![]() ![]() Elfman-like staccatos punch through the game’s more eerie beats, while I feel like the composer definitely attempts to invoke Hisaishi’s contemplative piano movements to underpin some of the more touching, heartful moments. As the story can be a tonal seesaw, Ravenlok’s orchestral follows. The game’s score also gets a big tick, rounding out what is a pretty faultless fantasy presentation. Having enjoyed it in games like Cloudpunk, I feel the choice absolutely serves Ravenlok’s world and even the overuse of bloom throughout can’t stop this from being one of the better looking fantasy titles of the year, even if it doesn’t push the technical envelope. There are more than a few stunning vistas to take in, I especially loved the giant, cuddly looking Totoro-cat’s cliff side view of the labyrinth. Whoever was charged with Ravenlok’s art direction certainly read the book on fantasy and has done a fine job recrafting, in a lot of ways, the childlike wonder of these familiar scenes through the developer’s oft-used voxel art style. There’s a mirror-laden hedge maze labyrinth to explore, as well as an insanely scaled tea party where toppled tea pots and mouthwatering sweets are the scenery. I can’t overstate how pleasant Ravenlok’s world is, and how many allusions it makes to the fairy tales and fantasies we’ve grown up with. Some games will have enemies descend from the sky, or break through the earth’s soil to spring an attack, but Ravenlok simply has them materialise out of thin air. Inconsistent sequencing was the least of Ravenlok’s concerns as far as its design goes, and all it takes is one glance at the game’s regular, wave-defense ambushes you must survive. It never broke the game, though I did suck the wind out of my sails time and again to have my immersion within this world dented. With only a handful of realms, I did often manage to complete objectives out of sequence-I’d fairly often complete a fetch quest before I’d even been assigned it. RELATED: The Xbox App For PC Can Now Sort Your Games By How Long They Are With a fixed and rather limited viewpoint in any given area, both exploration and combat can feel cumbersome and clunky. For a modern action-adventure game to not have a completely free camera feels like a sin. Ravenlok’s camera is without doubt the game’s biggest frustration. It was this briskness that helped the game feel moreish despite its shortcomings in other areas. It doesn’t waste a second of its eight-or-so-hour journey with each quest’s ultimate objective seeming to feed into the goal of the next. Ravenlok also resists the urge to implement any kind of skill tree, instead opting for a simple two-currency system of gold and feathers which are spent on potions, bombs, and stat buffs respectively.Įven if the combat isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, there’s an undeniable joy in the adventure itself. Unfortunately it really isn’t to be, the game does trickle feed four special powers you can use in battle for added control, but it still remains fairly one-note from go to whoa. The sword and shield you find at the game’s beginning will be the same one you deal your final blow with, and in a sense that simplicity will better suit a younger audience but it also places a lot of pressure on the game’s combat to be fun and dynamic in spite of this. Cliches set firmly aside, toppling the Caterpillar Queen’s harsh reign is a fantastical time and really does have the magical flair you’d want from a game like this.Īfter you’re dubbed Ravenlok, prophesied saviour of the troubled realms, you’re given a crash course in defending yourself against all the nasties that wait ahead. As wildly imaginative as the setting and lore seems to be, Ravenlok is handled simply when it comes to its rich-in-cliche narrative and dialogue, which won’t challenge even the most unaccomplished readers. I’d argue the game is intended for adolescents and younger and, as such, doesn’t really capitalise on the emotional weight that comes with such life-changing events. Ravenlok appears to hit on the well worn tropes of escapist fiction, as the game’s heroine retreats into fantasy to deal with her family’s countryside relocation. ![]() It falls down a rabbit hole into a wonderland of wonderfully strange, and it finds inspiration in coming-of-age, fish out of water fairy tales like Spirited Away and Alice in Wonderland. So far as how it’s presented, Ravenlok is as charming as they come. If Echo Generation was Cococucumber’s attempt at an eighties-infused Stranger Things send-up, then Ravenlok is their attempt at a faraway fantasy. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |