Shadowlings

日本語：おかしな日本語 おすすめ：無料で見た目が変なRPGだから 1年ほど前に購入。 知らない間に無料化。 へんてこ日本が舞台なチャンバラRPG。 製作者が日本の達磨に刺激され、できたのがコレ。 いかついマーブル顔の主人公、敵もマーブル。 可愛らしさは微塵もないが、コレはありだと思う。 スキル/防具/武器で強化、ステータスはHPのみ。 攻撃/防御しつつ動き回って切り殺す。 分り難いシステム： 　・ショートカットキー割り振れないよ？ 　　バックパックに物があれば使用可能 　・スタッシュは？ 　　店にあります

Shadowlings is a one-dimensional beat-em-up with reactive combat. You have 10 linear corridors stocked with enemies and a boss fight at the end, and not much else. The game gives a pretty good first impression with its physics-enriched swordplay, but ultimately your tactics boil down to the same thing: Lure the enemy one at a time. Do a dance of blocking and back stepping. Strike when you can. The lack of enemy and environment variety doesn't make this any better. What kept the game from being a throwaway for me was its rudimentary advancement system and the handful of tools you have at your disposal. It's fun to throw shurikens and knives, reflect projectiles by blocking, and blink during combat. With each kill, you get experience and gold which you can then spend to unlock passive abilities or spells (shadow magic). No theory crafting or interesting decisions involved. By the end of the game you'll have more than enough gold and experience to earn everything. Some quirks and weirdness, sure: A few of the abilities you unlock actually hurt you because they have the potential to damage enemies off screen. At least once, I damaged an enemy through a wall and brought all of them streaming down on me in a conga line. I got stuck in a chest once, too, but this can be fixed by quick loading or blinking. Will I play Shadowlings ever again? Probably not, but I enjoyed the 7 hours or so that it took me to complete.