Helvetii

The tl;dr is: This is a genuinely neat and unique game that mixes the best part of Vanillaware games, roguelites, the combat of games like Hollow Knight and Blasphemous and character action games like DMC. If you enjoy combat-heavy 2D games then I consider this game kind of an obligatory playthrough. To elaborate: The game carries its influences from Vanillaware games like Odin Spehere and especially Muramasa: The Demon Blade on its sleeve. It is 2D, it's combat-heavy, it has a hand-drawn artstyle and has a historic theme to it. However this is entirely its own game. The random map generation, random item drops and random ability gains will remind a lot of players of something like Hades or other roguelites. Yet the way these things weave into each other with the base combat system unlocks so much interesting emergent gameplay. Your builds will straight-up change your optimal combo routes and it makes for a game that's REALLY fun to replay over and over, especially on different difficulties and characters. The combat has kind of a neat mix between classic character action games and metroidvanias like Hollow Knight/Blasphemous. A major bridge between these is the fact that you can dash out of pretty much any other action. You can also jump or attack out of your dash. This all makes the combat extremely free-form and fluid in a really cool way; compare to how DMC lets you jump cancel out of many attacks. This might sound broken, but the entire game is balanced around this fact so you have a game that is okay with you pulling invincibility and mobility out of nowhere. Then the game challenges you, knowing that you have this power. The greatest fights in the game feel so good because you always know that you had an option to do something different! So yeah, I genuinely like this game. You have an amazingly fun aggressive playstyle that is supported by extremely versatile defensive options and a combo system that allows for a lot of creativity in terms of figuring out the optimal pickups for the situation. I highly recommend picking this game up if you are looking for a character action game that is a bit lighter to pick up and play than the likes of DMC or what have you.

[h1]SDHQ STEAM DECK PERFORMANCE REVIEW:[/h1] [table] [tr] [th] Follow our [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/42495043/]curator[/url] page for more Steam Deck reviews and our [url=https://twitter.com/SteamDeckHQ]Twitter[/url] for immediate updates on all SDHQ content including reviews, news, and more! [/th][/tr][/table] [i]This review is based ONLY on performance of the game on the STEAM DECK.[/i] [h1]The Game Itself:[/h1] Helvetii is a 2D side-scrolling action game that takes place in Celtic mythology. As one of 3 distinct characters, you will master the art of pummeling, juggling, and slamming your enemies as you make your way through beautifully presented levels. Buy items to enhance your skills, use cores to augment your skills throughout all your runs, and make pacts with the gods to unlock devastating abilities to go along with your core moveset. Will you be able to conquer your enemies? Helvetii is a small game developed by Team KwaKwa that brought out a love I haven't felt in awhile for side-scrolling combat games. It reminded me of all the good times I had playing Dragon's Crown on my PS Vita, which I still love to this day. The art is gorgeous and with the promise of post-launch support, I would absolutely consider this a worthwhile game to purchase. Oh, how does it run on the Steam Deck you ask? Well... [h1]Steam Deck Performance:[/h1] Without a doubt, Helvetii runs near perfectly on the Steam Deck. I didn't need to change a thing and the game would run at under 8W drain at a native 1280x800 resolution. On top of that, the game has a native Linux build, which is always a pleasure to see! he one issue I have, and it is a small one, is controller command popups. Instead of it showing ABXY, it shows 1234, which can be confusing. For those playing though: 1 (Jump) = A 2 (Projectiles) = B 3 (Attack) = X 4 (Special) = Y This isn't a deal breaker though and can be played perfectly fine through the game. I did have some issues when starting up and trying to play the game yesterday when I first wanted to release this review though. For whatever reason, the game would stick at a blank white screen and not allow any gamepad input to trigger the menu. As of today, this is no longer happening, but since it did happen before, I wanted to make note of it. Helvetii is an awesome game that I feel so lucky to have gotten the chance to play and review it here. It brought back those awesome memories of other games I played, while displaying a gorgeous visual presentation that captures my attention. With post-launch support confirmed, as well as it being perfect to play on the Steam Deck, this is a game you won't want to miss! [table] [tr] [th] [url=https://steamdeckhq.com/]SDHQ[/url] is a website made for curating Steam Deck news, guides, and providing optimization/builds for games on the Deck. [/th][/tr][/table]

