The Sourblade Sentinel - Souls Like Boss Fight - Tamsoh
Final Score: 5/5 Stars
First of all, I'd like to praise the itch.io page, as it's not only well-themed but also visually appealing.
Throughout the review, I will test both the QWERTY and AZERTY builds and note the differences I find.
QWERTY BUILD:
The beginning is straightforward, the two characters are close together, a standard Unreal Engine model, without much decoration, just the green, foggy environment.
The UI is quite similar to the UI of the most famous Souls-Like games.
We have a notable gameplay change, which is the ability to switch between characters. Something that, if well implemented in a complete game, would be brutal.
Something I noticed is that, even though the game was made to be played with a controller, even with the controller connected via Bluetooth or USB, the game doesn't recognize it, making it incompatible.
Testing the keys, I already notice a great fluidity in the character's movements, which shows attention to detail.
The game doesn't have an options menu, but honestly, that's not something you can expect, considering there's almost nothing that can be modified here.
It's possible to open a menu in the meantime showing off the game's key mapping.
The game starts with six different types of weapons:
- Twinblades
- Sword & Shield
- Dual Swords
- Greatsword
- Katana
- Halberd
The boss has a reasonable difficulty, thus fulfilling the game's loop, which is to defeat the boss in this way. Not only that, but it also fulfills the replayability, considering we can always test different weapon combinations for both characters.
The second phase of the boss is BRUTAL, with varied skills and again fulfilling the game's premise.
AZERTY BUILD:
Doesn't change besides the key bindings.
In general, even though Sourblade isn't exactly a Souls-like game per se, but more of a system prototype, I see it as a good basic system for a future game.
It fulfilled its promises and delivered exactly what it promised and showed.