I'm a bit of a metalhead. Once I discovered the brutal sounds of metal in my formative years I've been hopelessly addicted to not only the fast, punishing sound, but the dark and sinister imagery that accompanies the genre.
Recently I was turned onto an action platformer that channels both the sound and the look of 80's heavy metal, while dishing out Super Nintendo-style action. Naturally, I was interested and took the plunge into Slain: Back From Hell.
The game begins with the main character, Bathoryn, being resurrected from death and cursed with the task of destroying an evil force that has taken over the land. An uninspired motivation, but it kicks things off quickly.
Bathoryn is armed with just a sword on this adventure, plus two magic spells. The sword can attack forwards while standing or crouching and can be charged up for a powerful attack (with proper timing). It can also be used to shield against attacks, though unless you're trying to parry a melee attack or reflect a projectile, you'll still take damage if you're simply holding a maintained block with your sword.
You're given a single defensive move, which dashes Bathoryn backwards out of danger. Its absolutely necessary to use on some stronger foes, where you need to coax them into to swinging at you, as you dash backwards out of danger and jump back in for a couple of quick strike while they recover.
The two spells at your disposal are an energy blast (which can later take on fire and ice forms), and a soul bomb that unleashes a powerful, screen clearing attack at the expense of your entire magic meter. Magic can be replenished by pulling off charged attacks on enemies.
The last technique is the parry/counter system. Enemy attacks can be defended with a well-timed parry, leaving them open to highly-damaging counter attacks. Using these counter attacks is essentially required to defeat some enemies in this game, which is problematic.
The game is broken down into an introductory level, followed by six realms you must conquer. Each realm is further divided into two stages. Once you pass the intro, you arrive at a hub where you can pick where you want to go next, though most of the stages are initially locked.
As you venture further from the first stage, you're thrown into the grinder as enemies quickly become more difficult, platforming is more demanding and traps are introduced. Most of the stages are littered with nasty one-hit-kill traps like spikes that spring forth from below and crushers that smash you from above, though once you identify what they look like they're fairly easy to dodge.
The first few levels are pretty fun and feel like a throwback to action platformers from the 16-bit generation. Comparisons to Castlevania are frequently made about this game, but it reminds me more of something like Actraiser 2 thanks to its quickly ramping (and unfair) difficulty.
The game's bosses are a highlight, as they each present a unique challenge. Figuring out the best way to use your limited skill set to defeat them was both rewarding and frustrating. By the time I reached the mid-game bosses, I had to consult some walkthroughs to see what I was doing wrong. From a giant mother beholder to an ice throwing dragon, there were some interesting fights. After felling each of the game's bosses, you're given the opportunity to bang your head as heavy metal blares and pyrotechnics fire off in the background.
While the first half of the game was fun, by the time I passed the 50% mark it became more and more frustrating due to the absurdly high difficulty. I understand that the game was designed as a throwback to the more difficult games of the 80's and 90's, but Slain just isn't up to task. The game suffers from floaty jumping mechanics, a poor framerate, enemies that will kill you with one hit and your main attack slowly moves you forward -- into danger or off a platform.
I came to a point at 70% completion that I simply could not get through. I'm an above-average gamer, but this problematic section was just too much. Earlier, I mentioned that you have to use the parry/counterattack system to defeat some enemies. Well, I encountered a stretch between two checkpoints that threw two enemies at you that more or less require you to use that technique to beat them. You're given a tiny window where the parry actually works (probably 2, maybe 3 frames). Miss this window and these enemies will one-hit kill Bathoryn. Combined with the uneven framerate, pulling this off is a nightmare. So not only do you have to contend with the other enemies in this area, but you have to time this parry/counter perfectly six times in a row (three times on two different enemies). I was able to achieve this once, only to get through them with a sliver of health left and what do you know, beyond them is a creature that spits poison at you.
After trying that section at least 25-30 times, I had enough. I tried it in two sessions too, but to no avail. The poor framerate makes pulling off what the developers expect from you just too difficult and frustrating. After so many attempts, I gave up and put down my Switch. The game went from fun, to challenging, to frustrating, to infuriating. With some minor changes, this game could have been much better, but sadly its just not quite there.
Slain boasts a beautiful presentation. The 16-bit inspired, pixel based visuals are smoothly animated and packed with detail. From the monsters to the insanely detailed backgrounds, the game knocks it out of the park with its visual quality. The aesthetic looks like Iron Maiden and Manowar album covers brought to life, with skeletons, ghosts, demons, fire, ice, blood, slime and creepy gothic architecture. Little details, like multi scrolling backgrounds and foreground effects really give the game a striking and rich appearance.
Not to be outdone, the music and sound are fantastic as well. While the sound effects don't stand out on their own, the amazing heavy metal soundtrack does. Each stage features unique and original metal music that perfectly compliments the visuals. The soundtrack is good enough to listen to separate from the game and is definitely a highlight.
Slain is a huge missed opportunity. After playing absolutely amazing platformers like Hollow Knight and Dead Cells, the gameplay and poor framerate of Slain feel sluggish, imprecise and unfair.
The theme, visuals and music of this game are unique and extremely well done and deserve to be applied to a better game. It feels like there's a great game trapped inside this package, but the gameplay problems keep it from ascending above mediocrity. After lowering the score due to gameplay, and raising it thanks to the wonderful presentation, the game ends up being simply average.
Reviewed on Nintendo Switch. Also available on PS4, PSVita, XBox One and Steam.
