Batora: Lost Haven (2022)

Batora lost haven, for xbox one

Rating: 6.0/10; slightly above average

Played 2022

Not recommended but there are far worse games to play

Batora is an isometric action rpg where the primary mechanic is switching between hack and slash style melee combat, and twin stick shooter style ranged combat. Enemies are color coded to be vulnerable to 1 particular combat style, while more powerful enemies and bosses have separate health bars for each. The player also has 2 separate health bars and will die if either is deleted. These bars are not tied to your currently active combat style but rather the type of enemies. Typically, orange enemies fight in melee, deplete the player's orange health bar, and take far more damage from melee attacks, while purple enemies are shooters that must be shot and deplete the purple health bar. The player is expected to become proficient in both combat styles, switching back and forth on the fly to optimally attack enemies and manage cooldowns, and this is where the game shines. The combat is challenging and engaging, with telegraphed attacks to dodge and bullet hell style projectiles to avoid. New combat abilities are given at a very comfortable pace throughout the game, which gives time to master them. However the actual battle mechanics and controls are a bit clunky with uneven balance between the 2 forms. The orange form in particular I found to be far less effective and take far more damage. You start off with a dodge and 2 basic attacks. The first locks you in place and is thus difficult to adjust for moving enemies and almost certainly results in taking hits from the enemy. The second attack uses the right analog stick and is a stronger attack with a wind up, still locking the player in place. I never quite got the hang of this attack and thus hardly ever used it. It seemed to aim using the right stick instead of the left, and could do a ranged charge with a double press. Later you get a whirlwind with full movement control, a leap attack that uses the right stick to move around the crosshair, and a damage reduction buff that explodes in point blank area damage after a few seconds. This was no Hades combat system. I disliked the basic orange combat so much that I mostly only used it for the cooldown abilities, preferring to stay at range most of the time.

The purple ranged combat was more nuanced and fun to use. The basic attack shoots in quick succession with a couple second delay after the 4th or 5th shot in the sequence. The damage output is high but it aims using the left stick (which is the movement stick), so you can only stand still or move towards the enemy. The right analog stick shoots a different attack in the direction the stick is moved; an unusual control scheme but it works very well as you can strafe with left stick to avoid damage, and not have to worry about pressing any buttons to shoot. This attack fires more slowly and has a hard hitting attack at the end of the sequence. I found both of these attacks to be useful in different circumstances, and I liked alternating between them to maximize dps. Though most of the time I used the right stick attack to snipe from long range, sometimes even against orange enemies. The purple cooldown abilities were not quite as good, featuring a short range cone attack to knock enemies back, a placeable barrier that blocks enemy projectiles (but not movement), and an area damage over time tornado that is cast like the orange leap. On top of this there are combo points for each color that build up by dealing appropriate damage. They can be consumed for healing and a damage boost, or sacrifice both colors at once for some kind of ultimate attack that I never used, possibly because I had to equip a rune to do so.

The rune system is the rpg aspect of this game. Enemies and quests grant xp, which gives level ups, which gives capacity to equip runes that alter core stats or abilities. I am hesitant to call this game a proper rpg because it is so simple and linear with a fixed number of battles, no escaping, and little to no optional means of acquiring xp. So they could have removed xp and levels altogether, tying rune capacity to story progress just like the abilities. There are 3 types of rune capacity points, which seem to also link into the game's Mass Effect style choice and morality system. Neutral runes give solid boosts while the defender and conqueror runes give benefits with a trade off; defender runes support a more safe playstyle while conqueror goes for glass cannon. My story choices switched back and forth so I ended up in the middle of the morality spectrum with equal points for runes. So I assume focusing on 1 would reward more points for the respective runes, thus allowing for more specialized builds. Not that the game is difficult, even when you are forced to escort npcs that cause game over when they die (just prioritize the 1 enemy that is attacking them). Runes can be swapped during combat so you can micromanage each form switch to optimize dps if you want. The only time I found this useful was during the early bosses where there were periods with time limits to inflict a certain amount of damage or none of that damage would be permanent. The bosses were well done with fair challenge. It was a serious missed opportunity to not have difficulty levels though. There is a new game plus to experience the game again with your power and items intact. I felt no need to play again to experience the different story choices, so I do not know how difficult new game plus could be.

