkenly-controlled marionettes painted white, they are so inhuman in nearly every way, and fighting these creatures highlights Hell is Us’ inspired combat system. I’m not leaving it for last because of any quality knock. It can easily stand on its own and is a treat to engage with in its own right.

Like a typical soulslike, there’s a strike, dodge, and block button, but every encounter has an added wrinkle. Every time Remi deals damage to an enemy, he can heal some of that damage back if the player times a button press correctly. Other dimensions include a drone that allows Remi to attack from above or spin in a whirlwind of blows, and “elemental” imbued attacks from enhanced weapons make combat encounters more engaging than a simple hack-and-slash. 

The mystical enemies come in all shapes and sizes. Some shoot projectiles, some disable Remi’s drone, some spawn enemies attached to them via an umbilical cord of sorts, making the player prioritize them before killing their host.

A note I will make on Hell is Us’ combat — if players experienced with soulslikes want to get the most out of the mechanics and consumables, play it on Hard Mode. While many combat encounters inspired me to think creatively, by the end of Hell is Us, I felt like I was mowing down enemies easily on Normal Mode while filling up a bag of consumables I never used once. 

Ultimately, the thing about Hell is Us that ties it all together is the title. The combat and exploration are merely a distraction from the real conflict happening in front of the player’s eyes — humans on both sides of the civil war (and those manipulating the war from behind the scenes) have committed far worse atrocities than the creatures ever have. 

Score: 8 out of 10

Buy Hell is Us – PC – XB – PS

Disclosures: This game is developed by Rogue Factor and published by Nacon. It is currently available on PC, XBX/S, and PS5. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and was reviewed on PC. Approximately 19 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game is rated M for Strong Language, Violence, Blood, Drug References, and Suggestive Themes. It is a very visceral depiction of a civil war with modern technology, so this game is not meant for kids whatsoever, including bodies hanging from trees, staircases lined with blood and human remains, and a colossal pile of human skeletons.

Colorblind Modes: There are colorblind modes available, including a setting to toggle color deficiency type and a slider with color deficiency compensation.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game’s story has subtitles which can be resized. Some puzzles do have audio cues to make it easier for players to find quests, but Hell is Us compensates with visual directional audio cues. The game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: The game’s controls are fully remappable.

The post Hell Is Us Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The combat system is responsive.

LOW Repeating enemies and sometimes easy-to-dodge bosses.

WTF Why is there an enemy that eats a fish raw mid-attack.

If I had to think of a word to describe current trends in game development, it would most likely be fusion.

Most developers, at least in my opinion, have never been better at genre-bending and blending two or more subsets of games that work together well. Think Neon White combining a deckbuilder and a time-attack shooter, or the developers of Nine Sols making a Metroidvania soulslike.

Tyrant’s Realm mixes it up and it just makes sense — it’s a mix of roguelike and soulslike, and with art seemingly transported from the PS1 era, it straddles both genres to great effect.

The player begins in a dank dungeon as a decrepit-looking prisoner, trapped in a cell which they eventually escape. Armed with nothing but a long stick and a sorry excuse for a shield, I had to travel through this dungeon full of mazelike rooms while looking for an exit. I then journeyed through five different dungeons with a boss at the end of each across tenor so attempts before beating my first run, and collected new weapons and armor while doing it — all while possessed soldiers and enemy fighters tried to kill me.

The combat of Tyrant’s Realm is a strong point. Fairly standard for a third-person soulslike, it has a clear emphasis on attacking at the right time during an enemy’s attack pattern, and dodging, parrying, or blocking in all other instances. My character had a stamina meter and a health meter that I could refill with a set number of healing flasks.

It might not sound like I’m praising Tyrant’s Realm by writing that the combat is “fairly standard,” but for a title in this genre, the perfect combat loop would be one copied from Dark Souls and its sequels, and Tyrant’s Realm executes its own version of this system to a T. Dodges are responsive, blocks are effective, and I never felt like the game was cheating me.

It also visually molds with the character animations — it would seem like it’s a graphically wonky roguelike, but it runs smoothly. Even when combat was a bit repetitive towards the end areas, it still clicked.

Yet even within combat systems as tight as soulslikes, there will be some problems. The only two minor knocks that I will give Tyrant’s Realm’s combat both come with the lock-on system — making the camera spin out of control when locking on to a group of enemies, and trivializing boss combat by allowing the player to infinitely walk in one direction around the boss.

The story? It mainly takes a backseat in the overall experience. My job was to try to make it to the final room in the entire “realm” ruled by an evil wizardly tyrant. After beating him, I was returned back to the start to try to beat the tyrant on a harder difficulty.

Forgetting combat and story for a moment, there’s one more portion to Tyrant’s Realm — the roguelike. Nothing exemplifies this genre’s inclusion so much as the physical layout of the dungeons. There are distinct regions all over the map that I went to, but each one was a randomization of room layouts, enemy placements, and loot chests. It provided a new-ish experience to each area, but nothing groundbreaking by any means.

Similar to the room layouts, each larger area would have around two chests in each room filled with a random assortment of weapons, armor, and shields. The weapon variety was a major reason why I wanted to keep playing once I’d beaten my first run. Outside of the typical sword, axe, and spear lineup, there were hidden gems like the trident, the Wolverine claws, and the gigantic wooden mallet. To be expected, the shields and the armor yield less eye-catching items, but some had immense buffs compared to others.

