Warden: Melody of the Undergrowth

Naturally, Warden: Melody of the Undergrowth draws inspiration from games that have defined their own genres. Something with a larger crew and a larger budget is difficult to replicate. Though it still has a ways to go before Warden: Melody of the Undergrowth reaches the heights of those "classics" before it, Cardboard Keep deserves some respect for a job well done. The narrative opens with Tavian, a young explorer, and his father, the Emperor, traveling through a forest when suddenly a group of attackers approach and encircle them. As Tavian tries to flee over a bridge, it collapses beneath him, throwing him downstream to a dimly lighted location near a tiny camp. Tavian chooses to take a nap by the campfire while a big sleeping beast is obstructing his way out of the area. After falling asleep, he awakens to find himself in an unfamiliar, dreamlike world where Nyona, the Spirit God of the Forest, is imprisoned. Tavian becomes a Warden after Nyona begs him for assistance, leading him on a quest to locate the other Wardens and free her from her crystal-bound prison. There is an interesting cook, tribesmen, and fictitious knights among the colorful array of characters. The Wardens themselves are excellent as well; during the game, they engage with each other frequently and each one of them has a distinct personality that comes through. Every Warden has a distinct dialogue as well, so the discussions you have power over depend on the character you're managing. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3102760079 Tevian also encounters the ghosts of the last two Wardens during the journey: Medeira, a female spirit with a green thumb, and Bitt, a real spitfire male spirit. Bitt can levitate using fire skills, while Medeira may create blooming platforms to access regions inaccessible by simple jumping. These particular talents allow Bitt and Medeira to visit new locations with each given ability. All three characters are interchangeable at any moment by the player. Even when switching between personalities wasn't required, I truly liked having that option. You have the freedom to complete each level in whatever order you choose because the game takes place in an open environment. But before you know it, a problem requiring a certain character's talent will impose restrictions on you, forcing you to pursue what may be deemed the "correct" path. Nevertheless, the flexibility it offered set me on a bit of a journey when I found myself investigating the incorrect region entirely and couldn't figure out why I couldn't go forward. Although this may sound annoying, Warden: Melody of the Undergrowth has such a fantastic universe that my exploration of it was prompted by these times of uncertainty. Fortunately, there are many weapons in the game; you can pick up and utilize a weapon dropped by every enemy. There are several types of weapons available, including tiny, huge, rapid, and slow ones, which you can carry three of at a time per character. Though they shatter after repeated usage (durability), try not to become overly attached to any of them. In Warden: Melody of the Undergrowth, there is no place for magic, but there are plenty of enemies who want to get beaten up, and they are all well quite nice. It's interesting to watch the weapons being used by your character. The fact that Warden: Melody of the Undergrowth also offers you a good amount of mythology to absorb that aids in painting the game's backdrop is one feature I really enjoyed. In-depth knowledge of dungeons, spirits, the forest, and other locales may be acquired by players. Two of my favorite aspects of games are lore and narrative development since I can tell the creators truly cared about creating a rich history that would pique players' interests. Undoubtedly, the surroundings fantastic hand-painted imagery is helpful. I believe the Cardboard Keep creators would consider it as a complement if I said that the visuals are best described as something like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. It demonstrates how Warden: Melody of the Undergrowth truly excels with its visual design and is incredibly evocative. Regretfully, Warden: Melody of the Undergrowth's fighting seems a tad awkward. Hit boxes occasionally seemed utterly strange; my strikes would appear to connect but would miss the enemy, and vice versa. It might also seem unpleasant to move about since it's too simple to find yourself surrounded by hostile strikes and unable to escape. The most problematic aspect, though, was that when attackers struck barriers, they appeared to pass through the surroundings. It was strange to see adversaries moving through the walls as if they weren't there. In a couple other situations, I was forced to restart the game / load since the monsters I was supposed to kill weren't inside the chamber I was imprisoned in, but rather outside of it, making it impossible for me to proceed. [h3] My Specs [/h3] [code]CPU: i9 9900k GPU: RTX 2080 Ti RAM: DDR4 32 GB RAM OS: Win10 Resolution: 1440p @144hz (worked flawlessly on 144fps, but I had to re-activate V-Sync everytime I started the game which sucks) [/code] [h3] Conclusion [/h3] All things considered, I liked Warden: Melody of the Undergrowth due of its quite neat plot, lovely settings, and calming soundtrack. I would have liked it even more if the combat would be more refined. The game is the perfect game to play if you want to experience the nostalgia of the N64 Golden Age of gaming with a little bit of jank and wonkyness. Nevertheless, the game will drag on because of flawed mechanics, a shaky fighting system, and a clear mismatch between the setting and the narrative. Don't expect too much and you'll have a great time! [h2] Final Verdict: 7.5 / 10 - Suprisingly neat, but wonky and buggy around the edges. [/h2]

I respect that they were trying to recreate the magic of the N64 era style of games, But some things should just be left in the past.

