Alcahests Anonymous

Beat. This game felt like the spiritual successor to Crystalis, combining the 4 elemental sword combat with several companions that had shoot em up mechanics. I greatly enjoyed the combat. The guy felt very responsive, it was easy to land hits, and diagonal action was done far better than most games. Even the double press D pad to sprint worked well when I normally despise that. These developers knew what they were doing. The enemies could be a handful at times, and with their respawning as soon as their spawn point went off screen, I often found it better to run past. This was not truly an RPG because xp from kills only gave lives rather than any stat improvements, which were instead found as loot. The guy had a normal attack, dash attack and charged up whirlwind attack. I mostly used regular attacks. He could also block both projectiles and melee hits by standing still facing the enemy. This created a good combat flow since it was better to time attacks and blocks rather than button mash.

It was easy to cycle through to elemental swords using L and R, but it was silly that the useless basic form was still an option. I also wish sword form could have been changed while paused. Each sword came with a charge up move and a magic spell, on top of each partner having their unique ranged attack and their own ultimate attack. Mana for the hero and companions was entirely separate and enemies randomly dropped hp and mana. The flame sword charge was a mirror image flurry attack that did a lot of damage and allowed me to still move while performing. It was an excellent move that I used for the entire game, but could be risky if the enemy moved too much. The fire magic summoned a guy to shoot energy blasts that did massive damage and trivialized some bosses. It was best against bosses that were easy to hit by being large and/or not moving too much. The water charge was the basic whirlwind combined with a slight ranged shot. The range was very short and I only found it useful for hitting regular enemies on the other side of barriers. The water magic summoned orbs that constantly fired long range shots like dual machine guns. The orbs might have protected against some damage but it was difficult to tell. I preferred the fire and forget fire magic because the water had to be manually aimed. Overall I found water the least useful. The wind charge attack was the Final Fantasy dragoon aerial leap attack that returned the guy to the starting position. It was overall the best charge move and what I used the most on the final boss. The guy was immune to damage while in the air and it was a great way to lure projectiles away, but if the boss happened to move to my starting point taking damage was unavoidable. The wind magic summoned the spirit to punch enemies and was a better source of damage than fire and water. The earth charge was an actual charge that was very similar to the wind attack; both gave temporary invulnerability and were good at commando, while the earth charge put the guy close to the destination rather than the start. It was more difficult to avoid taking damage from bosses with this, unless they were stationary and not against a wall. The earth magic gave several seconds of invulnerability, which was so much better than the other spells that I never even considered using the others during the late game. It made a few bosses trivial but was less useful on those bosses who were immune to regular attacks. There was no ultimate 5th element sword, which would have been unnecessary.

The best companion was the mage due to his homing shot, which was amazing for regular enemies and good for the bosses that could actually be hurt by it. His ultimate was a screen clearing nuke which I only used early game. The healer had the worst attack but her healing ultimate was by far the best. She was the companion of choice for the last few bosses. The knight had less range but did more damage as his flail exploded in a small X pattern. While not nearly as versatile as the homing shot, it did allow limited shooting around corners. His ultimate was a mid range area attack; nothing special. The cyborg had a bouncy shot which I did not find useful. It did combine high damage and range though. His ultimate was a single target barrage, which may have been the best for dealing damage to bosses. The dragon's shot was 3 directional but not really useful because the spread was both too wide and not wide enough: ie it was unlikely that enemies would be in line to be hit by the 2 side projectiles and it was not really useful for cheap kills. The ultimate had her fly around breathing fire for a long time. None of these damage ultimates worked on the final form of the final boss though, not that I wanted to use anything but the healing.

Enemies and bosses were well designed with reasonable difficulty levels, even if some of the magic completely wrecked them. Some bosses repeated in the late game and it was interesting to fight them with the full moveset, despite most being immune to everything except a specific charged attack. The late game with all companions available was the most fun, though I stuck with the mage. I missed the ultimate armor in stage 7. I did not like the little power squares on the ground in some stages that jumped the guy around, or just sent him in a dash. They felt out of place and too video gamey. The biggest flaw of the game was the overall stage design and exploration aspect. Everything was so simple with plot items always found conveniently nearby, each stage was distinct so it was impossible to backtrack to previous areas, there were no shops, and hp and mana chests were automatically used even if they were not needed. Ultimately, this was a very good game that would have been better if it went all in on being an action rpg with more elaborate stages to show off the excellent combat.

7.8/10