Apart from item variety, Tyrant’s Realm also offers a decent amount of replayability. After beating the final boss, players can up the difficulty on each subsequent run. Level II includes “elite” enemies on each level that do more damage and move faster. Level III makes all enemies elite enemies, but with this increased difficulty comes increased rewards.

Unfortunately, the roguelike aspect of Tyrant’s Realm suffers a bit from lack of options, consequence-less randomizations for shields and armor that only express themselves in how fast the character moves, and a difficult means of progressively unlocking new gear on the lowest difficulty — collecting coins from defeating enemies.

On the lowest difficulty, every dungeon results in about 50 coins collected, and bosses give 100. Some of the cooler gear costs up to 400 coins, and more significant upgrades like additional healing flasks cost even more. Granted, these are minor complaints from someone who beat the lowest difficulty quite easily within a few tries, but the pace of unlocking might be significantly slower for players who have a tougher time with the content.

Ultimately, Tyrant’s Realm executes a gameplay loop that’s rewarding enough to render its minor inconveniences just that — minor inconveniences. It’s another successful, joyful genre-mashup that anyone looking for a retro-inspired soulslike will have a good time with.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Buy Tyrant’s Realm – PC

Disclosures: This game is developed by Team Tyrant and published by Skystone Games. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and was reviewed on PC. Approximately 5 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game is not rated by the ESRB, but this game is not made for kids. It involves slashing, stabbing, and killing with digital weapons and there is blood visibly represented as well.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Dear & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There is no dialogue in this game, and the only “story” bits are told through pop-up text on the screen. The game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: The game’s controls are fully remappable.

The post Tyrant’s Realm Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Soulslike combat with a minimalist art style and a pacifist narrative.

LOW Tedious waves of the same enemy types and harsh penalties for missteps.

WTF Why have different buttons to talk, pick up and read instead of one ‘interact’ button?

Recently, publisher 3D Realms released developer Point N’ Sheep’s Bloodless — an intense isometric action-RPG in which the player must have impeccable timing as they block, disarm and pacify rather than attack their enemies.

The player controls Tomoe, a ronin formerly known as “The Slasher” who has, for reasons yet to be seen, forsaken her murderous ways in pursuit of a peaceful life. She wanders in a land known as Bakugawa seeking to make amends, but inevitably finds more enemies and fewer friends as she travels.

Between its female protagonist, nonviolent combat, and themes of mercy and redemption, Bloodless presents a welcome change from other titles in a similar vein, such as action-heavy soulslikes and metroidvanias.

As she makes her way through Bakugawa (a fictional substitute for feudal Japan) Tomoe must deflect attacks after seeing either a red or white ‘tell’ from enemies. A white reticle indicates that an incoming attack can be parried, and the player must press into the enemy to disarm them. Red reticles cannot be parried, so the player would be wise to back off. While this combat is fairly simple, appropriate response times and speed are crucial, as is management of stamina.

Besides parrying, another strategy that can be deployed to repel an opponent is a ki “attack.” These can be used whenever a pink spot appears during a red attack, and these ki abilities allow the player to gradually wear an enemy’s stamina down until they simply give up and run away.

As examples, the first ki ability the player acquires allows them to release a wide pink arc that chips away at an enemy’s stamina, but it costs a lot of ki. A ‘cheaper’ but less powerful ki ability allows the player to sprint repeatedly at an enemy while engulfed by pink flame. As much as I appreciated the layer of complexity provided by ki abilities, I found the glacial speed at which the ki bar recharges to be so frustrating that I eventually gave up on using ki at all.

While this ‘pacifist’ combat setup seems like an interesting divergence from traditional fare, one aspect of Bloodless that I found annoying was the inefficient design of the controls. For example, the player must use different buttons for doing essentially the same thing: one button for reading signs, one for talking to a person, and a third for picking up items. All of this could easily have been accomplished with just one ‘interact’ button, and there’s no option to remap the controls.

While that was a bother, a more serious issue is that Bloodless requires near-perfect reflexes for success.

For example, one huge, tanky enemy can drop boulders from the sky. This would be a standard sort of ‘tough guy’ encounter in most games, but here it was nearly unbearable — boulders were not only falling out of the sky but also hurtling toward me as he hit more boulders with his massive spiked club in an arc wide enough to hit me at the same time.

As for the bosses, they don’t have HP in the traditional sense, just a certain amount of hits they can take before they’re defeated. Players can’t level up or upgrade to do more damage, they just have to learn how to time their parries perfectly and in fast enough succession to defeat them.

Even after learning how to navigate this, I struggled to time every movement exactly right to make it through all of their various phases, or risk starting from the beginning. When I finally brought one of the later bosses down, I was overcome by such a wave of relief that I knew I needed to stop playing for the sake of my own sanity.

While the demanding gameplay is a bit much, artistically, there are many bright spots. The music suited each area well and dialogue was well-written. The top-down, pixel art presentation opts for minimalism — the landscapes tend to have muted colors, and character models are rendered in stark black and white, similar to how they might have looked running on a GameBoy. This relatively simple look is effective, using color sparingly as a way to distinguish between enemy types or to accentuate the atmosphere of dimly-lit castle grounds littered with corpses of enemies , or eerie green forests teeming with bandits.

