izigame.me

I have to admit that this one put me off a bit at first. I mean, that cheesy art on the thumbnail coupled with assets that are clearly very “inspired” by Castlevania games doesn’t exactly scream “Game of the Year” to me.
But that’s exactly what you have here. There’s a reason it was nominated for a bunch of awards when it was released in 2022. I still kind of wonder if that “reason” is some kind of charm spell hidden in the game’s files…
I don’t mean that in any derogatory way, of course. I’ve played this game for hours and loved every second of it. (It was the first game I sank any meaningful amount off time into on my Steam Deck, for god’s sake.) It’s just that this is, on its face, a very simple game. Most of the player input, outside of menu navigation, is moving your character. Attacking and spell casting are both done automatically – the player only needs to position the character among the throngs of enemies for optimal obliteration. To me, when the enemies are coming at you in full force, it ends up feeling like I’m navigating a moving maze as I try squeezing through gaps in the enemy front. That is, until you get swallowed by the mob or Death himself comes for you and the level ends.
And that’s kind of it. Don’t be fooled, though – the gameplay loop is addictive as fuck. There’s something about watching your leveled-up spells ripping through a hundred skeletons at a time that never gets old. Besides that, trying different characters and loadouts to see what is most effective kept me busy for a long time.
If you’re looking for something entertaining to kill some time, you’d be hard pressed to find something better than this one. But, if you’re looking for something to really sink your teeth into, you might want to look elsewhere. Still, at this price, it’s probably worth picking up anyway.