Starting with the main focus of the game: the action. There are three characters to play, each with their own playstyle and starting stats (hp/mp). You have the main character, Divico, who can cut through swaths of enemies with relative ease. Boasting high damage and high health, he can really brutalize the oposition with his straight forward gameplay and satisfying feedback on each hit. Mechanically Divico is the simplest character to play as and my personal favorite thus far. Following our main character is the fox person, Renart. They focus less on raw strength, and more on their agility. Renart can parry most incoming attacks in two flavors. There's a regular parry to dish back a fair bit of damage to anyone immeditely in front of you. With better timing they can initiate a perfect parry and inflict damage on everything around them. Players with good reflexes will enjoy mowing through Helvetii's range of enemies with Renart's speedy attacks and flurry of parries. Finally, we are left with the most technical character, Nemeios. Nemeios has her staff to bonk close up enemies away, her bird that is ready to fight anything around them, and a high mana pool by default. She plays by the rules quite a bit differently from the other two characters. With her bird ready to do her bidding, she fights ranged. Each mash of the attack button sends the bird into combo string that extends until it can't physically go further. This requires a bit of patient attacking on enemies that won't juggle, or are up close. Between attacks it will return to Nemeios allowing her to restart the combo at a closer distance. She can also use her mana burst to boost her abilites at the cost of draining mp as its active. Combining the potentially tricky attack strings and deeper MP management makes Nemeios, in my opinion, the trickiest character to play and definitely the most unique of the trio. With the variety of playstyles, players should have no trouble picking their favorite one and keeping the game fresh when you decide to switch. With Helvetii being a roguelite style game play, each run you will run across chests offering random abilities such as a chance for an attack to hit twice at the cost of your hits becoming weaker. Or more character specific items that can boost certain attacks like Divico's ground pound. You will also come across shrines that allow you to make pacts with gods at the cost of total hp. These gods act as summons, each coming with two different abilities that are explained to you before accepting the pact. You can spend health to randomly reroll for a different god, or spend your health to accept the pact. Upon accepting you are granted MP-costing abilities from your god and a random passive buff. If you find more shrines you can spend more health to upgrade a summon two more times for a total of 3 passives. All that talk of spending max hp for a little summon sounds risky, but luckily the friendly owl merchant Bob will sort you out. Bob offers a variety of food and other items to spend your hard earned coin on. Foods will offer buffs such as increasing max hp or mp, and foods that increase your other stats. Bob will also offer non-food items to aid you, such as keys for chests and fake dice to help you win big money gambling between levels. Finally, during your run you can acquire another type of currency after your rank in each fight of the level is tallied up to spend on permanent upgrades. These upgrades can affect your whole team. For example giving each character +5 total starting health. Or through playing a character enough you can do character specific upgrades. These upgrades are optional as shown by the options menu that lets you disable this if you're more of a purist. Next up is the amazing art of Helvetii. The world is absolute beautiful with the hand painted art style. There are moments that feel as if you're playing a living painting. The backgrounds are very pleasing to the eye. Staying beautiful even as the rot takes over more of the scenery the further you progress. Most of the enemies are all fairly unique to each other. Ranging from imps/fairies to more monstrous bipedal wolves and steel ball swinging behemoths. Between stages you can relax and take in a cozy camp scene and see what the other characters have to say with their humorous banter between each other. You will undoubtedly find yourself taking moment to appreciate the world of Helvetii and all the little details you get to adventure in. To complement the gorgeous art is an equally skilled soundtrack. Each level has its own set of music to match the different vibes. The starting forest leaves you with a tranquil piano between fights and a bellowing symphony as the combat kicks in. Each piece of music is a tasty treat for the ears. One of my personal favorites at the time of this review being Bob's shop. Dale North (credited on River City Girls, Wizard of Legend, Rakuen and much more) did a fantastic job composing songs matching and uplifting the world of Helvetii. Many players may also recognize the voice of Emi Evans along side the wonderful music. All in all, Helvetii is the amalgamation of the developers' passion. Each different piece comes together to give you the player a wonderful gaming experience. Truly worth any roguelite fan's time or people who run-based games to challenge theirself into doing better each time. Also perfect for the working gamer who enjoys doing bite size bits of gaming, being able to get through a run in a very reasonable amount of time if you choose to. I know I keep finding myself exploring each time because I can't get enough of the environments!

