Kaku Ancient Seal an ARPG with puzzle solving and a decent map to go exploring around on. I rather love the fun graphics to boss fights I've encountered so far in this game. It’s also just rather fun to go hunting for resources, and puzzles, and see what other kind of adventure you can find yourself in.
Kaku Ancient Seal has quite a few different things to do in it. From four different elemental islands, each has a main quest where you are working on getting an elemental stone from each. To all the side quests where you are earning different kinds of resources.
This game is not your typical kind of ARPG where you are slaying monsters for experience. Instead, you need to gather resources which also do drop from creatures to invest into food, ranged combat, melee combat, defense, and quite a few different combats unlock.
Early on you are met rather quickly with a boss encounter. This one ended up taking me a couple of attempts before finding my rhythm to take it down. With how early on in the game this combat was I had yet the opportunity to invest in better food, dealing more damage, and looting pieces of equipment that fit my play style.
The game follows a boy named Kaku who is tasked with saving the islands. To do so he must travel to the different islands of misty swamps, dragon bone desert, howling snowfield, and flame mountains.
There are quite a few different things to interact with while out exploring. I sometimes find it helpful to find a high point or just rotate my camera around a full 360 and look towards the horizon for any beams that appear in the backdrop to hint at a location to check out.
There is a teleportation system called Crystal Towers. These towers themselves require you to solve a sliding puzzle. Where you need to combine two halves of one tile to unlock the bottom. Then use your remaining moves to get the golden tile into the bottom slot. While needing to get around broken tiles that can’t be moved. Finish with the amount of total moves you have and unlock the tower.
Crystal towers made it quite fun to get back to side quests or even as an excuse to go off and adventure on other islands. This can be great if you find yourself stuck on a puzzle, or encounter, or just want to change things up with a different backdrop and storyline.
While out exploring there are also a few different mineable nodes for resources. These can either be mined up close or my favorite shot with a slingshot. These resources are then spent in the skill tree or on things like increasing the potency of healing and combat foods.
There are also things like chests to loot. Some chests require you to simply walk up and open them. Others you might have to attack waves of enemies protecting it. Finally, for some chests, you need to solve some sort of puzzle to gain access to them.
There are also ruins keys you can find which tend to be a reason why I like to change things up and go to the different element islands. These keys can be used in a place called Ruins Realm that unlocks trial puzzle rooms that can increase your total health, and stamina or even have chests with resources in them.
These trail rooms tend to have an overall theme that fits into the overall element they are based around. They also usually require a lot of jumping around different platforms solving a puzzle with moving blocks or creating a pattern.
The game even tries to get you into overthinking how to solve a puzzle. It might look like you are supposed to get across a room for instance by jumping. When in reality you just have to use one of your special abilities from a charged super jump to casting a bubble around yourself to walk on water.
I find myself usually having to attempt things more than once to find the correct way to move forward in certain situations. Other times it can be as simple as missing a context clue that you are supposed to be doing things one way or another.
Such as one area had some cracked rocks that I overlooked while I was still trying to understand the basics of the game. I then later discovered I could use quite a powerful catapult nearby to launch a fireball destroying the wall that had cracked rocks. Thus, opening a passageway. Now every time I see the fire catapult, I start searching not for creatures to kill with it but if there are any breakable objects in the area to use it on.
While I've been slowly working on the main and side quests. More times than not I just find myself having fun exploring different areas. There is usually some new creature I've yet to encounter in a fight, another chest to loot, and resources gleaming everywhere.
When it’s not one of those things I'm usually trying to work out how to navigate around an area. From needing to cross lakes and mountains, and even getting down from high elevations. Getting from one point to another point usually entails a little more than I was expecting and some slaying of creatures as well.
You can see in this instance here there are a couple of beams of light in the sky to indicate different sites I want to check out. I also need to find a safe way off the cliff I'm currently on. There are also some resources to mine and creatures to fight along the way.
While I'm not usually big into games that have a heavy puzzle element. So far, I've found them enjoyable and not that frustrating outside of some rather long jumping platforms. They however usually have some checkpoints along the way. Making this part of the game a rather chill and enjoyable experience.
While out exploring sometimes you just find yourself not at the advantage point you need for a situation. I might find myself getting close to say a bee hive I need to take out but it can only take damage on a certain side. So, I end up having to go the long way around one just to take it out avoiding taking lots of damage while also letting them kill off any creatures nearby once I shoot at one with my slingshot.
So far, I've explored a couple of islands, ran a couple dozen ruin puzzles, and got myself killed quite a few times. I even worked on solving one of the temples and some boss fights as well.
With the way upgrading skills and damage works in this game. I might find myself encountering a boss and finding it just taking too long to try and take down. I then just go off to a different island to gather further resources and come back for that boss later on once I'm far more powerful.
None of the islands have any requirements to start them once you get to that part of the game. Making this quite an open game to just go around and have lots of fun. Even ignoring the main question if one is so inclined to do.
Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Kaku Ancient Seal.
Disclosure. A review copy of the game was received for free.
