Rogue lite games continue to surge on all gaming platforms, it’s no surprise to anyone, this type of game is adored by gamers. However, the exercise can be difficult, some come out wonderfully, while others sink and are forgotten. Today, we are dealing with a very special Rogue lite, because apart from of course offering what almost all the others do, it also offers a spooky universe taken from the works of Lovecraft, yes just that. But suddenly is it just a stroke of madness or a stroke of genius, we are going to dissect all of this and dive into the heart of the Lovecraftian lands.
Journey into the world of Lovecraft
Gamer friends and other lovers of the universe of our favorite writer, welcome to a perpetual nightmare. Source of madness makes the effort to offer a semblance of history, certainly not grandiose, but totally in the spirit of what the famous writer’s short stories offer us. In a world plagued by occult powers, the moon or a moon, whatever, would bring powers, miracles and could prevent the advent of the old gods, or is it the other way around?
As always, the story is quite ambiguous and does not really reveal itself. Apart from a few dialogues or other artworks, which moreover are sumptuous, the story will be discreet. Like a Dark Souls, the lore is meant to be exciting, dark and really very mysterious, even too discreet. It will be up to us, players, to discover more about this world that awaits us. As already said, the universe that is depicted for us takes up all the codes of Lovecraft’s works, whether in the aesthetics or the few dialogues, any good connoisseur of this universe will find the references. The old and cruel gods are part of the game, some playable characters are barely hidden references, like Charles Ward, straight from the short story “The Charles Dexter Ward Affair”. In short, the game abounds with tributes of all kinds to the entire work of Lovecraft.
The cult of Chtullu
Of course, we’re in a Rogue lite, so that means we’re going to die a lot. Don’t worry, death won’t be too punitive, because depending on the enemies we have slain, we will earn blood orbs. This will act as currency in the main hub to acquire many improvements. Each time our character dies, a date will be indicated, that of his birth and his death, nothing really exciting or very useful, but this detail shows the investment of our characters in this fight which seems eternal and dedicated to the future. ‘failure. Thus, therefore, our character is not immortal, other followers of the cult aimed at preventing the old gods from returning will come to replace the last one to fall in battle.
Each will have its own characteristics, high health, reduced damage, etc. Same for weapons, because yes, we are in a Rogue Lite so our characters will of course be armed. Attention, here it is not a question of having a rifle, a crossbow or a sword, no, we will have two simple rings. Finally simple, it is quickly said, since the latter will still be able to materialize flames, lightning and other balls of energy of all kinds. In fact, these famous rings will each have their own characteristics and above all a very distinct type. Because yes, our characters also have a class, follower of nature, follower of fire, blood, generalist and so on, will be part of the choices that we will have to make to hope to go further. It will then be possible to unlock other classes, but for that you will have to fight hard in order to collect a mass of blood orbs. Besides, as long as we talk about unlocking other classes, the upgrades will be done in the same place and will be unlocked for all characters, this may seem normal, but it’s still good to remember.
Death to the cadavers
Let’s get to the main thing, the enemies. It is clear that they do indeed honor Lovecraft. Completely dimorphic, disjointed and glaucous, they seem to have come straight out of a Cronenberg film. More or less big, they will stand in front of us in unlikely positions, in fact, it is enough to see a game like Fall Guys to get an idea of the movement of monsters. But on top of their sick and gory design, it will all be random. Basically, we will never have the same critter in front of us. Well that’s for sure in writing, because in fact we have seen that the monsters always look a little alike.
Still, on paper, the game was promising, as it promised that enemy design and movement was entirely handled by fantastic procedural generation and an AI neural network. We’re not making it up, it’s the game sheet itself that boasts of it. Well this is only a detail, but it is still a pity that in fact everything is repetitive. Anyway we still have a good time, an adventure that will take us a lot of time, of course, it will depend on his skill and his adherence to this type of game. For our part, we will have took about a good ten hours to see the end. It is certainly possible to make it shorter, or even longer, but again everything will depend on our skill in this kind of game.
Beyond the Mountains of Madness
Now let’s move on to the last step, the graphics and the soundtrack. Let’s not go through 4 paths and go straight to the point, the graphics of the title are either beautiful or extremely ugly. They have a very special side, even quite difficult to describe. We will love it or we will hate it, for our part we had a hard time at first, but in the end, we quickly fell under the game’s little charm. Its aesthetics are quite special, but in the end, it totally sticks to the work of Lovecraft.
As long as we are on the graphics, let’s also talk about the texts, fully translated into French, they nevertheless have a big flaw and not the least. The font size is tiny, so yes, we can play it on a small screen in handheld mode and that alleviates the problem somewhat, but in docked mode, it’s a readability nightmare, so we can’t advise this game on a big screen.
As for the soundtrack, nothing really remarkable. Nevertheless, it manages to stand out a minimum by sticking to the theme of the game. The music is relatively discreet, but in the theme of horror with a few notes that can cause some feelings of discomfort. Attention, it is not at the level of a Silent Hill, it will just be small sensations.
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