Bloodless is a great game for players who enjoy high intensity, well-timed, precision-based combat, but it is definitely not for everyone.

As much as I like a good challenge in games — including soulslikes — I have little patience for tedium. The world was engaging and the graphics stunning, but the dearth of ways to try different ideas in combat dampened my resolve to see Tomoe’s redemption arc through to the end.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Disclosures: This game was developed by Point N’ Sheep and published by 3D Realms. It is currently available on PC and Switch. Code for this review was obtained from the publisher and reviewed on Switch. Approximately 10 hours were devoted to the campaign mode. The game was not finished. There is no multiplayer mode.

Parents: This game is rated T by the ESRB for Blood and Violence. There are pixelated splashes representing blood as Tomoe is slashed by enemies and there are some disturbing images like the remnants of a battle including corpses left to decay in the city streets and so on.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game features voiced NPC dialogue accompanied by text. Due to the isometric presentation, all incoming threats can be observed from far away and the different types of attacks (whether or not they can be parried) are always indicated by color which makes it fully accessible.

Remappable controls: The controls cannot be remapped. A selects/unleashes special ki abilities, B closes/dodges, X uses items, Y ki jabs/interacts, left trigger/right trigger sprints, right/left bumpers switch ki abilities, switch items, – accesses skills, techniques, etc. and + opens menu.

The post Bloodless Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The first fresh-feeling take on soulslike tropes in years.

LOW Environments are bland and sometimes too cluttered.

WTF This is the most OP stale bread has ever been.

Soulslikes, friends… are boring.

We must not say so, given that there are more games flaunting that tag in 2024 than there are titles total in some other genres. Stealth strategies? Scant on the ground. Immersive sims? Far too few for my tastes. But one could sit down and play action-RPGs with methodical, stamina-based combat, parry systems, and oblique lore about dying worlds and/or resurrection cycles until the ice caps melt, Venice is plunged beneath the waves, and we’re all wandering through the post-apocalypse bemoaning the fact that we didn’t have time to beat Archibald, the Grim Bailiff’s second phase before civilization withered and fell from the branch.

I feel a vexing twin bafflement that so many developers are content to cosplay as FromSoft, turning out competent but uninteresting covers of Souls’ Greatest Hits, and that so many gamers are willing — grateful, in fact — to play these games. Isn’t anyone else tired of dodge rolling? Do we still enjoy evading clusters of homing magic missiles that much? Aren’t there more adventurous experiences we should be seeking out? I, for one, find the numerous entries into the genre with little to add, just so boring.

Void Sols, though, is interesting.

Marketing itself as a “top-down soulslike,” it is most certainly that. Players control a diminutive triangle in a hostile, umbrageous world shot through with tight corridors, capped with bleak vistas, and bristling with hostiles of a similarly geometric persuasion. However, developer Finite Reflection’s commitment to the geometric angle goes beyond a perspectival gimmick. They’ve followed it a long way, let it shape the mechanical side of play, and thus allowed Void Sols to (mostly) enjoy an artistic identity of its own.

Everything in Void Sols feels pleasingly pared back, clean, brisk and snappy — this is the most snackable a soulslike has ever been.

Void Sols’ world operates on ‘wide linear’ design logic. It’s not an open world per se, but a congeries of discrete paths that cross through a central village hub. Down each path, players have horizontal leeway to poke around in crannies, find breakable walls, and run down reward-filled (but non-essential) sub-spokes. Maps are found individually for each area, and they even show the items in that zone, making scuttling around for any last goodies a painless, streamlined process.

It’s good exploration overall, but Void Sols’ drive towards simplification pays special dividends when it comes to combat. In fact, ‘simplification’ almost oversells it — it’s shocking to see just how much of the Standard Soulslike Combat pith translates directly into this 2D plane — and even more shocking, how fresh the lancing of the third dimension makes that combat feel again.

The fact that every enemy is a simple sigil – a suggestion in hard lines of a jailer, wolf, or cultist – means that it’s easy to memorize what each one does, and they only do one or two things. In contrast, big soulslikes are crammed with too enemies with too many attacks, but the Void Sols rank and file are easy to size up and counter. This simplicity makes the mix-ups intensely punchy and interesting as different mooks move in together with overlapping attack patterns that are deviously engaging to dismantle.

All of the audio/visual elements are on point too. It takes real prowess to make these dinky triangular swords and hammers feel meaningfully heavy, but they do. Daggers feel like daggers, and the bows’ strings feel taut. It’s all convincing.

Bosses are also a blast. As with the standard enemies, there are no seemingly endless permutations on attack patterns, no multiphase odysseys through health bar after health bar — just clean, learnable fights. Void Sols might be the first soulslike with good boss music, too. We are finally free of the doom choirs and Philharmonic Anxiety String Ensembles, and get to enjoy some laid back, synthwave-y tunes that provide cool, calming counterpoints to the action on screen.

