In this day and age, 2D sidescrollers are becoming increasingly rare in 2016’s gaming landscape. If there are any platformers, beat em ups or hack and slashers, they are three-dimensional with HD graphics. Slain takes a different approach; specifically, it goes old school in both art design, plot, structure, and gameplay, and it’s definitely worth your time. However, be warned: this game thrives on its difficulty, and although it does sometimes extend game length through a setup of purposely cheap deaths involving certain flying enemies and plentiful projectiles, the quick respawn and speed of gameplay motivates the player to continue forward past the struggles.
http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBdRFNxMIGY
Also, and this HAS to be mentioned: the art design is used to great effect in Slain. The retro-bit style fits the gameplay and story perfectly, and each background looks like a heavy metal album cover. It’s clear that they didn’t use this art design as a crutch, but instead as a foundation on how to make a retro-looking game that still remains gorgeous and greatly fitting of the themes and combat.
Gameplay: The gameplay is your typical 2D hack-and-slash combat with platforming sections with a boss battle to conclude each of the six levels. The player has their attack button (X on the Xbox version I played on) that serves to be their primary means of offense with a power attack possible if you hold the attack button and release with precision. As you clear through levels, your character will get different versions of his sword, with a flaming sword and ice ax being the other options in combat. These serve the purpose of increased damage with particular enemies (ex: fire sword = increased damage against witches), adding a strategic element to combat as you can switch between these weapons with one flick of the analog stick. There’s also a power-up beam attack that the player charges up throughout the level. This is most useful during situations in which enemies are filling up the screen, as this will blast through any common enemy’s defenses to do decent damage. Combat is simplistic, it’s fun, and greatly satisfying when you land a critical hit or a perfect block, as the game purposely makes your finishing blows bloody and brutal.
The levels are tightly packed with many instant kill spots ranging from small platforms to large gaps in between platforms. They range from being completely obvious death zones to subtle environmental differences that lead to plenty of quick, unexpected deaths. These add in additional challenge while moving through the level, especially when the enemies start stacking you up and you’re one hit away from going off the edge.
Speaking of enemies, they are plentiful and unique in design. Starter enemies like skeletons and basic witches have simple attack patterns that lead to them easily being wiped out. However, simply mashing the attack button repeatedly isn’t enough, as enemy numbers will grow with differing enemy types finding their way into every combat situation. There are the bigger, harder-hitting enemies that take more damage, but move slower, along with the projectile enemies that primarily shoot fire blasts and other hurtful blasts in your direction.
These projectile-focused enemies, among all the others, felt like they were more annoyances than challenging. In many different situations, two projectile skeletons would sprout up on opposite sides and shoot at you immediately afterwards, leading to unavoidable damage and frustration. This would also typically be in a situation where you already have six or more enemies that are trying to hurt you too, so these enemies just ended up piling on the damage at random points. Due to the random nature of their appearances (usually completely off-screen or pop up right by you on opposite sides), they felt more like they were just there to take away chunks of your health in the middle of already opposition rather than truly challenge the player. The ability to deflect their blasts back at them was fun to do (even though I missed multiple times and paid the price) and added a legitimate strategic element to certain combat situations.
Boss battles fared better with each offering something different strategically and visually. Certain boss battles were certainly of the “dodge, hit, hit, dodge, hit, hit, repeat” variety, but each had plenty of entertainment value. One boss, however, felt immensely cheap at times and more focused on filling the screen with minions and projectiles to the point that dying and restarting became a consistent trend. Out of all the battles, this was one where they made the many spawning minions scarier than the boss itself. This was another unfortunate case of the game using indefensible projectiles coming from all directions to cause more restarts than you’d like. Otherwise, boss battles were entertaining and offered consistent challenges to test the player.
Multiplayer: N/A
No multiplayer mode allowed, strictly single player (although this WOULD be a great game for couch co-op.
Sound and Music: Slain finds itself to be a big supporter of heavy metal, and in this game, the visuals and music are a perfect match. The music is loud, adrenaline-pumping, and perfectly suited to the hard-hitting and bloody combat. The multiple areas of each level come with its own theme (some similar to others) with both bombastic beats and subtler music for the below ground or castle sections. You’ll certainly have to at least enjoy heavy metal somewhat to properly enjoy this soundtrack, but it’s a greatly used in every given combat situation.
When it comes to combat noises, the use of blood is both a visual and audio aspect. When you get a critical hit and blood starts flying, the sound of contact being made and the blood flying feels both fitting and adds an extra level of satisfaction. Outside of the green projectile sound made by certain flying enemies (which sounds a bit generic compared to the other sounds in-game), each sound feels authentic and bone-crushing, making the heavy metal and sword strikes mix cohesively and effectively.
Story/Atmosphere:
The story, albeit not particularly memorable, does serve to effectively piece together each level so that all six levels feel necessary to effectively wipe away the evil that has taken over the land. You play as Bathoryn, a hero awakened from his eternal sleep to fight back against Lord Vroll and his evil forces. With the help of a mysterious sidekick, Bathoryn goes through each different landscape presented in the levels to fight the main boss. There’s some dialogue between Bathoryn and these bosses, but they usually equate to Bathoryn telling the evil being that “if they don’t move, they will be moved” and the evil being not taking too kindly to that, leading to the battle. Overall, the story is mostly kept to a minimum, but this is to favor the gameplay (which for these kind of games, SHOULD be the focus), so it’s a fitting choice.
The atmosphere is extremely effective here, once again thanks to the great visuals and sound design. Every level is designed with a hopelessly destroyed landscape, and with plenty of feverishly violent monsters making their own distinct noises and growls, helps establish a level of fearfulness that never feels ill-placed. The music, aesthetics, and level design help establish this world and makes it easy to get immersed.
Replay Value:
Although Slain certainly does the Castlevania-style single-player justice, it doesn’t really offer much in terms of replayability. There are collectible pieces of a medallion to collect that are scattered across the levels, but otherwise, the campaign is mostly linear. The gameplay, while fun, does get repetitive during lengthy playthroughs due to the fact that in combat, you will be doing a lot of the same thing over and over again. The campaign took me approximately seven hours to complete (with a lot of repeated sections due to consistent deaths in each level), so the campaign doesn’t overstay its welcome, but its also not short enough that it can be easily played through in one sitting.
The boss battles and different enemy types do help add variety, but Bathoryn doesn’t learn any new skills or any new moves, leading to the player mostly using the same tactics in combat.
The lack of additional difficulties hurts as well, as there’s no additional challenge able to players. The main motivating force would be unlocking the achievements/trophies, which is primarily for those who bother going the extra mile needed to achieve them. Overall, replayability is there, but there’s no new content to play after the initial playthrough, so there’s not a lot of incentive to come back.
Conclusion:
There’s plenty to like with Slain, especially if you’re a big fan of heavy metal and Castlevania-style hack-and-slashers. The game can be quite brutal in difficulty, which WILL lead to frustration among many players. However, it also leads to players learning the systems in place and improving in combat as the campaign progresses. Although the deaths can be cheap sometimes, and the game doesn’t open itself up to much of a rewarding second playthrough, Slain is a quality 2D sidescroller that deserves to be played if you’re a fan of the genre.
Slain is available on Steam, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 for $12.99.
