[quote]Just saying, but I do have a curator page. If you like my remarks about games, you can find more of them here: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44130985-TDP%27s-Gaming-Escapades [/quote]
Sometimes I miss older times, when game development was not this expensive and convoluted. You had teams with lowest budgets and weirdest ideas trying to make a game, resulting in unique experiences... some of them being good/decent and some of them being REALLY bad.
Garshasp: The Monster Slayer is one of those games; An ambitious first project by Dead Mage studio, who are now known for Children of Morta and Wizard of Legend 2. The game is based on Persian mythology and the story of Garshasp, a distant ancestor of the legendary hero Rostam, with gameplay inspired by the classic God of War trilogy. You know... the fun ones where you just hacked and slashed without the need for RPG mechanics, blatant puzzle hints or a second playable character that nearly everyone hated.
[h2]Oi, janky game mate...[/h2]
Garshasp: The Monster Slayer is also one of those old games that has aged pretty badly. And not just in the gameplay department, but also the technical side of stuff.
For starters, the game's menus were created using Flash and since Steam does not install it automatically because of security concerns, the game will crash shortly after starting. To fix this, you either need to go to the game's installation location and install Flash Player 10's ActiveX from the redist folder, or find a supported "Flash.ocx" file and drop it next to the game's executable. Now the weird part is, that ocx file is already included in Garshasp: Temple of the Dragon, but was never added to this game for some reason. For your convenience, I'll put a link to it in the comments and whether or not Steam keeps it is up to them.
Unfortunately, the problems don't end there as the game runs poorly on modern hardware. It drops frames whenever a lot of enemies show up on screen, and constantly freezes for a moment whenever it needs to load new assets or activate the latest checkpoint. And sometimes you get these freezes in incredibly bad moments like in middle of a jump, which screws with what you were planning to do. Worst of all, since the game was made with a proprietary engine built on top of Ogre3D, solutions like dgvoodoo will fail to properly hook into it, so you have to deal with these performance issues if you really want to play this... and also the gameplay jank because the game has A LOT of them too.
There are gaps in the terrain at times due to incorrect placement of some textures and meshes, some of the visual effects might appear incorrectly, execution moves might have their audio played with a delay, you might hear extra sound effects and music tracks playing on top of what you are already hearing, moving platforms might bug out and go further than their designated path which can make progression impossible without reloading from the checkpoint, you can go through the environment at some spots which directly results in a game over, some achievements get unlocked sooner or later than when they are supposed to, the camera might freak out after a transition... these are only some of the issues that I personally found.
[h2]It's... really not fun to play...[/h2]
Still, let's say you want to power through and play the game anyway. So let's see what's awaiting you in it.
First things first, I have to say that the game looks good for an indie game from 2011 with very limited budget. The foundations are laid well, the game mechanics actually work, the animations are decent, the monster designs are really well-done and the cinematics have good quality... if we ignore how the main character looks in them, that is. It really feels like the developers tried their best, instead of just putting out a putrid piece of flaming trash and calling it a day. However, all of this is not to say it plays well, especially in this day and age.
This is not a long game and can be beaten in about 2 hours. However, you will feel like it's taking you more than that, due to how the game is designed. Most of the game has you walking/platforming through a linear path, with combat encounters and puzzles appearing in your way from time to time. Although the combat encounters happen much more often and there aren't many actual "puzzles" to solve. Only at the end of the game you get the chance to explore side paths or return to a previous area after opening up the way. However, it's already too late as by then the feeling of repetitiveness, and boredom as the result of it, have already settled in.
To make matters worse, one of the platforming events that the game frequently re-uses ends up making the whole experience infuriating. There are numerous sections where you have to slide down a wall, while dodging hazards that come from below (or above, as the first instance of this event has falling rocks chasing you as well). This event is boring at best and infuriating at worst, until you reach the end of the game when it just gets painful. Basically, the game forces you to go down a very long hole while the camera is placed at a weird angle, making proper navigation very hard to do. Not only that, it will expect you to jump between two parallel walls, something it has NEVER asked you to do beforehand, and a simple mistake sends you to the last checkpoint. This part of the game is the ultimate test in patience, and I won't blame you for quitting it there.
[h2]Square, Square, Triangle[/h2]
Unfortunately, the combat is also lacking and is not enjoyable at all. Attacks from both the main character and the enemies have no weight, no proper impact and no satisfying reactions. The combo system is very basic, only limiting you to "light attack chain, heavy attack chain, light attack chain ending with a strong attack" with the last one being much more preferable as it can stun most of the enemies around you, opening them up for an instant execution. The parrying is very easy to do when you get the hang of it, trivializing a lot of the encounters and especially the forest boss fight, while also making dodging obsolete unless against specific enemies. All of this makes for a boring and repetitive combat experience, which gets even more boring with the game giving you lengthier encounters where enemies just don't stop spawning as you progress further.
Then we have the level up system which is another can of worms on its own. The experience you collect only applies to weapons, with each weapon having its own levels and upgrade bar. This means you need to land the killing blow and open containers with the weapon you need to upgrade or it won't count. Furthermore, each weapon can only be leveled up only a couple times as the game is very short. Because of that, the game goes against its rules and refuses to give you any orbs after defeating certain enemies at certain points in the game, and gets stingy with what you cat earn to prevent you from maxing the levels sooner than anticipated.
And this system further impacts combat, as you need to unlock new combos and increase your weapon damage through leveling up. This means many would not even try to use the mace after they acquire it as there's no easily visible benefit to using it and the sword has leveled up significantly by then, further bolstering the repetitiveness.
[h2]TL;DR[/h2]
The ambition of the devs is commendable, but the game is way too repetitive/boring and suffers from a series of severe technical issues on modern systems, making it unrecommendable to the masses.
[h2]P.S.:[/h2]
Did you know this game is quite possibly censored? The earliest promotional videos showed a lot of blood bursting out of the enemies, to the point literal pools of blood were created under the main character's feet. However, the blood is barely noticeable in the final product. I wonder why...
