Batora: Lost Haven

I suppose Batora: Lost Haven by Stormind Games had looked enough like Darksiders Genesis for me to buy it: a stylized top-down twin-stick hack and slash shooter. Visually the game didn't disappoint; I really liked the purple-orange dual color theme. Gameplay turned out to be pretty basic, however, and mechanics rather shallow. But the game's biggest problem is its writing.

Juvenile universe-saving adventure

The story turned out to be sort of an isekai deal -- a bad sign from the get-go because I'm not a fan of the subgenre. A calamity has struck Earth, leaving the planet and its population largely destroyed. Yet despite that, the protagonist Avril and her sidekick Mila seem rather chirpy and easygoing. The friends encounter a pair of mystical gods -- Sun and Moon -- who transport them to another planet, and Avril becomes a chosen one to save the universe.

Maybe Batora was meant for a younger target audience or something. The dialogue is often so asinine and unfunny. It's never good when you have dialogue lines be only ellipses. This game at least has an auto-advance setting for dialogue but I eventually had to start smashing the skip button anyway because the ordeal got so excruciating. I found it melodramatic every time how after a single conversation, the fate of some individual of an alien species became the most important thing for Avril. I did like the in-engine cinematic cutscenes, though. They're well directed; characters are so expressive.

The game was apparently inspired by an Italian novel Batora - Il Risveglio ("the awakening") by Annika Morris. I don't know what it's about but the cover art seems to have the same Sun and Moon thing going on. In the game (at least), Batora is an old crone, a neutral observer of passing events and who also gives advice to Avril.

Run-of-the-mill topdown action

The game's duality theme governs its gameplay. Avril has two stances: orange physical and purple mental. In the physical stance, she wields a big sword and in mental she shoots projectiles. Enemies are likewise of either nature -- or hybrid. The latter has their health bar divided to two colors and once you have dealt with one, the enemy goes into berserk in the aspect that is still left. Batora's difficulty setting is based on how much enemies take damage from the opposing nature: Loose, Standard, or Strict.

In my experience, the right controller stick in twin-stick shooters controls aiming only, but in Batora tilting the stick also launches attacks. For the ranged mental aspect it works, although for some puzzles it's awkward, having to flick the stick to fire just one projectile. In the melee aspect, it's better not to touch the stick at all because you end up locked in combos and be unable to avoid incoming damage. There is manual attack, too, but for melee, the Solar Wind spin-to-win ability is where your damage is mainly at.

Unfun design

Light build customization element comes from equippable runes. Unfortunately the system is of horrible design. The vast majority of runes have a sizeable negative effect in addition to having a positive one. It's impossible to boost any aspect without severely gimping others. Neutral-aligned runes have few without negative effects but you can only equip a certain amount of runes of each three type: neutral, defender, and conqueror. The neutral runes also include ones that boost specific abilities so there's even less room for the generic stat boosting neutral runes.

Base attack damage is the only stat you can reasonably stack because the tradeoff is critical damage and chance. You're increasing your damage without making yourself weak; you just won't see huge crits happen. I suppose you could alternatively take damage reduction and health decreases instead but I felt the penalties would have made Batora: Lost Haven considerably harder, leaving far less room for mistakes. With some actual thought the rune system could have easily been far better. You also pick up stuff that seem like intended to be crafting materials for something that didn't make it into the game.