![]() ![]() To make matters worse, enemies seem to posses a sixth sense of sorts. It’s an unrefined experience that frequently crosses into frustrating territory and carries the lion’s share of the blame for why the ending credits feel like such a welcome relief. Enemies don’t appear to stagger from received damage either, so the dance of combat often revolves around learning through trial and error how many hits can be snuck in before the enemy winds up for a retaliatory strike. Doing damage boils down to moving within approximate striking distance, wildly mashing the attack button, and hoping feverishly that the unintuitive hit boxes collide. ![]() Enemy attacks are hard to predict and effectively counter. In practice, however, combat is sluggish and quite rough around the edges. On paper, all the basics are present and accounted for: normal and strong melee attacks, flexibility in character builds, a twist on a magic system in which “spells” are secondary abilities provided by the gear placed into Silver’s equipment slots. Portraying an alien from outer space is a neat take on the well-worn concept of exploring a medieval fantasy world.įor a game where action is vital to its success, it’s important that combat is finely executed, and The Last Oricru just never clears this bar. The vibe is a sort of cross between the sci-fi of Mass Effect and the medieval fantasy of The Elder Scrolls, though it unfortunately becomes apparent all too soon that these similarities to titans of the genre are only skin-deep. Aside from Silver, there are a handful of other extraterrestrial characters in the game, human and otherwise, not to mention a mysterious third faction interfering in the revolution from the shadows. Notable examples give Silver the chance to explore the high-tech human spaceship or let him ditch his chainmail for protective space-age armor. That’s pretty standard stuff for this type of action RPG and does represent the majority of what the game has to offer, but some levels provide an intriguing clash. Wardenia is a technologically inferior planet, akin to medieval times, meaning its conflicts are fought with sword and shield and are spread over castles and fortresses. The player character, named Silver, is a human - an alien here on Wardenia - sent via spaceship on a secret mission and stuck in cryosleep after things go awry until being awoken by an unknown entity in the game’s intro cinematic. Mere minutes after the game kicks off, the player is caught in the opening salvo of a brutal revolution and must choose a side as the Furkin rise up against their masters and fight for their independence. ![]() The story is set on the world of Wardenia, ruled by the humanoid Naboru, who have pressed the rodent-like bipedal Furkin into servitude. The game presents an interesting mix of science fiction and fantasy elements, making heavy use of both in equal measure and mixing them in intriguing ways. If nothing else, The Last Oricru brings some original ideas to the table in terms of setting. The result is a game that, despite the notable effort put forth into its writing and storytelling, is constantly dragged down by technical issues and an unrefined combat system. Unfortunately, over the course of its fifteen-to-twenty-hour runtime, the game also makes a great case for the idiom “don’t bite off more than you can chew”, as its ambitions often outpace the resources that a small first-time developer like GoldKnights has available. Its marketing bills it as an action RPG that places a heavy emphasis on storytelling, and this is far from an empty promise. In a market oversaturated by one Souls-like after another, The Last Oricru sincerely makes an effort to distinguish itself from the rest of the pack. ![]()
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