As far as 2021 game announcements go, Batora: Lost Haven has been on my radar since the very beginning. Between the way its art design looks and the hyper-speed at which the combat flows, it just really looked like an interesting game that I could see myself sinking hours into.

Luckily for me, Stormind Games put together a little closed alpha that anyone was able to sign up for. After just playing it, I have to say, I’m even more excited for its release than I was beforehand. It’s an engrossing game all around.

Gameplay

As I said above, Batora has an electrifying-looking combat system in all of its trailers and l’m happy to report that it’s just as sweet when you actually play it for yourself. Avril (the game’s protagonist) has two sets of powers, Physical and Mental which can be used at any given time through the Nature Switch. Physical is hack and slash melee combat while Mental is a twin-stick shooting form of fight.

The game’s enemies will have you swapping between them as each one has better resistance to an element over the other. Some enemies though may have a meter where you’ll have to bounce back and forth between the two in order to kill them. It makes the fast-paced gameplay feel even more immersive because of this aspect. Timing your changes correctly is everything.

In addition, there are a bunch of special attacks and skills that you can upgrade Avril with such as skill points or Runes. There are also puzzle sections in the game and it felt like a good mix. I think that there was a good balance between that and fighting. The puzzles in the alpha at least also felt difficult enough without feeling like I was stuck for too long.

The game will also have you make very difficult choices. Even though it’s a colorful game and Avril is a teenager, it doesn’t shy away from some dark story beats. It’s kind of like a dark Disney tale in a way. Besides changing the story, these choices may also have an impact on gameplay depending on the route you go. It’s all very weighted and I absolutely loved that aspect.

Expectations

As far as what to expect goes, I’m hoping that Stormind Games have doubled down on the puzzle sections to really make them distinct and even a bit more difficult. The puzzles I played were good but I’m hoping that there’s more variation throughout the game. Because they’re puzzles, I’d also liked to get stumped a bit more on them too.

Verdict

Batora: Lost Haven’s closed alpha is, a perfect short snippet of what I hope to play at launch. There was enough of everything to get a sense of the bones that this title has behind the curtain and I’m hungry for more. If the devs can double down on its gameplay and visuals, this one should be a home run.