Hello everyone and welcome back to Kralizec Gaming.Today we are going to take a look at Unworthy. This hardcore Metroidvania draws heavy inspiration from games like Dark Souls or Bloodborne and promises a similar experience to those in a classic 2D pixel art style. Whether it can deliver on this promise is the question we will try to answer today. Unworthy is available on Steam for 13 Euros and 49 cents or your regional equivalent.
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Video Review
Text Review
I’m not really the biggest fan of the Dark Soul’s-like subgenre to be honest. But I did enjoy The Surge quite a lot. But getting the chance to get a similar experience in a 2D environment does certainly sound enticing. But is it any good?
Gameplay
So, let us begin with a look at the main mechanics of Unworthy. It’s combat. And I gotta say, in its essence, it is deceptively simple. You get a single button to attack, a single button to dodge and from there, it’s pretty much up to you. Obviously, if this was all there is to the game, there would be a good chance that the game would get pretty boring quite rapidly.
So, how exactly does Unworthy get around this? Well, the same way so many “Darksouly” games do. They give you a decent selection of different types of weapons that each come with their own playstyle. To give you a few examples – you start the game with the most used weapon in gaming overall I think. A sword and a shield. This combination has the benefit of pretty quick attacks and the shield gives you an immunity to one attack if it is charged. Or there is the hammer, which has the ability to break objects and deliver powerful blows to your enemies, but on the other hand, it attacks pretty slowly and once you push the attack, you better be sure you want to make the attack as you can’t cancel it, even by dodging. Plus, you get a little combo mechanic going, where attacking a few times in a row will make the third attack deal a bit more damage.
But what would combat be without enemies to punish? Well, boring I guess. Thus Unworthy provides you with a plethora of enemies to defeat. But be careful, they can be quite punishing. And I gotta say, the variety of enemies is quite impressive. And they range from simple sword fighters, giants with even more gigantic weapons that will try to crush you, fast-moving archers and even spellcasters. But they all share one common thing. All their attacks are avoidable with your dodge. And that, that is the key to defeating them.
Apart from your … well, regular enemies… you got bosses. Bosses that you are very unlikely to defeat on your first try. They are hard and have complex phases with various kinds of different attacks. Usually, they start out pretty slow, giving you a false sense of security. But just give them a moment to transition into their next phase and get ready to get wrecked. Seriously, the amount of time I’ve spent solely on the bosses is probably higher than what I spent in the rest of the game in total.
So… altogether, the combat feels just great. Hard, but fair and I consider that being an ideal state for combat in a combat-focused game.
Apart from the combat, there are a few other mechanics I feel I should mention, starting with the sins . The sins are the equivalent of souls from Dark Souls and they get used for pretty much everything starting with upgrades to your character to buying items from the few vendors you can find in the game. The items are probably the weakest point of the game as they provide only minor boosts to your character, like an increase in your armor rating or higher stamina regeneration.
The upgrade system is also sadly one of the weaker points of Unworthy, as similarly to the items, it doesn’t really provide much change towards the development of your character. It provides like, higher healing from your flask, slightly more damage and these sort of things. But I can’t really complain much about this, because this isn’t meant to be your … traditional… RPG, this is a Metroidvania and those aren’t really supposed to have complex upgrade systems.
One last thing I would like to talk about, hoping the developer will see this video, is: I think this game is perfect for mobile. Seriously. While it is a hard game, for sure, it also has pretty simple mechanics and most importantly simple controls. And because it has simple controls I feel like a port to mobile could be feasibly be done without much of a hassle. Maybe the difficulty would need to be lowered by a bit, but on a modern phone, where the game would have no problem running smoothly it would be definitely a blast to play.
Graphics
Now that we are done with the gameplay section of the review, it is time to take a quick look at the graphics.
Unworthy takes a pretty simple approach to those as it is a purely black and white pixel art 2D game. But highly stylized. And… it just works. Everything feels dark and gloomy, almost … gothicky. And any fan of Dark Souls will love it immediately.
Music
When it comes to the music, it is there. That’s probably all I can realistically say about it. It’s there in the background, sounding okayish but it doesn’t really give me the chills. And this game would really deserve some music that would give you the chills. But it isn’t bad either so, it’s not something I will hugely complain about.
Performance
Lastly, it is time to take a look at how good the performance is. Sadly, not great at the moment. There are sometimes framerate issues, but I have a pretty big problem determining what exactly is causing them. And the author of the game seems to aware of them as when the game starts it tells you that if you are experiencing frame drops, that there is a potential solution in a text file in the games folder. I can at least report that the solution has worked for me, but if there is a workable solution I don’t understand why it isn’t the standard.
Conclusion
So… in conclusion: Unworthy is a really good combat focused 2D Dark Souls clone. The combat feels truly fair yet it is truly hard. And this is exactly what fans of the Dark Souls sub-genre love. Thus, if you are a big fan of this sub-genre you shouldn’t wait and get Unworthy straight away. And if you are “just” a fan of hard games, you shouldn't wait either. The only people who I’d say shouldn't get this are people who don’t like hard games. As those, those will hate themselves for sucking so much.
So, that’s it for today guys. Hope you like the review and if you did, please consider upvoting the review and following my blog. And comment, if you have something you would like to add. See you guys later with more gaming content.
Disclaimer: All the images have been taken directly from the Steam game page