Devoid of Shadows

I saw 2 reviews for this game, so thought I would pick it up and see if its worth telling people about. I like indie developers, and I don't mind putting up with some rough mechanics if there's a fun game underneath. Sadly, what I hoped would be a review of praise, is instead a warning for all buyers interested. Do not buy this game. The following list is why: Long load even with an initial SSD Terrible English translation Tutorial: Doesn't make sense. You're not sure what to go or click on half the time, and you stumble through it to start the game. Camera: A bad design choice for this style of game. The camera is too low, so the 3D walls get in the way as you turn it. There is no auto Camera, meaning you must continually manually fix it as you move through a maze of coridoors. Generic keybinds for this type of game do not function. I ended up having to click to open my inventory, then click to open my character, then click to equip. Oh, and discovered I had stat points to raise that the game never told me about. The Big One: The gameplay is awful. Being a diablo-like, you would think, "I can hold down the button to basic attack". No, you can't. "Ok, I'll just click then." Except that the clicks don't always respond. This right here kills the game, when the core gameplay is a mess. I will say the music is nice, and the dungeon is decent looking, but it has so much to go before I could call it a finished game, even at its price point. I feel bad for the devs, but people should not support this as it is.

I don't know if this game is Early Access. I don't believe it is, as I did not see anything saying it was. This game is very clunky, the movement, camera control and combat is all very clunky. Many games of this ilk from that era had similar problems, and going forward those games have gotten a lot smoother, and because of that, are a joy to play. This game has a very big problem with how the game is controlled, and how bad it feels to play. I have nothing to say regarding the story, or graphics, as I am less concerned with those things, than I am with how bad this game feels to play. It is not enjoyable combat, it is not convenient controlling the camera and windows. You cannot open up inventory using I, or your character screen with C like most RPG's. The options were very limited, with nothing regarding controls, so maybe you can open up the windows with keyboard presses, but I would never know. The tutorial stage is annoying to the point of wanting to gouge out my eyes. Developers really need to learn how to make tutorials, without making them feel so onerous and annoying. This game has some interesting features, with upgrading of castle features, to make better crafted items and the like, but honestly that is overshadowed by how not fun this game is to play because of the clunkiness. I really need to say clunky one more time so everyone understands how it feels. TLDR The game is clunky, and feels bad to play. It is not fluid, and you get stuck inside enemies unable to hit them for no reason. Save your money, do not buy this game unless the dev actually puts effort into making the game feel fluid, and stop wasting time on making an interesting castle crafting system.

Well i was going to try the game even with the bad reviews, because everyones likes and dislikes are different. But i can't recommend this game and the reason is that it wont let me play it. My rig can run Ghost Recon Wildlands on utra settings with no issues, however i take 2 steps in the tutorial and it crashes every time. I have done all the so called fixes on forums with no help, All drivers up to date, and i should have no issues playing this game. So with some regret i do not recommend this game which is a shame because i enjoy this time of game

"Very positive" reviews, most of wich are written in russian or poor english and have only 2-3 hours played, make me think about an army of bots that left said reviews. The fact that those reviews have nothing to do with the actual game don't help either (no, really, I would like to play the game they praised, cause I downloaded something else). 1) Graphics look like this game was developed in 2004 at best. In static it could at least pretend to be "oldschool", but animations are just terrible: some are missing (some enemies slide to you instead of walking), some are not properly shown or are not synched with actions (you will, for example, get damage before strike animation on mob ends; or a mob will enter stagger animation after being hit while he will continue sliding to you with the same speed he ran). 2) This game has awful level design. Dull narrow corridors with rooms that don't really differ one from another. 3) And this is the point that makes 2 previous points intolerable: awful camera. It is too close for an RPG, you would rather expect that kind of camera in third person shooter/action. Combine narrow corridors with inability to raise your camera and you will get frustrated every time you miss an item cause it is hidden from your point of view. 4) Oh, and what items. This game has no lootable equipment. No thrill when you get an epic or legendary weapon. All you get from drops are resources, that are used in a pretty basic crafting to get all your gear. And to make things worse, with all the drops you get you have a pretty small inventory for crafting materials (I was full by the end of floor 3 and was supposed to use storage (yay busywork!)). 5) Said crafting is locked behind "Castle development". This could sound cool if said development did not consist of like 6 rooms that are all build with the same resource. It was clearly added just to say "we have it" on a store page. 6) Floors are just levels, the start of new floor saves your game, so the whole "elements of roguelike" is a lie. If you die - your game loads. No metaprogression, no instadeath, no procedural generation of levels (the levels I saw on youtube are exactly the same that I got). 7) RPG system is primitive to say the least. A common point pool for stats, skills and perks. All perks are passive proc chances for boring things. All skills are basic stuff you will find in any RPG. Stats are just your mana and health. Completely uninspired and generic. 8) Oh, and how could I even forget that every single level up, every single pick up, every single resource mining action gives you a small window that requires you to press a button to close it? All the junk information you could get in a simple message log or as a fading message on screen distracts you from gameplay instead. 9) "Interesting story" as far as I played looked like a generic betrayal story, but with vampires (which changes nothing, as there are no signature vampire skills like turning into a bat, sucking blood or whatever else vampires are supposed to do). Opening video was somewhat cool, but all the unvoiced, predictable and simple written dialogues in game could not make me interested enough to play this game any further. Sadly I can't find any redeeming point for this game, and I don't really see how it could be better without a massive overhaul.