[h1] Adventure game with premise but terrible hit collision. Controls work but are clunky af. Do some simple puzzles and a bit of exploration and platforming. Levels are Zelda like. Mediocre gameplay. Music is average. Generally not worth time. [/h1]

The combat is horrendous. You're forced to hit and run you. You can lock on an ennemy but the game will chose which enemy you're locking on and you can't change the lock selection. The weapon swing animation feels like dark souls except when you roll you don't get invincibility frame you just land in another ennemy's way and you get yeeted off a the nearest ledge. Platforming is okay to me although nothing interesting to see here. The map is huge but you can't run and there's no map. There's some kind of fast travel for which you have to go through the rest and sleep animation which are way too long to execute. Like all animations in the game. It was fun for about 2 hours. Then came zones filles with 5 ennemies close together and that awful hive queen which can by the way, shoot and slam your face through obstacles of course. Did the devs test their own game ?

This game had a few good parts but the majority of the game was more of the bad parts there were a few bugs like broken hit/contact registration, getting stuck in something, being pulled by invisable gravity to the sides, slipping on nothing, sliding cutting short/moving slower/desynced from sound when used abundantly the fighting is quite bad and here is why 1)your weapons dmg/durability isn't listed anywheres so you just kinda guess which weapons are the best based on their looks 2)the fast weapon swings take at least 1/2 second while big weapon swings take 3/4-1 full second to do, and while it is doing the animation you cant do anything. you cant dodge or swing again or anything like that so it is a super clunky feeling and you get hit alot which there is nothing you can do about especially when there is 3+ enemy's chasing you 3)your weapons deteriate when you use them and enemy's usually take like 1-5 hits to kill depending on how good your weapon is and their hp amout so you find it is much easier to just not kill stuff and run past them the whole game except areas where you need to kill all the enemy's to open a door especially since enemy's basically only drop other weapons anyways there is a minimap of the city area but there isn't for the shortcut routes which is where you probably need it the most so it is easy to get lost in this game not to mention that this game map size is overty large the main majority of the game is filler and it takes a long time to get to places even sliding like crazy which gives just a tiny speed boost each time it is done a few nitpicks i had were when teleporting your charactor they wake up and it then gives 1 option that you can do and that is to stand up with a button press.....why doesn't it just start you standing up so you dont have to waste 1 second per time you teleport? another nitpick is to take away the crouch button because it has no function that the slide button doesn't already do better and it hampers use of the slide later on in the game. and lastly every single new area you go to puts away the torch which is super annoying having to keep pulling it back out. and the dark caves had too narrow a view with your torch out. the story was lackluster in its writing/narritive and the ending was bland the place where the game shined the most was the boss battles which I thought were well done but again with the previous stuff I said I finally got to my first boss battle like 3 hours into the game. if you are going to play this make sure you buy this on a good sale

Pros: Good story, likable characters, runs amazingly with the crap GPU i have, and great level design & puzzles. Cons: Could use some more music, would be cool if weapons didn't break, and jump physics are iffy at times. Complaint/Rant: Don't have breakable weapons if you're gonna have enemies that respawn whenever you re-enter an area. Overall it was an enjoyable experience. 8/10