Where the game falls apart is with the story and world building. The major plot points were good but most of the dialogue in between was so inane and cringeworthy that it felt like a complete waste of time. Avril and her friend come off as vapid, irreverent and sickeningly upbeat given the setting, though she does get better towards the end so this could be argued as character development. The codex is so poorly written that I swear I lost some brain cells reading it. It was like a high school student writing an assignment with a minimum word count requirement, so he had a thesaurus open to plop down fancy sounding words one after the other in nearly incomprehensible run on sentences. Maybe this was a translation problem, but they really should have cut back some on that high quality voice acting to save money to make the codex at least half way sensible. The elemental worlds are interesting, but feel like a child's understanding of the Dungeons and Dragons elemental planes. The first world is populated by rock creatures and the very first one you meet is called.... Sheila. Really? That's the best you could come up with for an alien planet that has never had contact with humans? I would think rock creatures would communicate using deep vibrations that would be incomprehensible to humans. Then was the air world with lizard and bird people, all with Chinese names, and the water world with Sven the otter walrus thing. Yeah, the game could have used more unique non Earth based designs for its world building. Outside of the dialogue, combat, exploration and looting, the game features puzzles and platforming sections that are required to progress. They revolve around activating colored switches with your 2 forms to open gates and move platforms. It gets more complicated as the game goes on with more verticality, timing and Simon says. At least there is no penalty for falling off.

Batora is a decent quality game that follows a vapid 16 year old Fortnite character on a semi epic journey through the elemental planes. Its mostly solid combat and meaningful moral choices are held back by inane dialogue, poor writing and lack of polish. There were some bugs that made the game more difficult and required an exit and reload to fix, but nothing game breaking.

Beat during free trial. At first I was very turned off by the dialogue, as the 2 main characters came off as flighty, vapid, and sickeningly upbeat. Most of the stuff they said was inane, and this continued for pretty much the entire game. The overall story was decent, and there were a few things that got a chuckle out of me, but the majority of the dialogue felt like a waste of time. I read all of the codex entries as I found them, and those hurt my brain. It was not difficult to tell that this game was not made by native English speakers, and they really should have spent less money on the voice acting to fix the awful writing in the codex. Despite all of this, the gameplay was solid. It started out simple enough, with new moves being learned at a very comfortable pace. The 2 different stances and enemies that only took good damage from their respective stance were reminiscent of Recore, while the plot and setting reminded me of Primal. Throw in a child’s understanding of the Dungeons and Dragons material vs elemental planes. I preferred the mental stance for its twin stick shooter controls. I mostly used the right stick attack because it allowed me to strafe while shooting. The X attack was a fast volley with higher dps, but I had to stand still or move towards the enemy. I found the slight cooldown between shooting after a full volley made it useful to alternate between the 2 buttons. The RB blast wave was good for knocking back enemies, destroying projectiles, and doing point blank damage; I really needed to use it during the boss fights that had a time limit to deplete a health bar before it restored. The LB stationary shield was great to hide behind and snipe, and the tornado was decent area damage over time. The game forced mastery of both stances, and I found the physical combat to be clunky and annoying to the point that I focused my equipped runes on improving physical damage, health and defense so I did not get my ass kicked so hard. The right stick attack was very weird; it seemed more like a power attack with the second hit being a long range charge that I found extremely difficult to use. The basic X attack locked me in place and was not fun to use. The whirlwind was the best move in the game; spin to win! The jump attack was good too, and could be used to avoid damage with proper timing. My overall tactic was to spend as much time in mental form as possible, shooting and kiting enemies around. I only switched to physical as needed to do a whirlwind + exploding shield combo, then a jump, then back to mental.

I made a mix of conqueror and defender story choices to the point where I stayed close to neutral for the entire game. On the earth world, I decided to help the little monsters rationalizing that removing their incentive to attack the rock people would save the most lives. On the wind world, I refused to help sabotage the elites because that would have killed a lot of bird people just to improve the lives of the bottom lizard people. On the water world I refused to do the genocide plan, again because it would have wiped out all the fish and jellyfish people. At the end I decided to save Earth and screw over the elemental worlds, because humans first. I think the final boss bugged out on me because I was completely immune to damage during his final phase. After the ending, I loaded the save at the end to see the other ending; both endings were good in their own ways. This boss was a decent challenge with no immunity bug to help me. Most of my runes improved health and defense to make me as tanky as possible. I had runes that improved whirlwind, and a mix of attack boosting runes. The most difficult boss was the wind world guy because of the time limit to deplete his health bar once he went into a vulnerable state; this was the only point in the game where I changed my rune loadout mid combat to maximize dps. Most of the times I got game over were from damn npc escorts getting killed. There were a couple of times where I chose combat over puzzles. I was not a fan of the puzzle and platforming sections, but at least they were not difficult.

This game had decent combat and story marred by dumbass writing and significant lack of polish. A couple of times I had a bug which caused me to always attack to the left, which had to be fixed with a reset, and there were a few other non game breaking bugs. Still it was a fun little game, with top quality voice acting and music.

6.0/10