There is a key over on the other ledge. Darkness between them and no way of knowing how deep it is. I leap across just making the gap. I pick up the key and jump back across to climb up the ladder to town. There is something wrong the town is dark and I can’t see anyone. I hear a groan of a man nearby. “They attacked us and the children have gone.”
There are three game modes that you can play including Story Mode, Survival Mode, and Relic Hunter Mode. I really like the choice and differences that each mode gives. In story mode you travel to a village to investigate rumours of strange happenings.
The rumour is that the dead are rising from the ground. However, when you arrive in the village you find out that there is more than just the dead that you have to worry about. You can have up to two players in story mode which makes fighting groups of enemies more fun. You start out with 5 lives so you must be careful because they go down quickly.
There isn’t a tutorial so you just have to learn as you go along which I would have liked if you wasn’t limited to a certain amount of lives. Survival mode is like any other survival mode it is an endless swarm of enemies that you fight off. You only have one life. I really liked this mode because it was fast paced and incredibly fun.
In relic hunting mode there are three areas you can explore including: The Mansion, The Temple, and The Caves. On each map you start off in one room and as you enter new rooms the map grows bigger to tell you where you have been. This is a really good way to keep track of your progress and stops you going round in circles. The map detail was really good as well. The Mansion map looked like a Japanese mansion and the pitfall traps blended in really well making it easy to fall down them.
The traps were sometimes worse than the enemies because if an enemy hits you you could also fall down a trap doubling their initial damage but then also when you come back you could fall down it again. On Xbox you press B to punch, A to kick and if you press LB you can run and if you run and press A or B you do a stronger attack. You also have to turn your character to the side that the enemy is so if you’re fighting two enemies at once you can quickly knock one back and continue fighting the other.
The one thing I really disliked was fighting the enemies. Some of the enemies had really high health but then also could block against your attack. However, they kept their defences up for the whole battle so you had to wait until they attacked you. Some of them would also jump away if you got close to them. I wouldn’t have minded it if they were bosses but to have basic enemies evading every attack just got frustrating.
Overall the game got a bit repetitive but the storyline kept me intrigued and determined to carry on. The visual side of the game reminded me of an older TV because it had horizontal lines across the screen making the game look dated. Even though this was great to establish the game’s design and feel it did make it hard to read the dialogue.
GameCritUK 