[h2]Soulsland: Last Fight[/h2]
[h1]Dog Of War [/h1]
While my friends were playing God of War: Ragnarok on the PS5, I was playing Soulsland: Last Fight on my PC. Why did I bring this up? Well, it’s because the main character of this game highly resembles Kratos for some reason.
But yeah, I jumped into this game with no expectations and that’s the main reason I wasn’t disappointed. I already foresaw what this game would probably offer from just taking a glance at its Steam store page. I’ll explain why later on in this review.
[h1]About This Game [/h1]
[h2]Storyline [/h2]
At first, I thought this game had no storyline of any sort. But I was just blind since when you open the game every time, there’s a pop-up that gives a synopsis of the game’s plot. Well, I always closed it and never bothered to read it. Well, I just read it, and trust me, it’s nothing unique or interesting. Let me just type what that pop-up window tells us word for word:
[code]New evil enemy army and 4 different bosses has captured souls again. So you are only brave hero Lord Barbarus who can destroy evil army and release souls. Souls are captured to gravestone. Every level you need kill boss to achieve captured souls hidden at gravestone.[/code]
Yes, that’s exactly how it is in the game. The broken English hurts. I understand that the devs’ native language isn’t English but they have several options like using a thesaurus or at least asking someone to proofread this. You know, I struggled to not autocorrect everything when typing that out. And yes, this is the only info we get related to the game’s plot.
[h2]Gameplay Mechanics[/h2]
I am pretty sure the game was made on Unreal Engine. Forgive me if I am wrong. Why did I come to such a conclusion? Well, it’s because I recognized the kit they used for the combat system in this game. It’s the [url=https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/flexible-combat-system-01?sessionInvalidated=true]Flexible Combat System[/url] that can be found on the Unreal Marketplace. It is actually a paid asset but they recently gave it away during their monthly free assets ritual. So yeah, I might be wrong but I am pretty sure I am right since I did use the exact same asset when trying to make a project for college but ditched that concept and worked on something else. I just wanted to get this out of the way before jumping into the actual Gameplay Mechanics. I don’t have anything against devs using free assets and plugins but they don’t have to make their whole game revolve around these freebies with no additional personal effort from their end.
The game doesn’t have a proper progression system in place. Due to this, you can play any level whenever you want. You legit have all levels unlocked. As of now, the game has 11 stages with the same enemies but slightly different bosses. Each level takes place in a different setting. I am pretty sure they just used pre-made environments since each level is optimized differently. I get 100 FPS in one level and barely 20 in the next.
Now onto the combat mechanics. Well, as I mentioned above, they might have used the Flexible Combat System kit. As a result of this, the combat mechanics are decent. It’s still pretty basic. Your punches barely deal any damage. Literally, 2 damage per hit, and the enemies have over 200 health. Yes, you do have weapons. But due to the lack of a tutorial or settings of any kind where you can see the keybinds, I was not able to figure out how to use the weapons I picked up. It also has an inventory system which again, makes no sense due to the lack of a tutorial. You know, I discovered the inventory system by spamming all the keys trying to figure out how to equip the weapon I picked up. The AI is a bit weird too. They randomly get stuck in some places, don’t attack you sometimes, etc.
Although they are releasing updates with new maps and stuff, the game requires a heavy rework. They should focus on making the game better instead of introducing new content. The UI sucks, controls are a hit-and-miss, no navigation, combat is underwhelming, AI is dry, etc. So yeah, they have to work a lot to make the game better for their players. I don’t understand why the positive reviews on this game mostly state that Soulsland stands as the best combination of Dark Souls and Elden Ring. In reality, this game is nowhere close to those masterpieces.
Oh yeah, the worst thing about this game is that when you are in-game and hit the escape key cuz you want to pause the game for a bit, it immediately throws you back to the weird Main menu. They don’t have a pause screen omg.
[h2]Visuals and Sound[/h2]
When you open the game, you directly get thrown into a messy screen. It is basically the main menu combined with the level-selection menu. What’s worse is that everything is arranged haphazardly. It really hurts my Ocd OMG. It’s like, they placed 3 levels, then settings & the exit button. After these, you see more levels placed in buttons that are smaller than the texts. It’s horrible. The overall graphics of the game are decent. I assume that they just used premade assets since the main character is obviously Kratos. The main back draw of this is that each asset has a different level of optimization meaning that your frame rate highly depends on the assets used in that level. As I mentioned above, some levels give you better performance while your rig struggles to maintain a stable 30 FPS in others.
Regarding the aural aspect of the game, it’s okay since they actually went through the trouble to include some background music.
[h1]Pros[/h1]
[list]
[*] Decent combat mechanics.
[*] There is a good collection of levels to play.
[/list]
[h1]Cons[/h1]
[list]
[*] Poorly optimized.
[*] The UI is horrible.
[*] Combat is underwhelming.
[*] Feels repetitive.
[*] No tutorials nor navigation of any sort.
[*] No pause menu.
[/list]
[h1]Conclusion[/h1]
The game does have a lot of potential. As mentioned before, they should focus on making the game better instead of introducing new content. As of right now, I wouldn’t recommend this game. Yeah yeah, the game is cheap and all, so, if you do have a bit of money to spare, then I won’t stop you.
[b]Reviewer:[/b] Midplayz
Boy….where’s boy???
[b]Rating:[/b] 3/10
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