Howdy Gamers.
Looking around for some interesting titles on Steam recently I stumbled upon this interesting 2D side scrolling roleplaying/platform game called Vigil - The Longest night.
It is currently £19.99 ($25 )on the Steam store.
This video covers around the first hour or so of gameplay...
The Steam description mentioned the game is heavily influenced by a game called Salt and Sanctuary which I have been meaning to play for a while but have yet to get around to.
It also mentions the Castlevania series of games as being heavily influential in this games development.I love the original NES and Super Nes Castlevania games so I figured I would enjoy this title.
From the visual style of the game we can clearly see the gothic horror influence of Castlevania.I love the art style used here,it reminds we alot of illustrated story book's such as Tales from the Brothers Grimm or Where the wild things are.The graphic's are hand drawn and are really quite impressive.
One of the first things I want to mention is that the game automatically detected I was using a Playstation 4 controller on my PC.Normally I find the default controller layout is that of an Xbox style controller....I found this a neat little touch,right away at a glance I know exactly what button does what on my PS controller..
In many of the reviews for this title on the Steam store its is compared to the Dark Souls and Demon Souls series of games.This becomes apparent pretty quickly.Enemies hit hard and you need to get used to dodging enemy attacks and traps right at the start of the game.
The first enemies you encounter are these little 8 eyed cat like critters....One bite from them and you lose around a quarter of your hit points...ouch!
A well timed dodge and a few attacks and the pesky cat critters are easy enough to defeat...
Facing a few cat critters at a time can be a bit trickier but thankfully your attacks hit more than one at a time...
It's worth mentioning here that I love seeing damage numbers in RPGs ...I feel it gives you more a sense of progress and character development as your character levels up and grows stronger.Seeing increasingly bigger damage numbers is satisfying,don't you agree?
Speaking of character development the games skill tree system offers a lot of options for you to customise your character according to your prefered play style.Level ups and skill points come pretty fast in the game which is good as there are many different skills to acquire...
Let's take a look at the individual skill trees.There are 5 in total,Sword,Axe,Dual Blade ,Bow and General...
Enemies you already killed will respawn meaning you can grind exp even very early in the game.I guess if you plan to tackle the game on hard mode this will come in handy as your going to need those early damage increase,hit point increase and healing potion regen increase skills.
Within the first several minutes of the game you face a very intimidating boss.The Craving Terror.....It's a hulking mass of teeth and fur and its attacks are no joke...
I died pretty much instantly when I first encountered it....
This is a good time to talk about saving your game...If you die here you start right back at the beginning of the game.You can save the game every time you find one of these owls statues which are few and far between.I didn't realise at first that you can use fledgling blood souls to make a save anywhere you want.My advice is use a blood soul to create a save right before you fight The Craving Terror....It took me 3 attempts to beat it on normal difficulty and each time I had to do everything over again.....Lesson learned...use a fledgling blood soul :)...
On the second attempt at The Craving Terror I figured out the strategy is to wait for its attack,roll past him and attack from behind.Attacking an enemy from behind or backstabbing it does increased damaged making the dodge,roll,backstab attack method a good one to get down early on.You'll get to practice it quite a lot with this boss...a couple of missed timed rolls and your down to a few hit points remaining.
Dodging and attacking both use stamina....fully deplete your stamina bar and you will get temporarily stunned...so yeah there's that to deal with to...gotta watch that stamina bar...
It took me 3 attempts and quite a few healing potions but eventually I made it passed The Craving Terror and could head onward...
One of the other first enemy types you will encounter are these executioners.Their attacks will take half your health if they hit,they are however pretty easy to fake out making them waste their attack giving you time to land a few attacks before they have time to lift their heavy halberds to prepare another attack.
Eventually we come to the town of Maye.The town has a shop where you can stock up on healing potions,throwing knives ,molotov cocktails and dynamite.These ranged items are equipped on an item selection wheel which can be easily accessed at any time.You can use ranged items as well as your main weapons attack making combat even more interesting and fun.
Molotovs make short work of the executioners and also burn nearby enemies....Nice!
In the town you can talk to various towns people ,hearing their stories and offering to help them with various quests.
Using owl feathers you find as loot allows you to teleport back to any owl statue.A handy thing to remember as your going to want to come back to town a fair bit to stock up on potions and ranged items buy and sell loot and turn in quests.
In the town you will also find a blacksmith shop .Here you can store items, forge and buy weapons/armour and enchant items.The enchant system offers even more chance to customise your weapons and armour.
Checking out what the blacksmith has to offer yields some interesting info.It turns out the armour that offers the most protection also has a penalty to stamina use...The guard armour is heavy armour with alot of defense but has a higher stamina cost due to its weight...The slumber armour on the other hand increases our stamina...very interesting! I am intrigued to find out which will be the best option going forward...
When examining an item pressing the triangle button brings up its stats...
It makes me wonder what situations or boss fights in particular will require the very expensive heavy guard armour with the big stamina penalty...
After stocking up on ranged items at Idonea's shop I only had enough money left for an owl hood....Now Im little owl Vigilant hood....:)
One other really neat touch to this game is that each loading screen gives you some information on items you will find in the game....This very much entices me to make progress in the game to find and use these items...
I guess one more thing we should look at is our characters equipment page.We have slots for armour,weapons and 4 ring slots.....I'm looking forward to filling them out with epic loots :).
Looking at the right side of our character sheet shows the characters stats....for what is essentially a 2d side scrolling platform game with rpg elements this game is pretty damn deep on the stats!
Heading out the other side of the town we find different locations to explore,different people to help and different monster types to slay keeping things nice and interesting.
So to conclude this review I am very impressed with this game.I feel it is well worth the price I paid for it and I will be playing it most likely all the way to completion.
I love the hand drawn gothic horror story book art style.The combat system is fun and satisfying with a lot of room to customise things to suit your own play style.
Im looking forward to seeing what other challenging boss fights the game has in store for me.
The music is suitably eerie and really suits the art style.
If you grew up playing the old school Castlevania games and you enjoy challenging rpgs like Salt and Sanctuary,Dark Souls and Demon's souls this game is likely going to appeal to you quite a bit.
I'll give it a solid 9/10