While I’m here airing my grievances against soulslike tropes, let me say that there is no reason I can think of not to allow instant and free respeccing in these games. In Void Sols, players can add and subtract earned skill points from any stat at any bonfire. In fact, the devs even go a step further, providing players with four loadouts that can be configured not only in terms of stats, but of weapons, sub-weapons, even individual items on the quick-use cross.

If I have any criticisms of this intensely engaging re-contextualization, I’d say that some unnecessary friction is caused by the environmental visuals.

The characters are all neon shapes, but the backgrounds are subdued and naturalistic. It’s evocative, but monotonous. Many areas are murky, rendered in muddy browns, rainy grays, turgid lusterless greens or heavy reds. Dynamic shadows and lighting are nicely executed (and central to exploration, as players light torches to mark areas they pass through) but these features dovetail with the morose color palette to create scenes that are dark to the point of being hard to see. Visual embellishments around the edges of paths, particularly in outdoor areas, also make it hard to see where the edges of the paths are.

That aside, Void Sols is interesting because it is so clearly doing the same imitative act that all the endless soulslikes do (perhaps with even more obviousness than some since ‘Souls’ is in the title) yet it feels so much fresher, so much more its own self. Part of that, no doubt, is from the art style and perspective, but the novelty stays novel because of Finite Reflection’s willingness to pare away so much of the accumulated thickness of these tropes. They’ve scoured away everything unnecessary, shorn every last bit of clutter, and come up with something that is actually more pure than the title that started this now-endless trend of recycling the same kind of content.

While Void Sols is not as ‘deep’ as Dark Souls, it successfully does something that the influential original did as well — it finds an identity of its own. Anybody in love with soulslikes should check it out, and anybody who’s fallen out of love with them should check it out double quick. Great stuff.

8.5 out of 10

— Ben Schwartz

Disclosures: This game is developed by Finite Reflection Studio and published by Modern Wolf. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher. Approximately 15 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: At the time of review, this game has not been rated by the ESRB. Play is centered around combat with a variety of weapons — swords, bows, hammers, bombs, and more. All of the characters are simple shapes and there is no gore when they are killed, but blood (or a similar substance) can be seen in some backgrounds. Some of the scenes and locales also imply that violence, torture, and rituals were conducted within them at some prior time.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game does not offer subtitles, but there is no spoken dialogue. Sound cues accompany enemy attacks but as far as I could tell, everything also has a corresponding visual cue. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls for both keyboard + mouse and controller.

The post Void Sols Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

Soulslike games were once my favorite genre to play, but I’m starting to get sick of them. Don’t get me wrong – FromSoftware revolutionized gameplay with Dark Souls back in 2011, and having the option to play something that pushes your ability to adapt and grow as a gamer is incredible. I just think we need a breath of fresh air.

I first tried Dark Souls in 2011 when the gaming community was nearly unanimous in calling it the best title of the year. Even my friends were raving about it, so I had to see for myself. Upon trying it, I was hooked. Despite requiring a month to complete the campaign – not including the DLC – I couldn’t get enough.

I’ve played through most soulslikes over the years since then, especially those made by FromSoftware. Games like Bloodborne and Sekiro were and still are popular, but things really exploded Elden Ring. Despite the genre arguably being at the peak of its popularity right now, my opinion of these experiences has waned.

For example, as great as Elden Ring is, I can’t help but feel the journey is overly familiar. Soulslikes always start out thrilling, allowing you to dodge, roll and parry through overwhelming odds. You learn how to overcome massive enemies who used to one-shot you. I love the appeal of overcoming a challenge because it builds your sense of self through hard work and actionable results. In soulslikes, the challenge is often about sticking around long enough to defeat an entire world that’s out to kill you.

Now, it feels like I’m walking away from every soulslike in frustration. The appeal of difficulty was initially thrilling, but it’s less so now. Let’s use Sekiro as an example, as it’s one of the most demanding titles. Getting killed by a boss after just a few hits is unreasonable and more frustrating than fun to me. I enjoy the challenge of new gameplay patterns, but defeating its bosses feels like more luck than skill at times. When I do finally defeat a difficult boss, I feel less like I’ve earned it and more like things just happened to work out in my favor that time around.

Along similar lines, boss fights in many soulslikes often feel impossible – which is what we sign up for when we download them. However, that expectation only goes so far. I just can’t get into spending 40 hours of repetitive gameplay between bosses that take another 40 hours to overcome, and don’t get me started on overly-long run-ups. Nothing’s more discouraging than backtracking through enemies you’ve already defeated countless times just to lose to the same boss again.

Of course there are other soulslikes I can turn to if I want a break from FromSoftware. Unfortunately, Lies of P, Hollow Knight, Remnant II, Code Vein and countless more lean on the same formula of challenging gameplay, and often feel as though they’re trying to one-up each other in terms of difficulty. I don’t want a game that holds my hand, but I also need to feel like I can breathe while I play. I want to enjoy these games, but the developers often go overboard, and if every title tries to be the most challenging, nothing feels fun anymore. At what point do we become oversaturated with increasingly-impossible levels?

before you rush to leave a comment let me say that I already know that I can’t discuss this topic without seeing inevitable “git gud” comments. Critiquing soulslike bosses and game mechanics often brings out the worst in fans who think these titles are perfect.

