Warlocks vs Shadows Review

Warlocks vs Shadows Review

Warlocks vs Shadows is a 2D arena action game set in a fantasy world that has been invaded by shadow monsters. It combines RPG and action elements with a pixelated classic style of an arcade game. The player takes control of a Warlock, a juggernaut of magical power (or dubstep) who uses their power to fight against waves of shadow monsters.

The story begins in Folara, a forest filled grass land, when suddenly meteors begin to rain from the sky from a series of outer planets. Except these aren’t normal meteors, they containing an evil warlord who wants to infect the world with his shadow minions. The warlocks gather to fight against the shadow monsters.

The game features a campaign that pits you through 5 different campaign acts which features multiple different sections and a boss at the end of every act. Each act grows variably harder in difficulty to test the player as well as scale against them. As you progress in the game you may level up the character you are playing, making their abilities more powerful, getting better gear to smite down your foes with and gaining access to new and different characters are the many ways to do these.

Warlocks vs Shadows Review

Featuring 11 total playable characters at this stage with 5 being unlockable from each act the player completes, Warlocks vs Shadows has a strong cast of warlocks with many different characteristics all having a different style of play. This ensures replayability for the game as levelling one character does not level them all. If you would like two different characters levelled then you must play them both. However this does not feel like grinding and taking away from your experience of the game. As each character has different abilities and traits then you can do things with certain characters that you couldn’t with others, for example ‘Raziel, Fallen Angel’ (an angelic battlesuit) has the ability to double jump, allowing her to get away from enemies quicker or get to higher places easier. Whereas ‘Jake the Pyromancer’ has damage over time abilities meaning he can do a lot more damage than other Warlocks.

There is also a horde mode in the game, in classic style of timing how long and how many waves the player survives against to give them an overall score. This in my opinion is a great way to learn the characters, abilities and how enemy characteristics function with many of them having independent abilities. For example there is a boar shadow that unlike others can charge and dive at the player, there are also shadows that can shoot at you with lasers or projectiles. You can also level your character through horde mode, although it does feel slower than the campaign.

Warlocks vs Shadows does feature good soundtracks that blend with their environments. When you beat a boss and progress to the next area then the soundtrack switches things up varying the pace and beat to the rhythm of the game. It ups the pace to make it seem more tense and makes the player think the action is faster and harder difficulty, providing a good effect to the game overall.

Warlocks vs Shadows Review

There are unfortunately negatives to this game at the current time. The online multiplayer doesn’t seem to work correctly, I have played numerous times in the game and have still yet to be able to play multiplayer, I have seen that if you just invite friends into the game however that requires them to own the game as well, unless you play local multiplayer which seems to function as expected.

If there is a patch released then I believe Warlocks vs Shadows could be an excellent 2D action adventure game, with the replayability of each different character. With a good blend of difficulty and RPG elements then it has the possibility of becoming a classic game.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary PC code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.

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