Lords of Exile caught my eye awhile back. It wears it's Castlevania inspiration on it's sleeve. From the look and even gameplay it's clearly obvious this is what it wanted to be. The graphics are quite good, having that nostalgic 8 bit horror feel and typical vania soundtrack to go with it. On paper Lords of Exile is exactly that and what you expect, however while playing it, it felt pretty mediocre and then after finishing thinking back on it I think slightly below average retro platformer. The fundementals of a good game are there but there are so many half baked ideas and mechanics that the game feels unfinished. Not to say it's not polished or glitchy but on a concept level.
It's a classic 2D sidecroller with about 8 levels about 7-8 min average playtime. It has the standard vania sub weapons that you can collect and use with limited resources. You have your dagger, the classic vertical axe throw, bomb and a homing boomerang and thats it. There is nothing original there. 90% of the time you only find daggers and axes and the weapon refills are so plentify I wonder why they even made it a mechanic in the first place. I can understand having the classic archtypes if you wanna be a spiritual successor but create something of your own as well. The game is actually pretty easy. You will not find the classic vania difficulty here. Most everything dies in a single hit and bosses are the only thing that pose a real threat. To make matters worse most of the bosses are too poorly designed and you can simply outpace their damage output from mindless slashing or stand in one spot to avoid most damage all togather. The final boss is the only boss that posed any real challenge and the only one that I thought was above average.
There is no exploration this is a pure sidescroller, so no metroidvania replays or alternate paths nor secrets to discover in the stages. There is a simple shop where you can buy items or health but the game is so easy and has such little options it feels completely unessesary. Even more head scratching are these slot machines in each level to get more gold or items. Feels like an unfinished idea for a bigger game. It makes no sense here. The worst of all though is the spirit helper mechanic. You can unlock a spirit that helps as you play the game. Which is a neat idea to add functionality to the game but the problem is that there is only two of them the entire game and they only serve a single gimmick function. One for clearing blocks and one for grapple hooking fixed jump gaps. Totally worthless mechanic. Would make sense if they served some platforming passive upgrade or make a unique attack or something. There is a small upgrade for your character as you beat each stage and while the first half of the game was quite nice they just got lazier and lazier as the game went on. Another half baked idea. There is no lives system and checkpoints are plenty. Die on a boss you can infinitely try again. I think a larger emphasis on story or alt paths and endings would have helped flesh this game out better. This is only a intro and ending scene and they are quite genaric.
After beating the game once you unlock another playable character, boss rush and a speed run mode. While nice does feel like rather light and standard. Lords of Exile looks nice and sounds good so it might catch your attention but after playing a couple of stages quickly loses it's shine. Worth it for a single playthrough if you can get it cheap cause it's easily beaten in a single sitting.
It's a classic 2D sidecroller with about 8 levels about 7-8 min average playtime. It has the standard vania sub weapons that you can collect and use with limited resources. You have your dagger, the classic vertical axe throw, bomb and a homing boomerang and thats it. There is nothing original there. 90% of the time you only find daggers and axes and the weapon refills are so plentify I wonder why they even made it a mechanic in the first place. I can understand having the classic archtypes if you wanna be a spiritual successor but create something of your own as well. The game is actually pretty easy. You will not find the classic vania difficulty here. Most everything dies in a single hit and bosses are the only thing that pose a real threat. To make matters worse most of the bosses are too poorly designed and you can simply outpace their damage output from mindless slashing or stand in one spot to avoid most damage all togather. The final boss is the only boss that posed any real challenge and the only one that I thought was above average.
There is no exploration this is a pure sidescroller, so no metroidvania replays or alternate paths nor secrets to discover in the stages. There is a simple shop where you can buy items or health but the game is so easy and has such little options it feels completely unessesary. Even more head scratching are these slot machines in each level to get more gold or items. Feels like an unfinished idea for a bigger game. It makes no sense here. The worst of all though is the spirit helper mechanic. You can unlock a spirit that helps as you play the game. Which is a neat idea to add functionality to the game but the problem is that there is only two of them the entire game and they only serve a single gimmick function. One for clearing blocks and one for grapple hooking fixed jump gaps. Totally worthless mechanic. Would make sense if they served some platforming passive upgrade or make a unique attack or something. There is a small upgrade for your character as you beat each stage and while the first half of the game was quite nice they just got lazier and lazier as the game went on. Another half baked idea. There is no lives system and checkpoints are plenty. Die on a boss you can infinitely try again. I think a larger emphasis on story or alt paths and endings would have helped flesh this game out better. This is only a intro and ending scene and they are quite genaric.
After beating the game once you unlock another playable character, boss rush and a speed run mode. While nice does feel like rather light and standard. Lords of Exile looks nice and sounds good so it might catch your attention but after playing a couple of stages quickly loses it's shine. Worth it for a single playthrough if you can get it cheap cause it's easily beaten in a single sitting.