We need to find a better balance in gameplay for the sake of our sanity. Frustration and improvement are part of the soulslike appeal, and I get an adrenaline rush from defeating a boss or finishing a storyline. I do understand why people like this content. That said, I often get to the end of a tough section and regret how much time I’ve logged just to make an inch of progress.

We’ve also lost a sense of online community to Souls game difficulty. To be fair, every fanbase has its elitists. However, I find hardcore soulslike fans to often be a thorn in my side, as all games should be open to criticism despite the number of accolades they claim. When responses to comments or requests for aid are more harmful than helpful on gaming forums, why would I want to continue playing games with this fanbase?

People who need help figuring out how to kill a boss are commonly laughed at. Even if you beat the game with built-in features, like summons that bring characters into fights with you, it’s a common refrain that the hardcores say you haven’t worked hard enough, creating newfound shame that makes already-present frustration worse. Should a video game and its fanbase make you feel this way?

This brings me to the issue of bragging rights. Many gamers aim to defeat challenging games on the hardest difficulties with minimal help, and I admit that I fall into this category more often than not. That should never be the only option though — compare this to a game like God of War. Allowing players to choose a higher “Give Me God of War” difficulty allows the most competitive gamers to get the ultimate challenge without limiting the enjoyment of those who just want to experience the game.

All in all, I think soulslikes deserve a healthy dose of critiquing. Having a cult mindset about these titles holds the gaming industry back, especially now, when many modern games are seeing massive improvements in terms of increased accessibility and customization. By choosing to ignore these improvements, soulslikes take steps backwards instead of forward. How does removing basic features like pausing help anybody?

If your definition of fun is diving into a tough-as-nails soulslike, I get it. I used to feel the same way myself. However, as I get older I find myself among players who prioritize entertainment over brutal challenge. Unfortunately, it doesn’t feel like the competition to make the next near-impossible game will stop anytime soon…

— Jack Shaw

Jack Shaw is the Games editor of Modded and has been writing professionally since 2017. With a pulse on innovations both in the industry and out, he’s covered video games, pop culture and breaking tech gear developments. You can find his work featured in The Outerhaven, GamesCreed, GameFragger and more, or follow his Modded Minute newsletter.

The post Why I’m Sick of Soulslikes appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH An excellent concept that brings new flavor to soulslikes.

LOW Some cheap-shot ambushes. A few of the bosses are rough going.

WTF So ultimately, professional sports are to blame?

While its success was far from guaranteed when the genre launched, there’s no question that soulslikes are here to stay.

This style of play built around third-person combat, stamina management, environmental exploration and generally ‘difficult’ combat was a breath of fresh air when Demon’s Souls burst onto the scene, and it’s now a force in the industry. However, not only is it a tough formula to nail, there are too many who follow in FromSoft’s footsteps without bringing much to the table besides mimicry. While it’s generally a bad idea to try and out-Souls the Souls people, there’s plenty of room in the genre for others to experiment, expand and grow.

For me, the most successful entries have been those that struck out in a new direction. For example, Nioh added a bit of loot drop and complexity to its weapon systems, and Hollow Knight moved things to the 2D plane. While it’s a bit rough around the edges, I’d say Deathbound from Trialforge Studio is another one who’s carved out a space for themselves.

Deathbound starts by putting the player in the shoes of Therone Guillaumen, a sword-and-shield officer in the Church of Death — and surprisingly, he is one of the bad guys.

The opening cinematic shows Therone and his troops laying waste to a city populated by refugees, senior citizens and children — and no one is spared. It’s a shocking start. Another surprise is that despite vague medieval vibes, Deathbound takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting. Every area the player journeys through is based on the ruins of modern-day sports stadiums, parking garages, city streets and more. The mysterious ”first men” are gone, and we’re fighting through what’s survived in their wake.

These elements are already a strong start, but things only get better when the main mechanic of Deathbound is revealed — Therone won’t be the only person living in his body, nor the only person that the player will control.

After pressing on through the ruins, it’s not long before Therone encounters a dead body that stands out from the rest, this one harboring a glow. Upon getting closer, the glow integrates itself into him and transplants a new consciousness, now taking residence inside his skull.

After this second personality (an assassin named Anna) is on board, the player is free to switch between the two at will, and with the push of a button, Therone’s entire body transforms into Anna’s slender, shadowy shape. However, this isn’t just a simple stat and weapon change — no, the two have wildly different movesets. Where one can parry and strike tactically, the other walks silently and can backstab for great damage. Anna’s also equipped with a crossbow to shoot enemies at a distance, but Therone can block and tank hits — something fragile Anna must avoid at all costs.

It takes very little time to realize how different the characters are, and it only gets more diverse from there. As the campaign goes on, the player will accumulate a total of seven characters to learn and experiment with, each one offering something unique. I don’t want to spoil the surprise so I won’t list them all here, but players can look forward to things like casting spells from a great distance, using a spear to get the upper hand on close-up fighters, and more.

Each new tenant in Therone’s head has their own history, background, thoughts and feelings. Each is introduced with a brief cutscene explaining the story of their life, and as Deathbound goes on, it becomes clear that many of the characters knew each other in one way or another. So, when all of these entities end up sharing space in one skull, they bicker and fight or agree and support according to who they were in life.