**UPDATE Nov. 8th 2017** As a result of the Developers continued good-faith actions, their decrease of the price of the game to an acceptable level, and their continued efforts to patch their game, I am altering my review to one of positivity. These developers have worked hard to repair the damage to their reputation caused by their former english translator. This game, while still far from perfect, is now in line with it's price point and I do feel comfortable recommending it to my viewers. Great job all around and I hope to see bigger and better things from these developers! https://youtu.be/AU-hVMPuJgE **UPDATE** https://youtu.be/RCCAakiy4ek The Publishers have removed the Translator who had issued the legal threat to Steam Users from the project. Their openness and willingness to work with the community seems to be genuine and I do not feel it would be right to not inform people of the positive steps taken in that regard. That said, I still cannot recommend the game at this time as it feels promising, but far from finished. I feel the game is better off in Early Access and continued to be developed. At this point, it is still exceptionally buggy and does not do much to inspire enjoyment of the game. ** ORIGINAL REVIEW STATEMENT BELOW** https://youtu.be/aL0MLoJWfeI The publishers of this game have threatened legal action against Steam users in an attempt to silence criticism over the english translations both within the game and on the Steam storefront. They have since deleted the discussion thread and banned all users that commented within the thread in order to attempt to hide from the fully justified fallout that is likely to come as a result of their actions. Please do not support these people in any way. The game itself feels only half-finished. It seems the Developers gave up on a number of features. It shows promise, but falls flat on it's face. Poor animations that are out of sync with your actions, text only character interactions, and no meaningful introduction to the game's mechanics or story. Framerate drops and glitches run rampant through what little of the game that I have played so far. Even if the Publishers were not deplorable excuses for human beings, I still would not be able to recommend this game unless it were patched HEAVILY.