Full Walkthrough: https://youtu.be/4bzGv5TTKkU Gameplay: Good Graphics: Good Audio: Good PC Requirements: Potato Game Time: 2-4 hrs

[h1]思っていたよりもっさりアクション[/h1] 本作はステージクリア型のアクションとなっていて、道中はメトロイドヴァニアのようなミニマップを見ながら移動してステージのボスを倒していくことになる。 敵を倒すとお金が手に入り、店で買い物をすることができる。 他にも祭壇みたいな場所で最大HPを減らす代わりにスキルを取得することが可能だ。 なおHPはステージをクリアしても持ち越しであり、ショップで食べ物を買うことで全快できる。 ちなみにお金は全然でないので初回プレイは全然買い物ができなかった。 [h1]操作性[/h1] X：弱攻撃 Y：強攻撃 A：ジャンプ B：飛び道具 RB：ショートダッシュ となっていて雑魚に対してはX→X→X→Y→B→Bみたいな感じでコンボが入るようになっている。 敵の攻撃モーションも割とわかりやすいのでショートダッシュで裏に回るという定番の対処もできる。 ただレトロアクションを意識しているのか知らんが、全体的に動きはややもっさりしていてスタイリッシュさはない。 ちなみに右スティックでカメラ移動が可能だ。 [h1]探索やUIのわかりやすさ[/h1] チュートリアルをやらずにプレイしたがオーソドックスな操作性なのでわかりやすさは上々。 ゲーム内の各種機能も正しい日本語と日本語フォントで表示されるので実にわかりやすい。 足りていないものがあれば何が足りていないかがちゃんと表示され、先へ進む場所はどのキーを押せば進めるかが明確に表示されているのは丁寧な作りが見えて好感が持てる。 が、一方でボスがどこにいるかはわからず、何でもない部屋に移動したと思ったらいきなりボス戦が始まるので未探索の場所へ行きたいときに行けず不便に感じた。 あと実際にあったことだが残りHPが少ないもののもう少し耐えられる確信があったので探索を続けていたところに唐突にボス戦が始まって結果的に負けたのでネガティブな印象を持った。 [h1]難易度[/h1] ノーマルは低めに感じた。 こちらはもっさりアクションだが、敵も攻撃頻度は少ないのでタコ殴りできる。 ボスも攻撃モーションがとてもわかりやすい。 なお1戦ごとに戦闘評価が戦闘後にアルファベットで表示され、素早くダメージを受けずに倒すとS～B評価が得られ、撃破が遅いとC以下になる。 この評価はボス後のリザルトで評価の合計値が永続アップグレードの通貨に変換されて手に入る。 [h1]戦闘のわかりやすさ[/h1] 一部の敵が背景と微妙に同化していてわかりにくかったり、画面がそもそも狭いので画面外から敵の遠距離攻撃が飛んできたりとちょっと不条理に感じることがあった。 