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[i]Narazumono[/i] launched into Early Access at an incredibly jaw-dropping price of 15.99 USD/13.29 Euro about a week ago. And it didn't make it into any trending charts, with good reason. This game offers nothing new, nothing exciting, nothing fun, really. It's a simple top-down dungeon crawler with very little RNG that only launches in a non-expandable 1200x800 pixel window. In May 2019, with the thriving culture of 4K gaming, publishing a game that launches into a tiny window will lead nowhere. On top of that, a game that has little to no intrinsic value will also not get any awards.
[h1]Gameplay[/h1]
You will control the protagonist down a series of levels in a dungeon, killing generic looking enemies, and running into traps. You will come across vendors who are also marked as enemies on the minimap just to make things vague. You will need to eat to satisfy your hunger. On the minimap, items, exits, along with the enemies are outlined.
You have very basic equipment set consisting of a weapon, a shield, and an artifact. You can read scrolls, throw items, and do very basic actions. Killing enemies will yield experience, and leveling up give you some stat boosts, though other than HP, the others don't really seem very obvious. Every floor you will be trying to get the exit to get to the next floor. Everything is turn-based and every action is a single turn.
There's no story, there's no explanations, you just spawn on floor 1 and go. The controls are at least very easy, and there's not much to learn. It's a combination of explore, grab items, and try to survive as long as possible.
The enemies are either sleeping, and they wake up when you craw into their awareness vicinity, or they are pacing around in what appears to be a pre-determined path. Of course if they are close enough to you, they will move toward you and attack.
I played this game for half hour, and I can definitely say that this game is not worth the asking price.
If you want to decide for yourself, take a look at my video, I recorded the time I spent with this game. Oh, did I mention that the game only opens in a window? I used the preview screen of my recording software to stretch it to a more reasonable size on my 4K screen. I recorded the video in 1080p, but the game sure doesn't run in that resolution.
https://youtu.be/VIGZT3kxFMw
[h1]Controls[/h1]
I played with a controller. On the XBox controller, you move around and use B to select/attack, A to cancel, Y to go to in-game menu, and X to sort your inventory or to change the direction you are oriented without spending a turn. That's it. I was able to move around using the keyboard arrows, but didn't try to explore it too much. The game does not tell you which keys are bound.
[h1]Graphics[/h1]
There is one single floor tile that repeats ad nauseum. There is a single main-character sprite that is constantly swinging the arms and moving the feet, even if you are standing still. The enemies look like they came from a basic tile set from somewhere, and have nothing fancy to show.
[h1]Music[/h1]
The background music is really repetitive really quickly. The sound effects are also very repetitive without modulations from a single sound.
[h1]Audience[/h1]
Not really sure who the target audience is, because the game will appeal to practically nobody. The game advertises strategy, but there's really none of that. The game considers itself a roguelike. Okay, there's some RNG in this game, sure, there's permadeath, fine. It's a top down dungeon crawler with no personality, that's more like it.
[h1]Pricing[/h1]
What should be priced at a dollar at most (probably should be free to play) for a developer to learn more about game development, in order to get some community feedback and constructive criticism launched into Early Access at 15.99 USD/13.29 Euro. It's fated to be sitting in the bottom of Steam libraries for collectors after the game goes into a bundle for less than the price of a cup of coffee.
[h1]Conclusion[/h1]
I don't think I need to say any more about [i]Narazumono[/i]. I considered not writing a review at all, but I really wanted to warn people (primarily my friends) about the lack of anything substantial here. This game has a close to zero value to price ratio. Not worth your money or time.
[quote]I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.[/quote]
