Slain: Back From Hell

I heard this game was bad before they fixed it up, but I only ever played it after this. So this game is 'Good', not great, but still worth a try if you like masochistic platformers. Art/Environment/Atmosphere: The enemies are interesting, the kills are fun, the excessive blood is fun, getting killed has multiple animations. Headbanging after slaying a boss is also cool... because why not. Basically, the aesthetic of the game is excellent, and has (had?) a lot of potential. Gameplay: The controls are fluid and responsive*. Mind you, they are not "tight", because the devs added delays to your attacks on purpose. I think games are better when the controls are made as player-centric as possible, and the difficulty should come from your enemies/situations (like Hollow Knight). Here, it's still on you to be good, however, the extra delays can get frustrating: swinging your sword has a bit of a timer, trying to block after attacking has a bit of a timer... And in this game, split-split-seconds are required, and if you mess anything up, you can be dead extremely quickly. Bosses are challenging, and once you learn their pattern, you can flawless them, however, you will die a lot. Again, you can die in an instant, and missing a single block (which is a fraction of a second) will make you dead. Luckily, respawn points are placed to avoid repetetion (there's always one before a boss, which would have been extremely frustrating if it wasn't). With regards to checkpoints, dying happens frequently, so I'm glad the game doesn't force you to waste too much time from death to restart (it's about a second). So this promotes "try again" gameplay. Combat is relatively simplistic, but there's enough there for it to not be too boring. With some more time, this game could have expanded on its hubworld (done something with the village/crone), perhaps added powerups, more exploration of levels. And honestly, if the controls were made more responsive, it would have been better.

This review comes from 6h in game Technically speaking, this version of the game is much more optimized and polished (you can play it on an Atom X8500 Tablet at full speed) I already finished it once with all but one secret to unlock the final sword (well actually don't need it to finish the game) The game is called Slain, but you may not even touch a single minion if you are able to kill the mini-bossess and final bossess quickly (except for those few that actually trigger level progression) A simple Pros / Cons approach Pros: "Heavy" Metal Music and Atmosphere from start to end Impressive pixel art and effects Some clever tricks here and there to scratch your head a bit before slamming your sword on the next minion Good sound effects (compared to the first release of this game) Good control response (compared to the first release of this game) Cons: You don't have a sense of progression in this game (apart from unlocking the few levels available in game) You don't get rewards from killing anything, you don't get Mana or Health Upgrades There's is no difficulty level You may feel overwhelmed if you don't adapt your sword correctly to the enemies you are facing Some points are so tedious that you may want to leave the game to rest for a couple of hours and then, maybe, come back to it The "Block" function is there, but you have to be perfectly timed to the game engine (I was able to finish the first round of the Final Boss without being touched once) It's possible to use it but missing the spot goes for a fast death and subsequent retry Final advice The end feels cheap and unfinished (Sounds more like a cliffhanger to me) and actually doesn't seem to be directly related to the initial part of the story (It feels like the ending of Lords of Shadows II and Dead Space 3 with the DLC had sex and produced a "Heavy Metal" unborn child) If you still want to try this game, get it on sale (I did so, but knowing the ending then I would have probably spent my money on a different game)

Pretty straightforward platformer with gorgeous pixel art (hindered a bit by lack of pixel perfect aspect ratio), metal soundtrack and decent boss fights. There's also a nice plot twist at the end. Great stepping stone for future installments.

good old platforming style

Atmosphere and control are good but I find some minions a bit too strong that I need to slash and go back rinse and repeat and that's a bit boring. Multiple checkpoints did help though