特に本作は回復リソースが全然ないので自分のミス以外でダメージを受けると単純にストレスになる。一応右スティックでカメラを動かせば確認できるが、当たり前の話として必ずしも遠距離攻撃をしてきているわけでもないし、忙しい戦闘中にいちいちそんなテンポが悪くなる操作はしていられないし、高い戦闘評価を得るためにスピーディに対処する必要があるのでそんなことはしていられないので仕様と噛み合っていない。 [h1]永続アップグレードについて[/h1] 初回プレイは↑で書いたように回復しないままボス戦となってしまったことでステージ2で敗北した。回復できていれば倒せた相手だったのに…。 で、それはそうと1回目のプレイを終えて得た永続アップグレードの通貨は「12」だった。 これは何に使うのかとタイトル画面で探ってみたところ「シジル」という項目から永続アップグレードができることがわかり、それを手に入れた通貨で強化できるようだ。 が、必要通貨はいずれも「50」ときたもんだ。 1回プレイしても1つも強化できないとは思わなかった。仮に1回目のプレイが順調に進んだとしても1回強化できるかは怪しいところだ。しかも強化できたとしてもせいぜい1つでさほど強くなった実感は得られないだろうに、そんな状態でまた最初からスタートされてもモチベーションは上がらない。 何せ時代に逆行していると言わんばかりのもっさりアクションだ。アクションが根本的に面白くもなければ気持ちよくもない。 有り体に言うと継続性に関するバランスが壊滅的。 [h1]まとめ[/h1] 永続アップグレードの1段階目の必要通貨が5～10なら多少頑張れたが、この出来では頑張る気になれない。 ユーザビリティはいいんだが、肝心のゲームデザインとゲームバランスがお粗末。ストアページには「華麗」だの「爽快感」だのアピールされているが、そういったものはない。 あとどうでもいいんだけど主人公を選択するときのキャライラストが下手である。 ついでにいうとビジュアルに魅力もない。 つまらないわけではないが、「最後まで頑張ろう」どころか「1回プレイすれば十分」な作品だった。 [h1]追記[/h1] このレビューを書いた翌日にアップデートがかかったようで、それを知らずにアップデートの3日後に2回目のプレイをしてみたら 　・永続アップグレードに必要な通貨の減少 　・敵全滅後に宝箱が手に入るようになり、回復アイテムと金が手に入るようになった という「お、なんか変わっているぞ」と若干驚いたがアップデート前のバランスでやっていた人間からすると「どうなってんだよ、おい」とも突っ込みたくなった。 ただプレイ体験自体は大きく変わらず、攻撃力強化がないので同じ敵を同じようなやり方で戦うだけの退屈な戦闘である。 言うならばゲームデザインが1990年代～00年代のゲームセンターにあったアクションゲーム。それに永続アップグレードを用意しただけだ。どこか懐かしさはあれどゲームデザインが古臭いので面白いと言える代物ではなかった。