Je joue sur Linux. Version Linux : quelques problèmes graphiques. [h1]Le jeu[/h1] C'est un jeu d'exploration avec un peu de platforming, quelques casses-têtes, un peu de combat... bref la recette habituelle. Le jeu est plutôt simple graphiquement sans être laid, ça fonctionne bien comme style graphique pour un jeu qui se veut inspiré des classiques du genre. La musique est de qualité variable, ça va de l'oubliable au pas désagréable, en tous cas rien de mémorable. Le combat est assez variable, suivant les armes qu'on a ramassé ça peut aller du très facile au difficile. Le système de cible est améliorable, le jeu a tendance à cibler un ennemi en particulier et c'est impossible de changer, on peut donc se retrouver à cibler ce qu'on ne souhaite pas, et avoir des difficultés à esquiver les autres en conséquence. Certains ennemis sont un peu ardus, leurs attaques étant rapides, il est difficile d'esquiver et de revenir à portée pour les frapper avant qu'ils attaquent à nouveau. Un problème du jeu reste pour moi le déplacement dans le monde. On ne sait pas vraiment où on va, j'ai un peu eu l'impression d'explorer au hasard pendant longtemps... j'ai mis une éternité à revenir sur le jeu pour cette raison, j'avais l'impression d'errer sans but quand je n'y avait pas joué depuis longtemps. Le manque de carte est flagrant. Il est possible de revenir partout à tout moment, certains passages nécessitent avoir débloqué les deux autres gardiens, qu'on peut ensuite incarner à tout moment, chacun ayant sa petite capacité spéciale. Il y a énormément de graines à récupérer un peu partout, qui sont utilisées pour débloquer certaines portes, et aussi pour acheter des armes. J'ai terminé le jeu avec des milliers de ces trucs... ça semble clairement inutile de tous les ramasser, même si je suppose que ça peut indiquer si on est déjà passé quelque part ou pas. [h1]Rejouabilité, achievements[/h1] Les achievements sont globalement assez simples, il faudra explorer un peu partout afin de débloquer les différents biomes, et se débarrasser d'un minimum d'ennemis de chaque type. Il y a aussi des collectibles qu'il faudra entièrement récupérer. A noter que les collectibles pour la vie sont agaçants : il est possible d'en acheter deux mais si on ne les ramasse pas tout de suite (je pensais que l'achat était suffisant, mais non, il faut aussi le ramasser ensuite), ils sont perdus au prochain chargement. Heureusement, le jeu semble bugué et les un ou deux premiers ramassés dans une autre partie compenseront (ce qui évite de se retaper X heures de jeu juste pour ça). Le jeu sauvegarde automatiquement avant le boss de fin, il est possible de retourner chercher ce qu'il nous manque si jamais on a manqué des objets à collectionner. Ca permet aussi de faire la fin alternative sans tout refaire. A noter qu'il y a des chapeaux à ramasser un peu partout, il y en a un bon paquet. J'ai pas mal exploré le jeu, je n'en ai pourtant pas trouvé la moitié. Heureusement, aucun achievement avec les chapeaux :). [h1]En bref[/h1] Le jeu n'est pas vraiment désagréable, mais un peu fouilli, que ce soit l'histoire ou le gameplay et les déplacement dans le monde. Meh. [h1]GNU/Linux[/h1] La version native tourne, mais a quelques problèmes graphiques. Les puits de lumière causent des problèmes d'ombre, on peut les désactiver. Il y a une des autres options qui cause aussi des problèmes, mais même en désactivant tout, il reste quelques problèmes avec les personnages qui sont complètement noirs parfois, comme s'ils étaient dans la pénombre. Rien qui empêche de jouer, mais c'est un peu pénible. A noter aussi que le jeu devrait clairement mieux tourner au vu de mon matériel, il descend parfois en dessous de 60fps... l'optimisation n'est pas vraiment au rendez-vous. Je ne sais pas si c'est uniquement la version Linux, mais le jeu n'a pas un "support manette complet", contrairement aux indications. La manette ne fonctionne pas dans le menu, et le jeu ne switch pas immédiatement les indications à l'écran quand on change du clavier/souris vers la manette, il faut attendre un chargement pour ça. J'y ai principalement joué avec le Dual Sense et SteamInput activé. Ayant commencé le jeu il y a bien longtemps, j'y ai aussi joué avec le F710 et le DS4, mêmes problèmes de manette. Ainsi qu'avec une GTX 1080 et une RTX 3080Ti, et plusieurs versions de l'OS : les problèmes graphiques étaient identiques. OS: Linux Mint 21, MATE edition. Hardware : 5950x, AMD RX 6900XT, 64GB ram. Screens : Dualscreen, 1x 4K & 1x 1920x1200, un seul screen X.

- Too short - Buggy - Lack of map - Fast travel is not really that 'fast', its still a chore - Ending was a major disappointment - One area heavly 'borrows' from Dark Souls - No real replay value

Apparently it does not work with Thrustmaster gamepad!

This is a console-esque 3D low poly platformer/brawler where you play some Roman kid and run around bashing up golems with a sword or something. Despite being a console game it doesn't seem to have been launched on console, which is a bewildering display of lack of proper audience awareness. Presumably the developers also tried selling ice to eskimos and pianos to deaf people. Certainly, PC gamers will immediately be insulted by the suggestion to use a console peasant childrens toy gamepad. In line with the poor choice of audience and console peasantry, the graphics are really janky low poly, despite a 2016 release. The best I can understand here is the developers wanted people with several thousand dollars worth of elite gaming rigs to pretend they're console peasant appliances. This is not something that elite PC gamers actually want to do, so releasing this on Steam instead of console peasant appliances is a bit of an epic marketing failure. This is priced more than far better games like Shadow of War, so it's just way too hard to recommend this.