Angvik: Dark Souls difficulty, Angry Birds presentation

Angvik, the 2D action platformer from Alastair John Jack, is a bit like Dark Souls and a bit like Angry Birds. Although this combination sounds ridiculous, allow me to recount my first run: after spending two minutes spewing fluffy sheep from my pink staff, my character came into contact with some kind of monkey-dog and exploded into a (rather dainty) pile of bones.  This strange mashing of hardcore gaming and casual visuals allows Angvik to stake out an identity in a relatively crowded market.





While the cute art style deserves attention, Angvik shines brightest through its punishing gameplay.  Don't expect to button-mash your way through combat—instead, prepare for several deaths as you slowly learn enemy patterns.  Admittedly, many games require this type of memorization.  Angvik, however, also requires the player to be very adaptable.  Because nearly all of the game's weapons break after three or four successful attacks, players must constantly shift their offensive and defensive strategies.  Close combat, for instance, isn't necessary with a boomerang—but you'll have to change things up after you switch out the boomerang for a sword that shoots fireballs.  And when you fail, a frequent occurrence, don't expect to load up a save game: you'll be starting from the beginning on each playthrough.

Adding to the difficulty is a subtle timer measured by the player's age.  As you progress throughout each of the five stages, your character grows older (demonstrated by his whitening hair) until he collapses dead.  With only one 'hurry up' warning, this mechanic occasionally caught me off-guard.  That said, it fits well and adds another level of difficulty to the game...even if I don't understand how I can be an old man at the end of the first stage and a teenager at the start of the next.

This white-haired man is basically on his deathbed.

While the first two mechanics boil down to a durability counter and a timer, the last two are more interesting.  Oils, found by killing enemies and opening chests, are used to transform items.  Green oil turns a paladin's cross into a wooden boomerang, and black oil shifts a stick into a powerful great-sword.  These oils inject a small amount of strategy and experimentation into what is otherwise a very straightforward platformer. Lastly, the player picks up eggs that can be converted into weaponized birds.  I think that's pretty self-explanatory.

As much as I've praised Angvik, I found the game lacking in several areas.  The UI is frustrating—as far as I can tell, you cannot find statistics on equipped armor.  (Yet, for some reason, information is available on unused armor.)  Secondly, the game has a fair amount of bugs.  My computer, according to the developer's website, is perfectly capable of running Angvik; yet the game lags after I play for a few minutes, and it occasionally crashes.  On a more neutral note, the music is decidedly mediocre: it fits, but it doesn't add much to the game.

My biggest issue with Angvik is the way the developer forced it to become a classic arcade experience.  Despite possessing some roguelike elements in random enemy and weapon generation, this game lacks randomly generated levels.  The result is a contradictory experience: sure, the player needs to adapt on the fly, but at the same time the easiest path to success involves memorizing the layout of the world.  The preset map has other disadvantages as well: secrets lose their secrecy because, once discovered, they remain in the same spot on each subsequent playthrough.  Ultimately, Angvik boils down to one big pattern—and while this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it does feel outdated.

At this point, it's really just a question of what kills him first.

I had a lot of fun the first few times I booted up Angvik, and I may play it a few more times after I publish this review.  That said, this game offers little replayability in the face of true roguelikes.  There's a lot to like about Angvik, and I enjoyed it in the short run.  In the long run, however, I'd rather play something else.

GOOD

+Fun, punishing gameplay
+Cute art style

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

-No random level generation

-Buggy
-Poor UI implementation
-Average soundtrack

For more reviews:

Follow @LiteraryGaming