There Is No Light is a pretty good but frustrating Hack and Slash souls like game, but let's talk about the story. Long ago humanity was forced to flee to the underground after horrible monsters and demons took over the surface, no one has seen the outside world and centuries and now the underground world is ruled by the religious zealot known as the Hand, heretic cults and the monsters of the underground.
But all that does not matter to a young man and his wife that are relaxing by the fire only for their peaceful moment to be interrupted by the Hand having attacked the young man's village killing people and kidnapping all the pregnant women or women with children as the young man attempts to stop this ritual, only to get his ass kicked.
But a dark deity shows himself giving him power and training in order to take his revenge on the people that took everything from him, but this is no easy quest as he travels across the underworld and fights all kinds of horrors and monstrosities both human and inhuman as he fights way for his revenge.
Okay like time, the gameplay is pretty good it can be pretty hard like other Souls like games, it does have a fair share of bunk but overall it was like I said pretty good, with plenty of tense moments and tough enemies and bosses that keep you on your toes, the gameplay like traditional Souls like requires patience and learning enemy and boss attack patterns and coming up with your own strategy to deal with them.
The story is pretty good it has a sort of blasphemous kind of vibe to it with its depictions and commentary on some organized and Zealot religions using their powers to subjugate and hurt the people that don't want anything to do with them, it also talks about and shows that things are more morally gray and complicated then just simply black or white and how sometimes monsters can be pretty human and humans can be pretty monstrous.
You can also see that the story takes heavy inspiration not just from Blasphemous, but also Lovecraft with its otherworldly monsters, heck in one of the notes they talk about a sort of Necronomicon that was found in Africa so if you've read Lovecraft you'll definitely pick up on some of the game’s story inspirations. Also like many Souls like games the story, side stories and the game's world is told through NPC interactions and notes you pick up along the way, you can even pick up little pages that tells you more about the world more in depth.
The enemies and bosses are all really good each one has its own unique designs that can really be cool yet gross at the same time, kind of like the enemies and bosses in the pixelated Souls like games like blasphemous, some of the enemies and bosses even look a bit lovecraftian particularly the final boss.
The characters are all very good the main character’s benefactor/sidekick Samedi is a delightful evil jackass, I also like the spider mother in Spiritina I found her story and character to be interesting and despite being scay looking she's actually very intelligent and empathetic. Even the NPC with their little dialogue are quite interesting it really helps to make this world feel alive and realistic.
The pixels graphic art is really good each area is really well designed with its colors, designs and sceneries that can be both creepy, but beautiful to look at and definitely makes you just want to stop and look at it and appreciate the designs. The levels are all really good each area is memorable, especially the hub area it looks beautiful yet you can tell there's a certain ugliness underneath it feels alive and semi-realistic on what an underground civilization could be, minus the lovecraftian elements. The music is very good each track really helps the games atmosphere and overall presentation.
Okay dislike time, as I said there is some bunk in the game in one level called The Cave of rebirth there's this elevator that requires you to solve two puzzles, the problem is the puzzle is randomized and the only way to get the clues is to kill the enemies that has each part of the puzzle, that was really frustrating especially if you're playing on New Game Plus where you don't have any medkits.
I also noticed three bugs in the game, one: when I was looking at this note the game froze, two: I couldn't complete the bestiary on new game plus you see the guy that is supposed to give you the complete version of the book, well I didn’t go to him until much, much later and he wouldn't repair the book.
Lastly I couldn't find a bestiary page on New Game Plus, basically in the level caves of rebirth, you need to do a quest to help this pair of conjoined twin separate and after helping them they're supposed to be at a secret cave with a ladder the problem is part of that question is to escort this lady and her child and I let the lady and child die, I didn't think that was a big deal since I didn't want to do her Quest since it leads to a very frustrating boss fight.
But after helping the twins and when I got to this secret cave the twins that were supposed to be holding a ladder for me to get up was missing and they're not at the place where they're were before to be so it made getting that page impossible.
Also speaking of that annoying boss fight I really hated that optional boss fight basically you have to defeat the traitor, problem is he has this annoying fire attack and the ground he's on is flammable and worst part is that he makes the ground catch on fire it continually blazes dwindling down the arena and I died a lot by him before finally being able to beat him, his whole boss fight was such a pain in the ass.
Okay now that is all done There Is No Light is a pretty good but frustrating Hack and Slash souls like game, it has pretty good gameplay, a pretty good story and really good enemies and bosses, so do I recommend this game I do, but I suggest having a lot of patience with it particularly if you're trying to get all the achievements like I did.