Apart from being narratively interesting, there are mechanical implications and how they’re arranged in the UI matters. If two who hate each other are placed adjacent in the menu, they’ll have a ‘conflict’ which can either debuff, or give a hate-fueled buff. If two who support each other are side by side, it’s often a strong buff. Adding even more strategy, it quickly becomes a matter of which character works best in each level, and of those potential choices, which characters complement the other ones currently active, both in terms of team composition and amicability.

The end result is that the player will frequently switch between characters, moment-to-moment, as each situation demands. Keeping a shield up and creeping through and unexplored hallway is always a good strategy, and when a nearby guard is seen to have his back to the player, to get the drop on him is a great feeling. When combat breaks out, it’s easy to select one of the other characters and leverage their individual strengths.

It’s also worth noting that attacking while switching between characters in a key aspect in Deathbound, and one that’s not emphasized it as much as it should be. Many games have tried something similar — a player might start an attack with weapon A and then switch to weapon B for bonus damage or to continue a combo, but I rarely find it worth the hassle of doing. However, it’s crucial here as the act of switching gives players brief invincibility and the attack following a switch is supercharged, so not only will the player avoid hits, they’ll also be doing more damage than usual. Many bosses are practically unbeatable without leveraging this trick, so the devs certainly lean into the system they’ve created.

Another aspect where Deathbound breaks away from the soulslike formula is in storytelling. Not only are there multiple characters within (and without) Therone’s head, the script is unrolled in a straightforward, clear manner. Puzzling together bits from item descriptions or watching Vaati’s latest lore video are not necessary to understand what’s going on here — motivations are clear, the story is not a half-told conundrum, and there’s no problem following the dialogue, all of which I found to be quite welcome. Perhaps some people feel like obfuscated storytelling is core to a soulslike, but I sure don’t.

I’ve spent much time talking about the virtues of Deathbound so far, and it’s certainly one of the games I’ve enjoyed most this year, but it’s not a perfect experience. A common criticism is that it’s a bit weak, visually, with simple character models and a lo-fi world. There are also rough edges elsewhere, such as a few places where it’s not clear how to advance forward, and there are a handful of enemy encounters and ambushes that could stand some ironing out. And, as was said earlier, a few bosses are basically impossible until the player realizes character switching is key. The experience can come across as unusually rough for 2024, but I’m the kind of person who prioritizes interesting concepts and heart above polish, so none of these things dampened my enjoyment much.

While I’m definitely a soulslike fan, I don’t need every game in the genre to follow the formula that FromSoft has laid out, and I’m glad that there are studios like Trialforge who are willing to do something different. The foundations are familiar enough to appeal to anyone who enjoys these kinds of experiences, but those looking for a little different will be pleasantly surprised. I appreciate what Deathbound brought to the table, and I look forward to whatever Trialforge does next.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Trialforge Studios and published by Tate Multimedia. It is currently available on PC/XB/PS5. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 12 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood, Strong Language, and Violence. The combat here is pretty standard soulslike fare — swords, spears and such. However, there are a few scenes of people being tortured and put to death, and there are bodies who seem to have undergone some ‘difficult times’ before death sprinkled throughout. I don’t recall any particular instances of language but I’m sure it was in there.

Colorblind Modes: There no colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All dialogue is accompanied by subtitles that cannot be resized or altered. As with many soulslikes, there are some audio cues which reveal the presence of hidden enemies or incoming attacks, and these cues do not have visual components. As such, the player will almost certainly receive some surprise strikes or be ambushed occasionally. Therefore, it is not fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable but there are several presets to choose from.

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HIGH Visual variety and fresh gameplay breathe new life into an oversaturated genre.

LOW Lack of multiplayer. Some original ideas are underutilized.

WTF You call that a final boss?

Over the past decade, countless titles inspired by FromSoftware’s Souls have come and gone, but few have managed to stand out from the crowd or even meet the bar that’s been set, especially now that it’s been raised once again by the wildly successful Elden Ring DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree.

Enter Enotria — a new and soon-to-be classic third-person soulslike from Italian studio Jyamma Games that dares to be different by drawing inspiration not only from FromSoftware, but also the rich cultural traditions and aesthetic appeal of Italy.

Enotria is a world populated by people trapped in a never-ending play, doomed to perform their roles according to a script they didn’t write. This fate is interrupted by the player in the role of the Maskless One — he enters the scene as a mere puppet, but will ultimately go on to liberate the unwilling actors.

This theatrical concept works well as a device to explain the reason why NPCs are stuck in a loop of performing scenes on the shoreline or dancing in the street to a melody that can be heard in various forms throughout the city of Quinta.

According to Jyamma Games, the city of Quinta and its surrounding area were inspired by Tuscany, and this can be observed in small details like traditional Italian dishes found on tables, and imposing structures like the Church of Maja where the player must face their first boss. The virtual tour of Italy continues with later areas that are reminiscent of Venice (Litumnia) and Sicily (Falesia Magna).

The combat is fast-paced and requires not just skill, but patience.

The third-person perspective allows the player to see a broad view of their enemies and surrounding environment which allows them to telegraph enemy move patterns, tactfully dodging or parrying their attacks before going in for a strike, but they must also know when to step back and conserve stamina.

