Dark Devotion

The game has potential but is plagued by three main issues. 1. The reasons behind your venturing into the temple are unknown or at least vague. There is nothing pushing you along nor any clear direction. 2. Exploration is tiresome as backtracking is impossible lest you want to redo the entire section. This is even more annoying as only one fast travel is active at a time and to reactivate one you must return to it, creating a very tedious exploration. 3. Finally, you lose all weapons upon death. EVERY SINGLE ONE. This means, every time you die, you are reset with basic crappy tools until you can grind back up to your previous power and die at the same point because you still have to learn the attack patterns of the thing that killed you. This ruins the experience and it is beyond me why the devs chose to take this direction.

Developer support is all but nonexistent on this game, and its not even up to date, there still a critical bug in the game when playing with keyboard and mouse, where you cant exit a certain menu, forcing you to close down the game completely, and you cant even rebind the controls. And the biggest technical problem is that the game crasher every time after after i started it once but quit and want to start again. Gameplay wise this could be really good if not for the terrible design decisions, like loosing every piece of gear you find when you die, and the constant backtracking because of the lack of checkpoints.

I will keep this as Spoiler free as possible, what I mention can be discovered 30 minutes into the game. Story: You have killed a fellow member of your order, and are therefore sentenced to reach the Temple and join the struggle to free your God. From here, the story unfolds progressively as you venture deeper and deeper into the temple, and unveil its secrets and history. The narrative is delivered through conversations, notes, and item descriptions. Gameplay: This is a rogue-like metroidvanian action/ exploration game. The focus is on tactical combat and strategic thinking. You will need your brains to figure out the best approach and tools to the challenges laying ahead of you. Each weapon has its own animation, and the choices include: one-handed, two-handed, bows, dual-wielding, shields, spells. The game is punishing but fair, easy to learn and hard to master, rewarding and satisfying. Exploration is done so that any path, meaning any door entered or leap taken, is oftentimes a final choice for the run. This may seem like an odd choice, but the map is massive and well interconnected, and taken into account the rogue-like nature of the game, chances to explore every nook and cranny of each game room abounds. Each run starts by choosing starting gear from the progressively unlocked load-out. There are talents to unlock too, and they help you define the class and gamestyle for the run. Presentation: The pixel art is top notch and one of the best I saw in my +35 years as a gamer. The music and ambiance are incredibly good and hooking, not often a game has given me an ear-worm, but this title surely knows how to do that. Is just THAT good. All these elements combine in a thick atmosphere that will suck you in, immerse you to the bones, and follow you even after you dropped the gamepad or K/M. An awesome little indie gem, with few rough edges that the Devs acknowledged and are working on. Highly recommended!

Aren't we all used to the crap that you cannot change some or any controls in modern games? This game does not allow any configuration, so I needed to use Auto-hotkey, yet that is not where it ends. The game declares "R" for "interacting" and "F" for "talking" - a bit weird, when you think about the fact that talking is also some kind of interaction, but hey no biggie... different people, different logic. Now it begins: - Wanna change skills at a monument? What do you press? "Interacting"? Wrong! Press "talking"! You talk to objects in this game, unless they are switches, then you interact! Got it? Yes! - So, wanna open a chest? What do you press? "Interacting"? Wrong! "Talking?" Wrong! You need to press either up or down. - Wanna pick up stuff? What do you press? "Interacting"? Wrong! "Kneel?" Wrong! "tAlKing?" Wrong! You first kneel down, then press "interacting". - Wanna pray at the shrine? What do you press? "Interacting"? "talking"? "Kneeling"? "LoOkIng Up?" All wrong! Press dedicated "Shift"-button for praying, You also don't need to kneel down on this one - LOL - Going through doors? What do you press? ...I'm intimidated. This time we go mainstream and use "up" like in other games. Most people may not be bothered by such stuff, for me it is a mess having more buttons to interact than for fighting, which only consists of lefthand, righthand and rolling. The more methodical pacing while fighting is good, though and will satisfy people looking for a soulslike experience. I dislike the lack of consistency and love. You cannot jump, only dash/roll, but this did not stop the developers from putting pits with instant-death-spikes in the dark all over the place: https://imgur.com/a/pMCC7Rd As you already guessed you cant change gamma or brightness. When your fun stops at those tedious pits, it's just a cherry on top that you start barehanded and need to re-equip weapons every time at the smith (only mouse-overlay here) Not enough love!