Ravenswatch: An premise with potential hampered with several problems

When I saw the announcement of Passtech Games' latest title, I was instantly intrigued. I really enjoyed the indie developer's roguelike Curse of the Dead Gods, and to this day believe it is one of the better indie titles on the market. So, when I heard about Ravenswatch, another roguelike title except one that trades the Aztec setting for that of a grim version of fairy tales and myths, I was really excited to see what the developer had cooked up.

But this game isn't the follow-up that I was hoping for. Yet. Yes, this is an Early Access title, meaning there will be many changes before the game arrives in its 1.0 'launch state', but since it requires players to pay money to access it right now, I'm not going to hold back. And I say this because Ravenswatch has some clear issues, across nearly every one of its facets.

To start with, it has basically no narrative or plot development whatsoever. You really have to go out of your way to start understanding the world and why you should be interested in it, which is a let down especially since Ravenswatch serves up a cast of more macabre and gritty fairy tale icons that you want to learn more about.

There are six characters at the current time and each harkens from a different part of the world and different myths. You have the Scandinavian Beowulf, the Germanic Pied Piper, the French Scarlet (Little Red Riding Hood), and so forth, and each character plays drastically differently to the next. Aladdin for example is more of a brawler with his scimitar ideal for slicing through foes, whereas The Snow Queen is better as a supportive character that likes to keep enemies at a distance. The character design is a true highlight and shows that Passtech Games clearly has a talent for creating compelling characters, but the problem arises in that none of the characters are really very entertaining to actually put into practice.

And this is because Ravenswatch has a serious difficulty and level design problem. The idea of this game is to head into a level and to defeat a world boss level foe within three in-game days. On the lead up, you're encouraged to explore and to take down roaming enemies to earn experience and find new loot to help you with the main battle, but the problem is that the basic enemies are so deadly and the combat so sluggish that you are essentially bound to die, and considering the map doesn't feel compelling to explore, you soon lose interest in unpacking this as well.

Since Ravenswatch is a pure roguelike game, once you die (up to four times in one run when playing solo) you have to start from square one. It's a system that doesn't feel fulfilling at all, and because the gameplay itself is sluggish, and frustrating at times, you quickly lose the desire to keep grinding away in the hopes of defeating the level boss so that you can move onto the second level - which will then see this whole process repeated, and again for level three, and potentially so forth as more content is added.

Now don't get me wrong, Ravenswatch is a game that is much better when you team up with a few friends, but it by no means rectifies the issues and makes this a flawless experience. If anything, when playing cooperatively some of the progression and difficulty issues get swept under the rug temporarily, but this is only assuming you have a really cohesive and competent team of players, as there really isn't much room for error when playing this game.

While it is fine to say that in six months, a year, or maybe longer, as we get further through Early Access, things will get better as more balance changes are introduced and additional content is added, right now, this is not the follow-up to the great Curse of the Dead Gods that I was hoping for.