Landing an attack charges (at varying speeds) up to four “mask lines” which are special attacks that deal different kinds of damage known as Ardore, which can be especially effective against certain enemies.

A crucial piece of the gameplay for players to understand and take advantage of is that they get up to three loadouts which allow them to equip separate sets of weapons, quick items, mask lines and masks. Unlocking certain branches on Enotria‘s skill tree allows the player to select abilities to suit their style, like staggering weaker enemies whenever they successfully dodge an attack. Although the player can only alter the equipment, skills and abilities for each loadout at a checkpoint, they can switch between their loadouts on the fly, which is helpful when facing different types of enemies in a given area.

There are many masks that can be acquired throughout the adventure. Some will be received upon defeating a boss, but the majority can only be crafted after collecting a certain amount of mask shards. It was satisfying to piece them all together and make my first mask — the Gardener. I automatically received it after farming gardeners (an enemy type that appears in the first area) and one of its effects is that it makes a certain healing item more effective. Later in the adventure, players can gather enough boss mask shards to make their corresponding masks which allows the player to use some of their abilities as mask lines.

Apart from the masks, one of the most important mechanics is the elemental system which functions much like rock-paper-scissors. Certain mask lines or weapons infused with an element will be especially effective against an enemy aligned with another.

For example, Vis, a status effect that inflicts dizzying damage, is super effective against enemies aligned with the poison effect, Malanno. Midway through the campaign I fought a god named Veltha, God of Strife who was aligned with Gratia (holy damage) but weak to Malanno, so I maxed out my favorite Malanno weapon and took pleasure as I watched her stagger and suffer from poison damage every time one of my attacks landed. Leveraging this vulnerability didn’t mean the fight was quick work, but it was significantly easier to wear her down than by using the other weapons in my arsenal.

The level of difficulty presented by bosses like Veltha (both a powerful ranged fighter and relentless swordswoman) was on par with other soulslikes, which is to say, very high. Thus, players who are new to the genre will need to learn the basics quickly if they are to progress. When it starts to feel impossible, they can always farm currency from enemies and use it to upgrade their equipment or level up before taking another stab at whatever boss they’re stuck on.

Speaking of bosses, most of Enotria‘s were guilty of one cardinal sin or another, and for some, their vices manifest physically, such as the gluttonous cannibal Zanni who had feasted on fellow actors and turned into a balloon of a man with multiple mouths and an insatiable appetite. It was a delightfully horrifying and imaginative monster design. However, one of my favorite battles was the duo boss fight starring Balanzone and Pantalone. Rather than strong and silent types as many soulslike bosses are, they were a comically dysfunctional pair, often damaging each other when trying to attack me while bickering throughout the fight, voicing their self-interest and avarice.

Shockingly, the final boss proved to be the most underwhelming boss fight of the whole campaign. His attacks were fairly predictable and not much changed during his multiple phases, except that a few ranged attacks were added. At no point did I have to significantly change my approach — it was mostly just a matter of pulling it off. While the majority of Enotria is excellent, this mediocre final encounter was just one of a few things that left me feeling underwhelmed when all was said and done.

Even though I didn’t need any help on the final boss, there were a few that made me wish I did. Summoning friends and strangers alike is one of the things I enjoy most about soulslikes, as it adds to the feeling of “jolly cooperation” — a big part of what makes these titles so special to me. Unfortunately, there’s no online or multiplayer of any kind to be found here.

There were also a few underutilized mechanics that are unique to Enotria, like the Ardore Burst — a stomp that staggers enemies and materializes platforms and ladders when the player stomps on a gold seal, allowing them to reach previously unreachable areas. Whenever I saw one, I’d be filled with the spirit of adventure and feel excited to see where it would take me. Sadly, they’re all too rare.

It’s also worth mentioning that during my time with Enotria, I encountered some sudden difficulty spikes and observed some enemies with odd AI pathing getting stuck in certain places. The devs have since released a patch to address these issues and they plan to release more fixes in the near future.

Ultimately, my time with Enotria: The Last Song was fantastic. The unconventional Italian theming swept me off my feet, and the gameplay was pleasantly familiar, yet offered enough differences and new ideas to let it stand on its own. If any Souls fans are looking for something to lighten up the dark autumn days that lie ahead, they should consider this summery theatrical adventure their remedy.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game was developed and published by Jyamma Games. It is currently available on PC, XBO/X/S and PS5. Code obtained from the publisher and reviewed for PC. Approximately 28 hours were devoted to the campaign mode. The game was finished. There is no multiplayer mode.

Parents: This game is rated T by the ESRB for Alcohol Reference, Blood and Gore, Mild Language and Violence. In regards to alcohol reference, there are some bottles of wine scattered throughout the city of Quinta and possibly drunken revelers in the street; there is also wine present at Zanni’s feast. In place of blood and gore, splashes of black and white burst out of enemies when struck by the player and vice versa. The game has the player fight their way from grunts and minibosses all the way up to Arecchino so there is a considerable amount of violence. There are some moments with mild language but they are few and minor enough to be forgettable.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game features voiced NPC dialogue that is also presented in text format. However, there is no forewarning of a crossbow bolt coming from off-screen or a far-off cannon being fired at the player which makes it not fully accessible.

