Slain: Back from Hell

Slain: Back from Hell to oldschoolowa platformówka akcji, która od pierwszych minut bardzo jasno pokazuje swój charakter. Mroczne fantasy, demony, ogromne ilości krwi, pixel art i ciężki metal tworzą tutaj niezwykle charakterystyczną całość. Największym atutem jest zdecydowanie oprawa. Lokacje wyglądają jak ożywione okładki metalowych albumów, animacje są świetnie wykonane, a soundtrack idealnie współgra z brutalnym klimatem gry. Pod względem stylistycznym Slain zdecydowanie ma własną tożsamość. Sama walka wymaga trochę cierpliwości. Nie wystarczy bezmyślnie atakować – duże znaczenie mają blokowanie, kontry, ładowane ataki, odpowiednie wykorzystanie many oraz poznawanie zachowania przeciwników. Do tego dochodzą trzy rodzaje broni wykorzystujące różne żywioły. Gra potrafi być wymagająca i momentami frustrująca. Niektóre fragmenty opierają się na wielokrotnym powtarzaniu sekcji i zapamiętywaniu rozmieszczenia przeciwników oraz pułapek. Sterowanie również nie zawsze jest tak precyzyjne, jak powinno przy takim poziomie trudności. Mimo tych problemów klimat, świetna oprawa i satysfakcja z pokonywania kolejnych bossów sprawiają, że warto dać jej szansę. Szczególnie jeśli ktoś lubi wymagające platformówki w stylu retro i cięższe klimaty fantasy. Charakterystyczna, brutalna i świetnie wyglądająca produkcja z kilkoma niedociągnięciami. Polecam.

[b]Score:[/b] ★★☆☆☆ [b]Played on Steam Deck:[/b] Yes. [b]Tags:[/b] Action, Platformer, Heavy Metal [b]Game Review:[/b] [i]Slain: Back from Hell[/i] is a clear case of presentation outpacing execution. Its pixel art is striking, often compared by critics to heavy metal album covers; and the animation work is legitimately impressive. The soundtrack leans fully into that identity. It’s aggressive, cohesive, and fits the tone, even if it won’t appeal to everyone. The problems begin the moment precision is required. Controls lack the responsiveness needed for a precision platformer. Movement feels floaty, attacks carry unintended forward momentum, and parry timing is inconsistent. This is especially problematic because the game is built around tight defensive play, particularly parrying and dodging with accuracy. When a successful input still results in taking damage, the failure shifts from player error to system reliability. Difficulty is not inherently the issue. Execution is. Enemy encounters often stack pressure in ways that feel uneven rather than intentional. Projectiles overlap, hazards appear with limited reaction windows, and checkpoint spacing forces repeated runs through the same sections. This aligns with early critical reception, where the game was widely criticized at launch for being unfair before later patches attempted to rebalance it. Even in its improved state, deaths are avoidable in theory but inconsistent in practice. Combat and platforming never fully stabilize. Attacks lack clear feedback, hit detection can feel unreliable, and movement precision is not dependable enough for the level of punishment the game demands. The result is a loop that tests patience more than mastery. There is a solid foundation here, but it is buried under systems that do not consistently support the player's skill level. [i]Slain: Back from Hell[/i] succeeds visually and thematically, but those strengths cannot carry a game that struggles at the level of input, control, and encounter design. It looks the part, sounds the part, but does not play well enough to justify the investment. [b]Achievement Difficulty:[/b] ★★★★☆ [b]Completion Time:[/b] ~12 hours (significantly longer with retries) [b]Achievement Review:[/b] Completion leans heavily on repetition and execution under inconsistent conditions. Requirements such as clean boss fights or efficient clears demand precision that the game itself does not always reliably support.

Looks beautiful but really, really frustrating to play.

[h1] Dark, metal monster slashing in underworld. Gameplay similar to 16-bit action platformers. Lots of slashing, lots of slaying and lots of red. Visuals depending on the taste, overall well made. Some blops and blots of redness. Levels are straight forward, proceed to the right, sometimes flip switches and don't fall into the lava. Two CRT filters. Checkpoints between levels. Multiple different enemies. It's one of those games - learn pattern and enemies movement to win. For fans of 16-bit slashing it might be worth a spin. [/h1]