great game for fans of the classic Vanillaware games. Would have preferred a stronger focus on the narrative side of things. Gameplay is brilliant, though.

BANGER of a game, has odin sphere energy, with each character having their own unique way to play. The special moves are pretty fun and engaging, and for the most part it feels pretty fair overall. One of the characters is just much more fun than others, imo, but that might just be me. Either way, at 15$ if it's remotely your kind of game, you should pick it up, and come slay the corrupted to this absolutely gorgeous soundtrack!

Full disclosure: I'm a KS backer, so obviously I'm biased. But the game delivered on everything that I expected from it since the first demo in 2019. Finally a game in a rather non-standard setting and a Schwiizerdütsch localization. Solid gameplay, drawn visuals, atmosphere, soundwork, music. It's a rogue-like so the story itself it not huge, but it's also not what I expect from this type of games. I will dedicate most of my review to the gameplay, since it's the most important part of the game for me and this is what you'll be mostly be doing there. The gameplay is good, though I'll admit in the beginning it didn't seem so. It looked a bit too easy and the combat seemed bland despite a pretty impressive moveset. And then I completed the run and got to a hard mode. This is where the tutorial ends and the game actually starts and spreads its wings. I got my ass handed to me many times at first, so now it finally forces me to understand the game and use the kit to the maximum, which is incredibly fun compared to the first couple of hours. And there's another difficulty later... The core gameplay loop is a combat-platformer but the moveset is more similar to character action games (like DMC) rather than a typical combat-platformer or a metroidvania. This works very well and created a good feel for the combat. Between trying to score uninterrupted combos, cc'ing the enemies and avoiding incoming damage there's never a dull moment with it. It has three characters with vastly different playstyles and some "variants" to unlock. Each character feels unique and requires a different approach to the same enemies/bosses. Enemy design is good as well - has enough variety and is generally fair, my complaints there are minor (a couple of attacks with telegraphing problems due to it happening basically offscreen, I wouldn't mind a slightly more distant camera). In-run progression is exactly what you'd expect from a rogue-like with a decent variety and trade-offs. Technically it has cross-run progression, but it's minimal, I feel like it's there mostly to dampen your power level on the easier difficulties. Controls (only using a gamepad, which I recommend) are slow-ish, but feel good for the most part. It might require some getting used to since it's a stark contrast to typical combat platformers, but again - my complaints are minor (3rd character's basic attack can be a bit unwieldy, couple of input queue/registration issues, but those are infrequent). Overall a very good game, especially if you like both combat platformers and slashers. I'm still nowhere near done with it, and there's still some content planned for it, so I'm looking forward to that as well.

Under the hood of Helvetii is a fun, thrilling homage to Vanillaware action titles. The art style, music, core gameplay and dialogue are full of charm and heart. The exploration of Gallic folklore is an exciting, frequently overlooked topic with a few liberties taken. You can tell Hoot and the rest were very passionate about crafting Helvetii to be the best it could be within its budget. Unfortunately the rest of the Helvetii vehicle is clunky mess. Some of the mechanics are simply broken in a bad way. Questionable gameplay choices aside, combat comes off as stiff - not good for a Vanillaware-inspired action game. Obviously rogue-likes have to retain the risk versus reward factor. The combat's sluggish control makes aiming for high damage combos a moot point. [UPDATE: New moves are coming soon that will hopefully make the combat feel more fluid.] The grading system does not make sense at times - one moment players are greatly rewarded for solid play of offense and defense. On the same floor, the player is punished with a poor grade despite surviving a seemingly nonstop onslaught of brutes with a combo counter suggesting the player deserves otherwise. Helvetii also suffers from a common hiccup of indie rogue-like games: enemy spawns in the worst floor layouts. Speaking of bad decisions, the slowdown effect on your character can get obnoxious throughout level 2; especially against the Mask of Want which has an attack that stacks slowdown effects on your character. Speaking of the characters, you can switch between the main three cast before the start of a new level. This would be cool except only one character retains the stats garnered in a run. There's no point in switching to a new character with only the base stats, especially towards the end of the game. The runtime may be short but Helvetii's welcome almost feels overstayed due to the issues it has. Finishing off the main villain is thrilling at first, before realizing he must be defeated by all three characters to see the true ending. At this moment, getting the true ending does not feel worth the effort. I came into Helvetii as an optimistic backer and I want to believe Hoot and his team can pull it off. [Especially with updates now on the horizon.] As it stands, wait for Helvetii to be discounted by at least 60% off. As low as the price is in comparison to major retail releases, there are currently better options. Helvetii simply isn't worth the current full price. Attached is a clip from my streams that encapsulates all of my frustrations in one pickup. Hoot if you're reading this, please understand this comes from a place of love and acknowledgement of the hard work put into your passion project. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1764284785?filter=highlights&sort=views

I am a huge Vanillaware fan, and I am swiss. I should love this game, but I don't. It's terribly clunky, and completely miss any kind of introduction, it has not a tutorial, or even a list of commands. For a game that tries to be like Muramasa, it seriously miss moves and freedom of movements. In short, it's an unfinished game.