Remappable controls: The controls cannot be remapped.

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HIGH Exquisitely designed and beautifully crafted. 

LOW Basic mobility is a little funky towards the beginning of the game. 

WTF Didn’t expect the baseball bat…

When Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus (Bō) first appeared on my radar, I rushed to request it. With my personal interest in Japanese folklore and visual art I was keen to jump right in, and I must say that I was not disappointed. 

Bō is an adventure that draws from Japanese folklore and legend. Players must navigate Bō — an adorable lotus-shaped creature called a Tentaihana — through different worlds, meeting and helping other spirits and creatures along the way. 

Bō is visually captivating, and exploring the worlds that Bō encounters is a treat. Bō’s landscape contains two and three dimensional elements, which Humble Games describes as 2.5D.

When playing, I felt as if I were gliding, jumping, and running through a painting. Every location is more beautiful than the last, but I was particularly enamored with the creepy, bruise-hued Kitsune Burrows. They provided a satisfying change in scenery in an otherwise pastel colored environment, and I found myself lingering there a bit longer than necessary just to look around. The crystalline Ice Caverns are also a favorite of mine, though the icicles are a bit tricky to maneuver. Everything looks so lush, and the accompanying musical score makes it feel all the more immersive.  

While exploring, players can equip Omamori, little tabs that help Bō in a myriad of ways, and each tab triggers an effect that becomes increasingly more complex as players collect more of them. Because Bō is very combat focused, I found the health centered Omamori tabs to be the most helpful. I almost always had Vitality equipped, which heals Bō’s health based on the amount of enemies they defeat.

Shrines serve as spaces where Bō can refill their teapot — an important tool that helps Bō regain their health. It can be used both in and out of battle, and can be accessed in a pinch (which players may find themselves in, more often than not). The teapot also helps Bō during combat and contains a heat gauge that works in tandem with Daruma dolls. Daruma dolls each have specific effects and attacks that can be used to help take down difficult enemies — as the heat gauge rises, the Daruma doll’s attacks increase in damage. I will almost always choose ranged battle if I can swing it, so the doll which shoots homing orbs at enemies near Bō became a necessary part of my arsenal.

Players can also update their weapons as they progress. Bō has an earring that doubles as a staff that players access early on, which eventually evolves into other items when needed. I was amused by the baseball bat, and while it did feel a bit out of place it made for a quirky game mechanic. While it’s mostly used as a weapon that allows players to parry and attack enemies, it’s also necessary when completing certain quests for the spirits Bō meets. In one such quest, Bō must collect Armapillos (armadillo like creatures) for a spirit named Shimeji, and the only possible way to corral them is to hit them with the bat. Hitting the Armapillos felt a little mean! (And punting them back and forth required more precision and dexterity than I thought necessary…)

It’s a good thing that Bō gives the player these options, as it’s actually quite challenging to play! While the side-scrolling adventure genre is an undeniable part of Bō’s DNA, the amount of items, buffs, and weapons players can access make it so that Bō fits just as comfortably within the soulslike genre. Boss attack mechanics aren’t extremely complex, but can be quite difficult to dodge or counter, which can lead to silly mistakes. One awkward or poorly-timed jump and players might find themselves having to restart a tedious battle from the very beginning. 

The first major boss battle, which takes place in the Uzumaki cave, was a bit of a pain for me. A lot of this had to do with the basic mobility control system, which ended up being my biggest gripe with Bō.

While the mechanics are simple in theory, players are often expected to push many buttons at once to perform a mechanic as straightforward as jumping. Jumping is a necessary part of gameplay and some of the Daruma dolls require that Bō be airborne to be effective in battle, so struggling to perform these actions might be a bit frustrating for some. I initially had the most trouble with a sequence of lanterns that Bō must hit in order to ascend towards their next location, but they must be hit perfectly. Otherwise, Bō will fall and the sequence must be started over. I quickly learned that patience was perhaps the most necessary tool for success in Bō, which is kind of lovely.

As Bō progresses their actions and attacks become a bit more effective, and when that initial roughness is left behind, the worlds that players encounter afterwards are so beautiful that any early game hiccups are forgotten. Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus is exceptional. With its visually stunning worlds and exciting battles, Bō has all the elements of an indie action classic. 

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Squid Shock Studios and published by Humble Games. It is currently available on PS5, Switch, PC, XBO/S/X, and iOS. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher, and reviewed on PS5. Approximately 7 hours were devoted to the game, and it was not completed. There is no multiplayer mode. 

Parents: This game is rated E by the ESRB and contains Alcohol and Tobacco references, Mild Fantasy Violence, and Mild Language. There is no blood, and no gratuitous battle sequences. Gameplay mechanics may be a bit complex for really young players, but not completely inaccessible. 

Colorblind Modes: This game does not have colorblind modes, but it does have a high contrast filter. 

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game offers subtitles. Subtitles cannot be resized. I was pleased to see that there are many audio accessibility options. Players with dyslexia can change subtitle and game font, game speed can be modified, action cue icons can be added, controller vibration can be modified, camera shake can be adjusted, and players have the option of making themselves invincible, or provide themselves with an infinite supply of mana. Therefore, the game is fully accessible. 

Remappable Controls: Yes, the game’s controls are remappable. 

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