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A GAME OF SHORTCUTS
Inspiration is the damndest thing. At best it can work like a force of motivation and creativity, but at worst it can completely possess your work, eradicating your own thumbprint on it in the process. The latter might especially be the case if you're trying to pay hommage to the true classics. Since everyone knows the originals, or knows about them, you open up your creation to comparative scrutiny, and will most likely end up with the short end of the stick.
In the sad case of Decay of Logos (Portugese studio Amplify Creation's first release) the lodestars are the gameplay and world structure of Dark Souls, the visual flair of anything Zelda, and the emotional impact of Shadow of the Colossus. Content with simply standing on the shoulders of such giants, Amplify bring no distinguishing features of their own.
Were it not for the copious amount of glitches, I would have forgotten Decay of Logos in a heartbeat. It is an agonizing gameplay experience in every way. Hardly anything works as intended, and the few elements that actually do work seem to ruin some other aspect of the game. To put it bluntly, Decay of Logos plays, looks and sounds like dysfunctional, pretentious twaddle. It barely held together long enough for me to see the ending.
It puts you in the shoes of young, elven girl Ada, just as her fantasy village is torched to the ground by evil knights in red armor. After fighting off a single perpetrator, she drops down on her knees in grief at the sight of an older couple, presumably her parents, lying butchered on the ground. This prompts her to leave home on a quest for vengeance, and she won't stop until whoever gave the order lies dead at her feet. The game involves a semi-open, colorful world viewed through a stalking camera, with loads of stamina-dependent combat and visual storytelling driven by the player's curious gaze. You're given no directions and not much in the way of pointers.
For anything I tried to make it do, it misbehaved. If I tried to place it on a pressure plate, it moved around it in circles. If I tried to gallop down a straight road, it sauntered back and forth across it. If I tried to store Ada's equipment in its saddlebags, stuff would randomly disappear. I lost her secondary weapon, loads of potions and some unique armor to that beast, and consequently had to finish the game without a plan B.
To relieve it of stress, I had to constantly cuddle it and feed it berries. Friendly characters in the game kept telling me they had never seen such a bond between two companions. A game designer confident in his elk would not have to spell it out like that, but maybe Amplify knew they were in trouble. I felt no bond whatsoever, and storywise it made no sense why I should. Several times that animal drove me so mad that I tried to kill it, but the game would not permit it.
Unfortunately, they also undermine it all by integrating a fatigue system. The more you explore, the more you fight, get hit and die. This temporarily drains your attributes. Since restoring them is only possible in a scant few campsites, you constantly need to abort exploration to return for a night's rest.
Judging solely by screenshots, Decay of Logos seems beautiful (just don't get too close to those polygons), and there are brief moments where the artistic ambitions of the creators shine forth. The puppet master boss, and that foreshadowing moment when you first see her, is brilliant. There are a few more moments like that. And the audio design is great, with good voice acting topped off by small details, like the howling winds and the tinkling of Ada's potions, adding great atmosphere.
Reaching a new area is preceded by a great vista pointing out abandoned houses, dungeon entrances, windmills, half-collapsed towers, old battlefields and other points of interest, telling a wordless story of a kingdom in ruins. By finding some scattered echo shells, you can listen in on whispered secrets of the people that once lived there, revealing the events that led to the collapse. The zombified inhabitants are relentless pursuers. Trying to outrun them is futile.
The bosses, albeit interesting from a lore standpoint, go down ridiculously easy. Disregarding the last one, which could one-shot me due to yet another glitch, I managed to beat them all on my first attempt, by using but one single approach. This was the same I used for any enemy in the game: strafe around it until its guard drops, then attack a couple of times. Back off, strafe, and wait for the next opportunity.
I could hardly have tried anything else, even if I wanted to, because the game provides very little room to cultivate your own style. All you get is one fast and one strong attack, an unnecessary parry, a dodge and a bunch of weapons that only differs in damage output, stamina consumption and attack speed. I never even considered trying out the three useless spells, since casting them takes away a chunk of your hard earned health.
In terms of visual storytelling, nothing could be more cliché than exploiting an animal companion to provoke instant empathy. In Decay of Logos it feels like a shortcut to emotional depth. Dark Souls and Shadow of the Colossus earned such depth by the amount of time and hard work the player invested in mastering its challenges. Decay of Logos misses the mark completely by being all about appearances and shortcuts to the creators' lofty ambitions.
In terms of gameplay mechanics and functionality, Decay of Logos is an utter failure. Sure, it might get future patches that fixes some glitches, but too many problems would still remain. The world and lore behind the story might be solid, but that doesn't add any power to the horribly hackneyed conclusion of the story itself.
Without spoiling anything - as the game wrapped up and I witnessed the significance of everything that had transpired, I burst out laughing in disbelief. Naturally, I was supposed to react with a cry of grief. We have a word for this in Swedish, but I have not found an English counterpart. When something ambitious is executed so poorly it becomes funny, we call it a "pekoral". You cannot patch a "pekoral" into something profound, no more than you can ever make me return to Decay of Logos to see if its gameplay ever stopped decaying.
In the sad case of Decay of Logos (Portugese studio Amplify Creation's first release) the lodestars are the gameplay and world structure of Dark Souls, the visual flair of anything Zelda, and the emotional impact of Shadow of the Colossus. Content with simply standing on the shoulders of such giants, Amplify bring no distinguishing features of their own.
Were it not for the copious amount of glitches, I would have forgotten Decay of Logos in a heartbeat. It is an agonizing gameplay experience in every way. Hardly anything works as intended, and the few elements that actually do work seem to ruin some other aspect of the game. To put it bluntly, Decay of Logos plays, looks and sounds like dysfunctional, pretentious twaddle. It barely held together long enough for me to see the ending.
