Apotheon

The art and atmosphere are amazing and wonderful but the gameplay kills everything. I give this game a 2 star because this is billed a hack-n-slash platformer and fails at both. You move your character with the WASD keys, jump with spacebar, and can climb ladders and across ceilings. Very standard but whats wrong? You move with momentum, speeding up on slopes and slowing down on inclines. Each map is densely packed so your character constantly changes speed, seeming to stumble and jump awkwardly. You can't predict how your character will move, so you can miss your jumps completely. You stick to walls and ledges but you don't to ladders and ceiling climbs, i.e. the opposite of what you want your character to do. Movement is thus fighting your controls constantly. Throw in a timed run in the middle of the game where you must go through each element perfectly, and all things totaled you have a failure of a platformer. For combat, your character is fixed in the center of your screen, and wherever your mouse points is where your character is targeting. You click to strike and block, each taking a bit of time while your character goes through the motions of completing the action. Disorienting at first, but it can be learned. What goes wrong? Enemies can occupy the same space as your character, but you can only hit someone if at the end of your swing the tip of your sword hits and meanwhile enemies can hit you point blank. So most of combat is running away from your enemies using those wonderful platforming controls mentioned earlier in order to be far enough away to hit something! Combat works better than the platforming but once you throw in some enemies that have a 1-hit knock out ability then the combat stops having any redeeming value. You might get lucky and end up liking this game but I feel that a warning is necessary.

Apotheon is a game fervently dedicated to its artistic vision even at the expense of its gameplay. What we have here is a title that has an excellent orchestral style soundtrack with higher grade sound assets for explosions and combat, looks quite beautiful (if Greek Pottery art excites you) and whose story is delivered very well by its voice actors (although it reads like the first draft of God of War). The Dark Souls comparison comes from the fact that combat is slow and deliberate in this title; you must carefully aim your attacks while predicting and dodging your opponents and hack'n'slash is rarely a viable option. Boss battles in particular are powerful and engaging, each with their own specific mechanic that challenges you to change your play style but in a logical sense. The above are all good things but the problem occurs with the strict adhesion to the art style when it comes to the UI and environmental navigation. You are given over a half dozen weapons in the initial level alone and switching between them quickly and graciously is a tedious and nigh impossible task when in tense situations as you must cycle through left and right to get to the proper weapon class then cycle up and down (sometimes through six or more weapons) to access what you want. Navigation becomes frustrating when it comes to bypassing stairs as you are forced up them and must drop below the staircase rather than running past it (admittedly a mild irritant). Apotheon is a game that will last you between 10-12 hours and is worth your time at current price if the art style intrigues you and you're after something that plays well.

Perhaps I am not the intended audience of this game, despite it making an appearance that it might be so. I love RPGs, including some A-RPGs, but find everything hack-and-slash utterly boring, and it gives me the same vibes. 1. Not a platformer: there are many levels, but there is no challange to jumping, there are no traps, etc. 2. A forced, uninspired story. Considering how Greek myths and literature is the foundation of european/western storytelling, this was the most dissapointing thing for me. 3. A very generic,weapon progression, where you get 'poor sword'-.'mediocre sword'-'good sword'-'fine sword'-'epic sword' - etc., which increase damage, but there is no thrill to them, no interesting powers, no backstory, no need to complete quests or kill a gorgon to get them, etc. They all detoriate quite fast and break anyway, so the whole game could be rebalanced about a single tier weapons and would play exactly the same. 4. No real place for tactics, it's 100% dexterity twin stick shooter, weirdly even when you use melee weapons. 5. Plays like a very generic hack-and-slash. 6. But doesn't have the advantage of countless character builds, which are the draw of h&s games. 7. Very little variation between areas: they differ in the colour palette and background art, but, despite different enemies, they all play exactly the same. 7. As you can see with your own eyes, great art, and that, together with 8. Actually quite fun boss fights, Was enough for me to complete the game, but then, I almost always play the games till completion, just as I never leave cinema before the film ends. It's not a bad game: it's just thoroughly mediocre one, which would probablly be mercilessly trashed or even not earned a glance, were it not for the art style. So, unless you like H&S, *and* don't mind playing something mechanic purely to experience the game art, you'll find more entertainment elsewhere. The art is great. I completed it mainly because boss fights were kind of OK.

It has been a fun game although it has an extreme focus on fighting for a metroidvania and very few tools. I seem to have found all the secrets and it was easier than most games I usually encounter. The bad things are that only XBox gamepads are supported and as so often nowadays there is no button mapping or even recognition of classic USB gamepads and that the physics are completely messed up. Hits of your enemy or yourself often result in ridiculous 30 meter long/high flights and in combination with the controls and graphics it feels a bit like a Java based browser game although a very good one. I especcialy like, that every weapon and shield is destructible - not counting the secret one from Hermes. The design and very well executed mythological theme are the biggest upsides of this game of course, I was pleasantly surprised that this game is actually full of quotes from the old Greek books and the devs seem to know what they were actually coding about, which is a rare thing. It's made to look that you are watching an ancient Greek vase come to life, you can even see the surface of the vase all the time which casts some nice shadows. I wasn't able to look at the multiplayer mode since it doesn't even start without having two M$ gamepads connected. Overall a nice game, special only in appearance but I had my share of fun although it's mostly killing people, finding keys and opening doors. I wish that there are more games with properly executed mythological themes to come and not just half-heartely thrown together creatures from some set. Maybe I should mention to my American fellows here, that this game is full of tits (nymphs) and boners (satyrs with constant erections), which kind of comes with the territory. ;)

I was in my 20's and had already left the nest when the Atari 2600 came out. I never played Mario in my life, and I find platform games frustrating. For some reason I'm really having a blast with this title. I'm using a game pad, I wouldn't even try it without. I bought it because of the incredible art style, and I'm really enjoying it so far. I realize it will get harder as I go along, and I may lose interest before I finish it. That's OK, I feel like this was money well spent.