When it comes to fighting our way through hordes of enemies, we tend to automatically think we are the hero of the story. There have been instances where we later found out that we were the antagonist all along, but instead of taking the serious route developers SouthPAW Games and publisher NEOWIZ took with their antagonist focused rogue-lite game Skul: The Hero Slayer. Now in early access on Steam, players can step into the role of an unlikely anti-hero that is on a quest to save the Demon King!
Gameplay
Starting off the game you have your basic Skul form which allows you the ability to throw your head and teleport to wherever it is, both in the air or after it lands. You get your basic attack style that goes with this form as well, but what you really want are more skulls. Maintaining the same controls for fighting, dashing, and general movement, as you progress, you will find more skulls that each provide you with a different fighting style and power. You are able to have up to two different skulls at one time and are interchangeable at any moment in the battle, with a cool down between uses of course. Unlike my initial expectations, you can even replace the starting basic Skul form with a more unique one giving you two powers instead of one to switch out through the game.
There are hordes of enemies that all have different moves. The first chapter is full of soldiers, heavies, tree enemies of varying types, and even mages, all of which will fight in their own way. You will need to watch incoming attacks from all sides because death is truly not an option in this game. If you are to succumb to these hordes, be it in chapter 1-2 or chapter 2-3, you are starting over back at the Demon King’s ruined castle and moving back in through chapter 1-1. This is a rather harsh mechanic, but it is the price of your failure.
As you make your way through the levels you will collect both coins for currency and demon points for stat-boosting. The demon points stay with you, even after death, and it actually requires you to die in order to use them as the NPC (non-playable character) that grants the option to turn them into stat boosts awaits in the ruined throne room. Boosting your stats every time you die is going to be what helps you get through the deeper and more challenging levels of the game. The coins are a different story as they are completely lost on death and put you back at 0 gold. The gold can be used when you run into the market that will have a health boost soup option, a free mask to change to if you want, three purchasable items that get equipped and grant varying stat boosts, and an NPC that grants something random for your fighting. Use up whatever coins you have because there is no use trying to save them since they will wipe out upon death.
This entire game is run off of RNG (random number generation) and so you never know what exactly is next. While you will have to complete multiple little map areas, each equipped with their own mini-map that quickly shows you the area and how many enemies are currently spawned, in order to proceed, you don’t know in which order you will get them. After running through chapters 1-1 to 1-3 a few times, I noticed that sometimes there were map areas that didn’t show up and some that showed up after I hadn’t seen it before, so there are more areas than there are required spaces to move through. The good news is that there are two safe areas; one that gives you a random skull to switch to if you’d like and the marketplace for you to spend your coin and regain some health.
Each chapter ends with a boss of their own and these bosses are basically starting heroes; the good guys of the story and the ones working together to defeat your lord, the Demon King. Featuring all the different styles you would expect from an RPG, such as a melee, archery, and magic-user, you never know which hero you will stumble upon at the end of your chapter. But bare in mind that just like the rest of the chapters, these mini-boss fights are all on one health bar and at the end of the chapter series there will be an actual, hard-to-defeat boss to conquer!
Expectations
I really do find this death mechanic to be a bit too harsh. I can understand making it hard by restarting the chapter series, meaning if I was on 1-3 I go back to 1-1 or if I was on 2-3 I go back to 2-1, but to set it up to where no matter what chapter I am on I go back to start in absurd. Sure, it may sound like you are giving a high consequence challenge to players, but you are ruling out your casual players and those that would give up on something so costly. I would like to see some kind of checkpoint system added, even if it is an optional aspect that can be turned off by the more hardcore gamers that enjoy the high cost fighting experience.
The occasional platform challenges in the game that give you the reward of treasure should also give some health. Unless the player is highly skilled, chances are they are going to lose some health going for this treasure and with the high cost of death that this game has there should be a form of health gain from it as well.
Conclusion
Skul: The Hero Slayer is a fun rogue-lite game that can quickly become a frustrating nightmare if you’re not careful. I enjoyed the gameplay and fighting my way through the hordes of enemies, but watching myself restart whether I died on 1-2 or 2-2 was heartbreaking. Definitely plenty about this game to be enjoyed, but I currently can only recommend it to those with nerves of steel and high skill.