This isn't a game in a great place right now. I suspect that most of the Positive reviews are from people trying to give the Devs props for terminating an employee that threated legal action against Steam users for critising the game. No a bad game is a bad game. I'm sorry but Devs don't get an easy pass because they were nice. I give Devs money, I get atleast an OK game. Here are some choice words from their own description. [quote=ABOUT THIS GAME]- It is a true АRPG with roguelike elements. - There are three types of the characters and advanced crafting. - You will have dozens of skills based on the Power of Blood. - The game has 21 levels of dungeons with random world generation. - A magic painting depicting the Royal castle. One can move there from any location and relive, improve the workshops and craft the weapon, armours, potions, combat scrolls and everything that helps you survive. All this is accompanied by sweet sounds of guitar strings. [/quote] [h1]-"True ARPG"-[/h1] I guess Diablo, Torchlight, Path of Exiles etc. are not true ARPGs. None of those games are [b]JUST[/b] a series of small, linear, pre-designed levels, with maybe a maximum of 30 enemies in the map. When you die in those untrue ARPGs you go back to an early point in the map/town. Incurring a monetary penalty and/or a temporary debuff. In DoS when you die, that's it, [b]Game Over[/b]. -Everything that drops from mobs are simply crafting items. No healing pots, No equipment, No Consumables. -So all equipment is crafted, so far no greens or blues. -Equipment have no procs or interesting properties. Just Health, Mana, Damage (+crit change), Armour, resistenses (dodge, fire etc.). [noparse] [Nothing like 5% proc on hit, which spawns friendly bats that seekout enemies, like some sort of heatseeking poison missles. Nor 2% proc on armour when hit produce frost nova from character] [/noparse] -There is not overall leveling a character up. Instead it's oddly divided up into Combat (Blood Power/Power of Blood) and Castle upgrades (Craftsmanship). Leveling up in Combat gives you 1 point, to either apply to your basic stats (like 1 health, yes 1 hit point per combat level up) [b]AND[/b] used for abilities _ Do you want 1 health point, when basic enemies hit for 12? or do you want to save for a skill that does 110% damage... hmmm choices. - No Randomly generated levels. [h1]-"Roguelike"-[/h1] -This game is not a Roguelike (as far as I can see, more on that later) Roguelikes and Roguelites all have a permadeath system AND a meta/account progression. When your character dies, the run is over, but you can improve the next run with new unlocks or upgrades. This game has none of that, when you die you simlpy have to redo that level from the point of entering it. During that level before death all the gains are gone: items, experience points, castle upgrades. All gone. Just back to an autosave (Neither ARPGs nor Roguelike games do this. This is something CRPGs do) -I've played all 3 characters and there is no randomly generated levels, they've all been identical. [h1]-Controls-[/h1] -Each click is one attack, you can not hold the mouse button to attack. So you have to be clicking continuously, which brings it's own set of problems. -Due to the combination of the camera and the often confined areas, attacking and moving are painful to control. (And before someone points out the 16th April patch. No it's still an issue. Now the camera has become unweildy, as it gets pushed away from level geometry... Pushed right into other geometry) -Abilities inconsistently don't trigger. -You'll be attacked by packs, and you'll want to backtrack to create some distance, but you'll have to try to swivel the camera to face away from the attacking pack before you can move your character away. It's hard to express in words how wonky the movement and attacking feels. [h1]-Gameplay Interruptions-[/h1] -"Power of Blood" and "Craftsmanship" points leveling up opens annoying window. -Every item pick-up opens annoying window. The kicker is this doesn't need to be a window with a confirmation button, it could just be text in a chat window or a UI element that pops up, doesn't take focus and is on the side and autocloses after 5 seconds. I DON'T WANT TO HIT OK EVERYTIME I COLLECT A LOUSY ITEM OR LEVEL UP. -Accidently picks up items while in combat, causes character to become inactive (until you click OK) while being hit by enemies. -And when you do want to pick up items, it's a Pixel hunt to collect them. And every other enemy will drop an item bag. Spent more time collecting loot and resources in this ARPG than spent in combat. [h1]-Abilities "dozens of skills"- [/h1] No interesting abilities. Most of them are low hanging fruit bargin basement minor passives. And that's even IF they work. "Double Throw" doesn't function, is all whole description:- "The bomb thrown by the Theif causes double damage to the enemy with a chance of 10% critical damage. Mana Expense: 10 Hot Key [2] " Does not work, game does not state why it does not work. It is simply greyed out on my hotbar. [h1]-Misc and some of the other issues-[/h1] -You can breakdown all the items, but I've no idea which are trash and which are useful crafting items and which are worth keeping. -The crafting UI needs alot of polish. The same problems as Mass Effect:Andromeda. So many ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ tabs and buttons to press for what should be a simply task.[noparse] [UI 101- The less button presses the better] [/noparse] -The "Castle"... "one can move there from any location and relive"... It isn't actually a playable level, it's a menu. I don't know what "relive" means in this context, since it's not a place it's just a pause menu with your journal, crafting menu and misc info. -The reason why I can't say much of this is for certain (maybe half way through the game, it does become a proper ARPG), is because I can not get past the betraying Earl due to the game's balance, or lack their of. I disagree with the idea of crafting being your only option in an ARPG, I'd rather get the weapons, armour and consumables as drops. But in DoS that would require more enemies and more levels. More opertunities to kill and loot... Maybe like some RNG maps with side quests, or an infinate dungeon to delve into... like some sort of ARPG or Roguelike... This is along way from being an ARPG, even further way from being a good game. There are so many more problems. But frankly I've spent 2 hours trying to play this game and 20 minutes writting this, I don't want to spend more time with it.

Words can't express how bad this game is... It's is rare for me to do a negative review but this one deserved it. It look like a game from 2005 or before, but not a good one even if it was from that time! It is bad in every way: -Bad animations -Terrible combat system where you have no control like dodging, rolling, blocking... -Equipments have no visual, only stats, wich makes them pointless -Crappy crafting/resource farming system. -Missing a lot of Sound effects -Monsters are dumb and don't even make sense having werewolfs, trolls, rats all piled up in the vampires basement...

WARNING : FAILING SAVING SYSTEM = PROGRESS LOST I played this game with pleasure until i reached level 8. At the begining of the level 8, i decided to quit game to do a lot of thing irl. When i was ready to continue my party later, after loading my party, i noticed THAT : - Attributes points spent gone - Skills never be saved, all points lost forever and all unlocked skills gone - Equipment on character never be saved, i got back with only junk basic stuff from begining level 1 - Castle chest item stored all gone - Castle crafting station unlocked were yet ok - Ressources (wood, ore...) gone I stop to play this game for that. Game is addictive but without saving progress it worth nothing. Now i must face at level 8 many mobs i won't be able to fight safely because my Tier 3 and Tier 2 items are missing. There is no way to grind back to previous levels new stuff. Game don't save correctly your progress when you quit. Until this game mechanic stay as it, i won't support this game and this revue will stay as negative.

how is this a 2017 game? the graphics, interface, and lack of even WASD movement make this feel like it's a game from the diablo 2 or warcraft 3 era. the translation on the skills is also damn terrible, can barely make out what they're supposed to do.

Cannot save. Autosave at end of each level disappeared on me twice where i had to restart the game from the start. Buggy save system where i will start at the beginning of the game yet have all the loot and gear from the previous autosave that disappeared on me. Keyboard commands do not always work ending with me pressing multiple times to get any kind of response. Its too bad since it does have a certain visual appeal but the game is too buggy.