Do you know what is the most important part of a game, is to play the damn game, this game is a Kaizo trial and error, you don't play the game you just create muscle memory, this was developed by people who never played the arcade Castlevania, the arcade Ghouls'n Ghosts or even Battletoads, people who think old school equals cheap deaths. If anything this was inspired by the late bottom of the barrel games from the Amiga and Commodore 64. Input delay to jump, input delay to attack, input delay to defend, input delay to walk, input delay to "evade", bad timing in the animations that throw off your reaction, enemy staggering is arbitrary, the playable character is slow, attack hitboxes are small and precise, there is no way to recover health between checkpoints, copy pasted level design, copy pasted encounters one after the other, hidden environmental traps that kill the character in a single hit, environmental hazards that can hurt you and are placed far away from the camera, platforms that drop down and never come back unless you restart from the checkpoint, teleporting enemies that can instantaneously reach the player afterwards, the game hammers about the parry ability but then starts throwing enemies whose attacks cannot be parried, the music doesn't loop properly, particles that hide enemy attacks and hazards, the game likes to introduce new enemies close to death pits where the player can be insta-killed, weird balance for enemy health, some enemies have higher health pool when their design clearly says weak, while other enemies where their design communicates strong have small health pool, elemental weapons change absolutely nothing in gameplay. The metal aesthetics cannot save this game, because the gameplay is just bad, the pacing is horrible, nobody play tested this game not even the developer themselves. this might worse than a broken game because a broken game you can still blame on the technical aspects, this is working product with a good production value but the gameplay is so bad it might be one of the worst games I've played in my life, and the sequel looks more of the same. This is a great case study to see what not to do when designing a game, thankfully it was cheap. Check better action side-scrolling games like Gravity Circuit, Salt & Sanctuary, Giana Sisters, A Robot Named Fight, The Vagrant, Castlevania Collection, Valdis Story, Shinobi, Blasphemous, Shovel Knight, Momodora, Mega Man.

Slain might be the hardest game I played... but the more you play, the easier it becomes. Yeah, the game is unforgiving, but not really unfair. It hits that spot between frustrating and addictive. Let me exp(S)lain The combat is rather simple, yet works fine to me. Parries are especially rewarding, maybe the most satisfatory parry mechanic i've used in a game. Once you master it, combat becomes much more manageable. Some points you might wanna know too: -There are plenty of checkpoints in every level, so dying is not the end of the world. (there are checkpoints even in the final boss fight) -There's a HUB, where you can select the level you wanna replay to get the collectibles or fight bosses again. You can access it not only between levels, but also after finishing the game. So don't be afraid of missing achievements in the way. -This is not a Metroidvania, progress is linear. You cannot increase your health bar, and there is no inventory/potions. The sooner you know, the better -If negative reviews discourage you, many of them refer to a previous version of the game which had broken hitbox and worse combat control. Current version is well polished. I also wanna talk about the graphics. Visually its impressive, I always loved pixelart, and this one is just great: gloomy and beautiful. the animations are smooth too. Also, the soundtrack is freakin awesome, they're all heavy metal tracks. Those guitar riffs match perfectly the intensity of the game. I wanted to play Slain for a long time, but people saying the combat is awful kept me from trying. I'm glad I finally gave it a chance, I had a blast playing it. If you like hardcore games, you'll enjoy this one. Slain is a hidden gem [i]-May ice, fire and steel prevail[/i] [spoiler](I have to confess i first played the game for free, but liked it so much that I decided to support the developer buying the game+DLCs)[/spoiler]

Delays in attack, delay in defense, step back not usable when u need it(delays), u cant run and atack,wth? dude who ever made this, take sword run and atack, does it work? yeah it works.... i just tried i broke my door ... now i need new door. why i keep seing games with this kind of physics. im gona attack, oh no wait i must stay absolutely still so enemy can kill me for sure ........... every other game like this is broken ..... i dont care if its good made audio/graphics(it is), but if gameplay is broken,, then everything is broken.

This game sucked. Admittedly, I didn't finish it, but I saw enough. [list] [*]The combat was stale. There are basically two kinds of enemies - ones that you just attack, and others that you have to parry and then attack. Most of the enemies are a little on the tough side, so it's just better to keep running and not waste your time. [*]If you die, you get sent back to the checkpoint, which can be a ways back sometimes, especially after having been required to do something tedious, like a long platforming section or an annoying required fight. Not having any healing and living checkpoint to checkpoint makes the loop pretty frustrating. [*]There aren't really any weapons or equipment even though the game tries to trick you into thinking that you have options. [*]If you care about story... don't. The dialogue is basically just two people ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ at one another about how much one is going to kick the other's ass. [/list] Overall, the game is basically just a straight action platformer with no options and frustrating design. Not having weapon or equipment choices is fine, but the rest of the game shouldn't suck otherwise. 2/10