Ravenswatch Review – Fractured Fairy Tales

Ravenswatch Review

Hands. Fishermen need them, pop songs live or die on them, and games disappear without them. Ravenswatch, a new roguelike from the creators of Curse of the Dead Gods, has plenty of hooks, from its art style to playable folktale characters. Those hooks will help you not get lost in a crowded gaming landscape.

The popularity of roguelikes among developers hasn't declined much in recent years. The challenge is to take the formula and add a secret ingredient or two. It's a complicated genre. You have to make your game addictive enough to make repeated races enjoyable while doling out rewards at the right pace. Not many games do this well.

Who fears the great evil?

Although most folk tales are both simple and deeply symbolic, Ravenswatch does not have a particularly important narrative premise. It's smart enough to set things up and keep them running. The land of Reverie has been invaded by monsters that have emerged from under the bed, figuratively speaking. The scourge monster is appropriately named Nightmare. Who better to fight them than the heroes of a variety of folk and fairy tales, all of them familiar cultural icons?

The first hook of Ravenswatch is its entertaining and intelligent vision of familiar figures turned monster hunters. To start, players can choose between Beowulf, Scarlet (Little Red Riding Hood), the Pied Piper, and The Snow Queen, with several others unlocked later, such as Sun Wukong, Geppetto, and Aladdin. For starters, each character fits into a familiar playstyle, like the Snow Queen using ice magic or Beowulf as a heavy fighter and tank with a pet dragon. Aladdin wields a powerful scimitar and, naturally, Geppetto commands a small army of puppets. What becomes even more interesting is that at night, the characters transform or gain special powers. Perhaps my favorite transformation was Scarlet turning into a big bad wolf. Ah, sweet irony.

Night and day

Each run (at least each run attempt) consists of four day and night cycles lasting 18 minutes with a boss at the end. Maps are procedurally generated and filled with the usual variety of monsters and treasures. Players earn XP to spend on permanent abilities and can use Crystal Shards to purchase upgrades. Just to mix things up, there are some optional side quests for different characters. That stopwatch adds a strategic element. Do you fight everything and risk dying or avoid enemies as much as possible until you free the boss?

Aside from basic attacks, all special abilities have cooldown timers of various durations. Players have a limited number of extra lives during each race. Use them and it's game over.

lone wolf

Curse of the Dead Gods used some of the same ideas, but was a single-player focused game. Ravenswatch is really designed for four-person co-op and doesn't always suit a solo player well. Thanks to huge swarms of tough enemies, reaching the final boss can be quite a challenge for a lone fighter. With a group of characters with diverse abilities, it makes a lot more sense. What could be more fun than Sun Wukong fighting alongside the Pied Piper and his pack of rats? Still, while solo players aren't blocked, it's a shame the game doesn't allow for AI-assisted teaming.

Ravenswatch has a very attractive cel-shaded graphic novel art style that is distinctive and attractive, with flashy combat, spell effects, and lighting. The characters are inventive and the animations are fluid. Being procedurally generated, the levels are necessarily a bit repetitive visually, but the action doesn't allow much time for prolonged viewing.

I review a lot of games and admit that diving into another roguelike isn't always immediately appealing. But Ravenswatch does enough clever things with its mechanics, art, character design, and premise that I was intrigued and captivated. Ravenswatch proves once again that, in the hands of talented developers, there is still a lot of untapped potential in the roguelike genre.