Ori Developer’s Soul Challenge, with many tasks still remaining

Soullike, pioneered by From Software, has already established itself as a genre. It is also a genre that has a solid fan base due to the spicy yet appropriate balance of difficulty that stimulates the player’s desire for a challenge, and the pleasure that comes from successfully defeating a boss after all the hard work. Therefore, to this day, many developers are challenging the Soullike genre.

Moon Studio, well known for the Ori two-part series, also joined this trend. The main character is No Rest For The Wicked (NRFW), which began early access on Steam on the 19th.

The Ori series also boasted a difficult level of difficulty, but it attracted the attention of many Soullike fans because this was the first time it was directly advertised as Soullike. In addition, as the Ori series received favorable reviews for its beautiful graphics and background music, how to incorporate these strengths into Soullike has emerged as a topic of interest. As a result of playing the game myself, the graphics and gameplay were satisfactory, as expected from Moon Studio. However, it was a game that left a lot to be desired due to several shortcomings that overshadowed it.

Moon Studio’s visuals are great again this time.

NRFW’s main stage is ‘Isola Sacra’, the source of the plague. On the island, not only were there strange creatures caused by the plague, but there was also great chaos caused by the conflict between the rebels and the local government forces. The player becomes Serim, a crusader sent to the island to stop the plague, and unravels the intertwined stories between the characters as they face numerous enemies, including soldiers and strange creatures.

The game combines dark fantasy with Moon Studio’s unique visuals. The world depicted in watercolor-style graphics is fairy-tale-like, but effectively conveys the darkness behind it with cruel expressions. In addition, detailed descriptions, such as light source effects changing depending on the time of day and puddles forming when it rains, added vitality to the world view. Although it does not have good background music like the previous game, the visuals alone provide players with an excellent sense of immersion.

What was also impressive was the ability to freely roam around the world created in this way. In NRFW, you can interact with most of the elements implemented in the field, and you can wander around every corner of the map to the point where you think, ‘I can get this far?’ In addition, secret places such as spaces hidden behind walls and passages hidden by rocks or trees were created to add to the fun of exploration. In the case of a reporter, he accidentally fell behind a castle wall. Contrary to what he thought would be a natural fall, he actually found a hidden place.

In addition, the game has a quarter view perspective, which acts as a device that allows you to deeply enjoy the game’s attractive world by showing as much space as possible at once. However, there were some sections that felt frustrating due to the quarter view perspective. It was disappointing that in certain sections, terrain obscured the view, or only a fixed view was visible without the ability to turn the screen.

It’s delicious food, but it feels like you’re chewing on a rock.

NRFW boasts a fairly difficult level of difficulty as it claims to be Soullike. The enemy’s attack patterns are not simple at all, and their stamina is also limited, so if you attack recklessly, you will run out of stamina in an instant. However, the Soullike-style fun here was captured well. The thrill of carefully understanding the enemy’s patterns and finally defeating them is alive and well in this game.

In addition, as the battle difficulty is considerable, equipment setting becomes important, and this is where NRFW’s unique equipment system shines. Equipment in the game has various effects, such as increasing basic abilities such as strength and endurance, or providing fire damage with a certain probability. Here, the player can customize the weapon as desired by using the ‘rune’ system, which transfers the weapon’s skills to other weapons.

The colorful item builds created through extensive customization were the game’s biggest attraction. In fact, there are various item settings, such as a vampire dagger build that quickly attacks enemies to replenish stamina, and a two-handed sword build that delivers a powerful single blow, and it was also great fun to create your own build based on the items you acquired. Since there are many settings that can be implemented, the fun of farming items naturally follows.

However, there were many disadvantages that overshadowed these advantages. First of all, due to insufficient optimization, frame drops or freezing occur frequently during game play. Due to the nature of Soullike, each frame is very important, but deaths due to freezing during battle occurred quite frequently. If my skills were lacking, it would have stimulated my desire for a challenge, but the situation where a character dies due to a system problem actually caused discomfort.

Inventory and warehouse systems are also deducted points. Although NRFW has many types of consumables and resource items that can be obtained from the beginning of the game, there is not enough inventory to carry them all. Therefore, you often have to go back to the warehouse in town to empty your inventory, but the problem is that the warehouse is located far away from the return portal, so you have to run for a long time to organize your items. Purchasing a house will reduce some of the inconvenience, but not only will it be possible to purchase a house quite later, but it will also be difficult to save up the purchase cost, so you will have to endure unnecessary travel until then.

As we continue to improve, the possibilities are endless.

Overall, the game has many attractive elements, such as Soullike-style combat implemented in Moon Studio’s unique way and equipment items that take advantage of farming. However, it felt like it was still an unfinished game as there were many shortcomings that overshadowed it.

Starting with the most important optimization issues, insufficient inventory and remote warehouses that break the flow of the game seem to require rapid improvement. In addition, there are many challenges to overcome, such as key settings that do not consider keyboard-mouse users and the absence of key mapping.

The good news is that the production team is constantly making improvements. Since its release, hotfixes such as stamina value adjustments, drop rate improvements, and bug fixes have been made every day, and user reviews are gradually improving. In fact, the Steam evaluation, which was ‘mixed’ on the day of release (174 people participated, 59% positive), recovered to ‘generally positive’ (14,355 people participated, 73% positive) as of 4 PM on April 25th. The cornerstone of the game, such as combat and item structure, has been sufficiently well established, so we look forward to the visuals and gameplay of NRFW shining through consistent user feedback.