It’s time for another Metroidvania and this time it even has rogue elements! You can’t go wrong with that, at this point it’s safe to say that I love rogue elements. Throw those into every game. For those who are not familiar, it basically refers to any game where you can obtain permanent upgrades once you die. In essence, every death gets you closer to completing the game. I like when you have something to show for your efforts. It is also why I really enjoy RPG titles because that’s how level ups work. If it were up to me, you would be able to do this in every game.

The game starts with a party of 3 approaching a tower. They need to stop the villains here because right now the waters are all being poisoned and people are dying. Just about everyone in their village was destroyed as well. A mysterious Black Knight stands in their way as well as a legion of Gorgon monsters. It’s unknown exactly how they will get past them but they haven’t died yet..or have they? Well, it turns out that the spellcastor made a deal with an evil deity of death where he can be revived along with his two comrades every time they die. Only he will remember though and once they have conquered the tower, he will surrender his soul.

It’s essentially a classic deal with the devil but the mage felt that there was no other way and it’s easy to see why. They die many times in this tower so without the deal they would all be dead and the world would be over. Your soul is naturally an absolutely huge price to pay but in a story like this it’s hard to say how you could succeed otherwise. Additionally this is how the story explains all the power ups so the party literally gets stronger at all times.

The gameplay differs depending on who you are playing as. You have the swordsman who is good for classic hack and slash gameplay. He’s basically average in every way. Then you have the archer who is extremely quick but she also ends up having low defense. Her double jump is immensely handy for platforming too. Then you have the mage who is slow but packs an absolute punch. His energy blasts can go through walls and hit enemies from a distance. The game will have you constantly switching between the three of them as you go through the game to solve each of the puzzles.

Metroidvanias will be good or bad all depending on how you handle the world at large. Is it easy to travel? Are there any quick travel points or shortcuts? Do you actually feel stronger as you go through the map? These are all absolutely critical pieces of the puzzle and I have to admit that a lot of games surprisingly mess this up. It really shouldn’t be hard but I suppose it might be a case where this is easier said than done.

Well, this one pulls it off as long as you can find these things. For example, the quick travel key is found in a random room on the map. I found it fairly quick but it easily could have taken me a long while. Same with the portal key and every other quality of life key. The fact that the game made each quality of life feature a physical item in the map was pretty fun. It helped make the place feel rather massive. Like at first you have to find a campfire to switch between party members and eventually you get an item where you could do that at any point.

For most of the game you have to die in order to access the shop and then later on you are able to access the shop from different points on the map. There are also a lot of secrets in the game that I didn’t fully understand. I recommend holding down the attack button as the mage because attacking invisible things seems to work sometimes. Some switches are invisible for example and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Later on you will end up finding a statue that wakes up when you blast 8 randomly glowing skulls throughout the hub world.

I don’t know what it does yet because I only found 5. The map is so huge that by the time you beat the game there will still be around 20% unexplored. This is because you need a bunch of blue key to unlock the white/red keys and then you use those to find more blue doors and then you need more blue keys. Every room has tons of secrets and while it can be a little overwhelming, it’s also fun because you know this way that there are always more ways to get stronger.

Whether it is in finding health items, magic items, or even just beating more enemies to put into the bestiary, you are always doing something. There are enough elevators and your speed is high enough where that is all really fun throughout. The game really feels smooth the way that a modern game should. I was really satisfied with the gameplay and I ended up making the mage my best fighter. He seems to easily do the most damage so you can just run up to a boss and really beat the health out of him.

There are a lot of different power up options to choose from when you die. I recommend grabbing the one offs first like being able to see all secrets on the map and getting the description ability. You can also buy 3 extra cutscenes which shows you the whole history for the main villain. After that, you should focus on only one character and max him out. I went with the mage of course but you can power up the others once you have beaten the game. You want one solitary fighter who can be the best.

I gotta admit that some of the things to buy are a little too vague. I feel like the game should give you descriptions when you buy items instead of just having to go by the title. Personally I got the wrong impression of the item on a few different occasions as a result of their being so vague. I suppose it’s meant to work well with the fact that the game is super vague in general but there are limits to that. Let me see what I’m buying!

The artstyle is really good. It’s got that retro look but stays very colorful and I also appreciated the rare illustration like right when you are about to fight the final boss. It looks really good all around and the game has to load a bunch of villains at all times with no real lag. The processing within the game is on point. The music is also good enough. It’s not super notable but works with the story.

The game’s story will probably take you around 8-10 hour or so. Then if you want to get the platinum that’ll probably take longer still. It’s a game that has a good amount of bonus content and that comes with more story and lore details. So I’d say it’s definitely worth it and I guess many agree with me because nearly half of all players got the 100% ending. That’s super impressive and I’ll have to go for that at some point because right now I’ve got an E rank in the game even after beating the campaign. Now that’s surprising!

Overall, I definitely recommend this game! Rogue elements go hand in hand with a Metroidvania experience like this and make the whole thing better. The game was a real blast and it’s why from the Christmas batch I had to jump into this one right away. If they ever make a sequel to this one then I will definitely be ready to play it. You really can’t go wrong here so even if you aren’t a big fan of the vania style, I recommend trying this one.

Overall 8/10