Trails of Fate Preview: First Impressions

 

Tails of Fate is an upcoming Kickstarter Metroidvania game, inspired by old school retro games, and is being developed by a three person indie team studio named Chase the Bunny. 

To quote directly from the Kickstarter page itself: Fulfill this tale, as darkness swarms the fantasy lands of Fauna. Venture epic kingdoms and treacherous dungeons in a 2D action platformer, with Metroidvania elements in a hand-crafted pixel art world filled with souls-like boss fights, dungeon platforming, and dynamic enemy combat design.

The developers gave me the chance to test out the game’s Alpha build demo before the Kickstarter launch, so let’s dive right into it!


You start the game at a campsite outside a mysterious ruined castle, and take control of the cross bow wielding fox named Reynard. The game from this point onward slowly teaches you the controls, and gives you some early items. One of the first ones is a rechargeable health potion, that works very similar to a regular flask from any souls game, and the game provides you with some starting gear also. Although it isn’t included in the preview, the equipment shows you that there will be different types of gear in the full release, and each will provide you with different stats or abilities.

Besides the gear and items, another notable thing is how the arrows you are given actually work. In the tutorial when you shoot the dummy, the arrows bounce off and hit the crates blocking your path. Reynard can't shot downwards at the start of the game, but this implies that the developers plan to add physics based elements into the full game (more on that in a bit). 

As Reynard, you have three shots in your cross bow that recharges overtime, a dodge roll, a short and high jump, and lastly something I didn't get a tutorial for (or I missed it)... A wall jump. Shortly after that you get ambushed by a duck guard wielding a spear, which can dispose of fairly quickly, and from there the game focuses on progressing through the stage.

The rest of the demo is a fairly standard platforming level, with obstacles to dodge and enemies to take down using what you've learned. Your first real powerup is an ice arrow ability however, and this is when the game starts to do more a lot more interesting things. Not only is the ice arrow used to freeze enemies, but to freeze obstacles themselves also. This lets you make them into temporary platforms to utilize, and it made me rethink some of the earlier parts of the stage. There were multiple points where I couldn't find the treasure, but now I had a way to go back and get them. This further backed up my initial thoughts of how the developers might be planning on using physics, and made me wonder what else they might do.

From what has already been shown of the upcoming full release, in future updates you're gonna be be able to control a total of three different characters, and you will be able to switch to them at any time. Not only do they have different playstyles, but also different elements for you to use in tandem of each other. Unfortunately this wasn't available in the demo this time around, but it sounds very promising and helps make the game stand out from other metroidvanias. So hopefully the developers use it even more for both the environmental puzzle solving, and for the bosses and enemies!

There is good potential with this game, and the one thing that immediately strikes you is the gorgeous pixel art. I took extra time just to look at it because the backgrounds, enemies, and animations are all very well made. The platforming and combat was also fun and challenging without feeling unfair, however, there are a few issues that I hope the developers are gonna polish up in the future. 

Granted this is an alpha demo build of the game, so of course it's not gonna be extremely polished, but I want to point these things out. I wanted to provide the developers with some helpful feedback of my own experiences, and hopefully help them polish the game even more down the line. So please understand this part of the preview is more aimed as feedback for the developers, rather than critique of the game; which I'd like to remind everyone is still just an alpha demo.

What I thought Could Use Some Improvements

Gameplay

For me Reynard felt a bit too "floaty" to control. I don't know if that is the intention though since he is supposed to be a quick ranger type of character, but the wall jump was a bit too awkward to use, and it just didn't feel that smooth overall. However, the part of the gameplay I felt dissatisfied with the most was the "oomph" of the arrow hitting the enemy. There was no real feedback on the fact that they got hit, which ended up feeling like you hit them with a wet noodle instead. In another game like, Hollow Knight, you got some strong feedback with hitting the sword, which ironically made the toothpick sword you were using feel like it had some real strength behind it. I feel like this game would benefit greatly by conveying the impact the arrows make. 

(Also quick side note, there was no quit the game button in the demo, at least not one I could find.)

Lastly, that boss fight was cool and decently challenging, but it didn't feel satisfying to take down because of the same "oomph" issues I mentioned earlier. It just died after hitting it with what felt like weak attacks. Plus it didn't help that I could cheese it by standing on the edge of the arena the entire time, and just dodge its slam down attacks.


Visuals

I did say that the pixel art is gorgeous, and it sure is, but there were a few moments where it felt like a few key visuals while moving was missing. I can't fully pin point, but it's either Reynard or the enemies, or possibly both, that could really benefit from a few more animation frames to feel more "smooth." It's just something I felt while playing the demo compared to other pixel art action games, and wanted to point it out.

Soundtrack

I am gonna presume now that this is mostly because this is an alpha demo, but there were quite a few sound effects just missing from both enemies and locations etc. However, what I want to dive into a bit is the soundtrack, most of the tracks had pretty decent ambience going for it, nothing that fully stands out, but it sets the mood well enough (not gonna be too critical since its most likely a work in progress). That world map track though? I am sorry but, it was actually grating to the ears. More the melody itself rather than the composition of the track. It didn't give me a sense of adventure as it is right now, but again I presume it's because its an early work in progress rather than the actual track.


With what little I got to play, I can say that this is a promising looking project and I wish the best of luck to Chase the Bunny team to create a fun game! I will be keeping my eye on this project for sure, and  if you wish to check out Kickstarter yourself! It goes live today.


Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this product from https://www.keymailer.co

Post a Comment

Previous Post Next Post