It puts you in the shoes of young, elven girl Ada, just as her fantasy village is torched to the ground by evil knights in red armor. After fighting off a single perpetrator, she drops down on her knees in grief at the sight of an older couple, presumably her parents, lying butchered on the ground. This prompts her to leave home on a quest for vengeance, and she won't stop until whoever gave the order lies dead at her feet. The game involves a semi-open, colorful world viewed through a stalking camera, with loads of stamina-dependent combat and visual storytelling driven by the player's curious gaze. You're given no directions and not much in the way of pointers.
LITTLE ELK FROM HELL
Accompanying Ada is a nameless, white elk that happened to be in the vicinity of the village attack. It is supposedly of paramount importance, functioning as a number of things; a fighting companion, a mount, a puzzle aide, a mobile storage center, and quite possibly a metaphor for Ada's soul (it gets dirtier the further you advance the story). But it fails on every single account.For anything I tried to make it do, it misbehaved. If I tried to place it on a pressure plate, it moved around it in circles. If I tried to gallop down a straight road, it sauntered back and forth across it. If I tried to store Ada's equipment in its saddlebags, stuff would randomly disappear. I lost her secondary weapon, loads of potions and some unique armor to that beast, and consequently had to finish the game without a plan B.
To relieve it of stress, I had to constantly cuddle it and feed it berries. Friendly characters in the game kept telling me they had never seen such a bond between two companions. A game designer confident in his elk would not have to spell it out like that, but maybe Amplify knew they were in trouble. I felt no bond whatsoever, and storywise it made no sense why I should. Several times that animal drove me so mad that I tried to kill it, but the game would not permit it.
RUNNING IS BETTER
Exploration on foot works better than elkback, and is the only aspect of gameplay that's remotely good. Amplify can sure put together a cohesive world with some aesthetic merit, and construct compelling puzzles that don't feel out of place. They add unlockable shortcuts to allow for quicker return trips to already explored places. All this works pretty well.Unfortunately, they also undermine it all by integrating a fatigue system. The more you explore, the more you fight, get hit and die. This temporarily drains your attributes. Since restoring them is only possible in a scant few campsites, you constantly need to abort exploration to return for a night's rest.
Judging solely by screenshots, Decay of Logos seems beautiful (just don't get too close to those polygons), and there are brief moments where the artistic ambitions of the creators shine forth. The puppet master boss, and that foreshadowing moment when you first see her, is brilliant. There are a few more moments like that. And the audio design is great, with good voice acting topped off by small details, like the howling winds and the tinkling of Ada's potions, adding great atmosphere.
Reaching a new area is preceded by a great vista pointing out abandoned houses, dungeon entrances, windmills, half-collapsed towers, old battlefields and other points of interest, telling a wordless story of a kingdom in ruins. By finding some scattered echo shells, you can listen in on whispered secrets of the people that once lived there, revealing the events that led to the collapse. The zombified inhabitants are relentless pursuers. Trying to outrun them is futile.
WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE COMBAT?
Since Dark Souls is Decay of Logos' strongest gameplay influence, the combat tries its best to evoke that same heavy burden of a sweaty duel. Swinging a weapon happens through painstakingly slow, drawn out animations, and quickly drains your stamina. If you begin an attack combo, you have to commit to it. No abort exists, leaving you vulnerable if you miss. This is why it's so aggravating when the game's collision detection fails. As you swing your sword, motion lines in the air represent the arc. Sometimes they go straight through an enemy, failing to register as a hit.The bosses, albeit interesting from a lore standpoint, go down ridiculously easy. Disregarding the last one, which could one-shot me due to yet another glitch, I managed to beat them all on my first attempt, by using but one single approach. This was the same I used for any enemy in the game: strafe around it until its guard drops, then attack a couple of times. Back off, strafe, and wait for the next opportunity.
I could hardly have tried anything else, even if I wanted to, because the game provides very little room to cultivate your own style. All you get is one fast and one strong attack, an unnecessary parry, a dodge and a bunch of weapons that only differs in damage output, stamina consumption and attack speed. I never even considered trying out the three useless spells, since casting them takes away a chunk of your hard earned health.
A FAILURE AND A "PEKORAL"
Decay of Logos is difficult, but this stems from glitches and statistics rather than challenging, well-designed gameplay. Your gear degrades quickly, and the enemies' health takes forever to whittle down. Meanwhile, you can take just a few hits before dying, until your level increases and the balance evens out. Leveling up, one of my favorite occurrences in any game, happens automatically behind the scenes. These facts bothered me the most, and it follows the same pattern that runs through the entire game: It emulates something good on the surface with no substance to back it up.In terms of visual storytelling, nothing could be more cliché than exploiting an animal companion to provoke instant empathy. In Decay of Logos it feels like a shortcut to emotional depth. Dark Souls and Shadow of the Colossus earned such depth by the amount of time and hard work the player invested in mastering its challenges. Decay of Logos misses the mark completely by being all about appearances and shortcuts to the creators' lofty ambitions.
In terms of gameplay mechanics and functionality, Decay of Logos is an utter failure. Sure, it might get future patches that fixes some glitches, but too many problems would still remain. The world and lore behind the story might be solid, but that doesn't add any power to the horribly hackneyed conclusion of the story itself.
Without spoiling anything - as the game wrapped up and I witnessed the significance of everything that had transpired, I burst out laughing in disbelief. Naturally, I was supposed to react with a cry of grief. We have a word for this in Swedish, but I have not found an English counterpart. When something ambitious is executed so poorly it becomes funny, we call it a "pekoral". You cannot patch a "pekoral" into something profound, no more than you can ever make me return to Decay of Logos to see if its gameplay ever stopped decaying.
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