I have to admit I have been putting off writing this article. It’s not because the game isn’t good, or that I don’t know what to say about it. It is because, to be blunt, I suck at it… 🙁
Unworthy is a side scrolling, hack-em-up, metroidvania by Aleksandar Kuzmanovic Games. In it you control a dude with a big sword and a shield, and you proceed to romp through the lands killing everything in your way. Well at least that’s the general idea… the website states “Prepare to die. A lot”, and boy are they not kidding!
The main differentiator in this game is that you don’t jump. Instead you can roll in order to dodge enemy attacks. The problem that I found with rolling, is that you (obviously) move forward while you do so, which then tends to put you in front of another enemy, who kills you. This gets rather annoying after a while, but I persevered nonetheless, and sure enough after dying many many times, you eventually get a feel for the right way to deal with each of the enemies you come across in the game.
That is, of course, until you reach the first boss – Sueht, the Devourer of Light. This guy might as well have been the final boss in the whole game for me. He has a slow attack with a very big weapon, which means that you can dodge his swing if you time it correctly. But he also has a splash damage attack that he tends to use constantly, which burns you until you roll to put it out.
So basically if you avoid one attack, you generally tend to get hit with the other. Oh and don’t think about trying to stand far away from him as then he triggers the skeletons on the side to burn you instead… it’s very frustrating. I’m hopeful that with this being an early alpha, the developer will balance this guy out a bit, because at the moment he is simply too hard to kill at such an early point in the game.
Graphically the game is monochrome with splashes of red blood. Your character plays slightly behind the front layer, slightly enshrouded in fog. It gives the game a moody aesthetic that works very well. Animations are smooth too, but it can get confusing as to exactly where you are when you are attacking multiple bad guys – since everything looks pretty much the same. That confusion isn’t helped when you get knocked backwards, but you get used to it a bit.
My most favourite part about the game? When you die the screen fades out to leave just your corpse and the word “Unworthy” as a little taunt. Its a great touch – I love it!
Controls are simple, but currently not explained very well. First of all, do not play this game using a keyboard, it really requires a controller. I tried both ways and found that I definitely died a bit less with a controller! Secondly, I couldn’t work out for the life of me what the “Ability” button did – all that seems to happen currently is that it swaps out your shield for a “U”, which does nothing. At least the shield protects you for a single hit, and then you wait for a few seconds (might as well be a lifetime!) before it recharges and protects you again.
Unworthy is probably going to be a very good game, and if the developer can balance it a bit and throw in a short tutorial then I would be very happy to play it again. But at the moment, I’m just glad that I don’t have to die at the hands of Sueht any more!
