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Garshasp: The Monster Slayer Review for PC

Garshasp: The Monster Slayer Review for PC

Hacking and Slashing

Any time a video game is hugely successful, you can expect to see some clones. God of War has been no exception, with Dante’s Inferno being the most well-known ripoff.

Thanks to this deluge of God of War-style games, pretty much everyone is familiar with the basic hack-and-slash formula: your character—probably a beefy, bare-chested dude drawn from some ancient story about gods and/or dragons—walks into a new area. He gets closed in, and some monsters attack him. He slices through the enemies with his sword, maybe using some fancy combos, and lots of blood comes out. He flips a switch or two and heads to the next area, and so on—until he fights a boss, a battle that is sure to include quick-time events.

Garshasp: The Monster Slayer Screenshot

And now, in that proud tradition, we have Garshasp: The Monster Slayer, the PC debut of indie developer Dead Mage Inc. The titular hero is drawn from ancient Persian mythology, in which, true to the game’s subtitle, he slays a whole bunch of monsters.

Dead Mage is a true underdog; the developer’s core team for this game was comprised all of nine people. In fact, only about twenty-five pitched in overall. You can tell they really poured their hearts into every aspect of Garshasp, from the storyline to the mythological enemies to the combat system. Unfortunately, though, the studio lacked either the funding or the technical expertise to polish the gameplay experience, and, as a result, the game probably isn’t worth your time or your $20.

Garshasp: The Monster Slayer Screenshot

Of course, an indie game can be just as polished as a blockbuster—the usual suspects in this category are Braid, Limbo, World of Goo, Super Meat Boy, etc. But all of those games share something that Garshasp does not: two-dimensional graphics. In trying to make a game that looks like God of War instead of Super Mario World, Dead Mage bit off more than they could chew. The product they ended up with is great for showing off their skills, and in fact it’s one of the most technically impressive games I’ve seen from a studio of this size. But “from a studio of this size” is the key phrase here. There are plenty of similar-yet-better-made games available from bigger studios, and Garshasp is not much fun in comparison.

Most of the game’s problems can be traced directly to the fact that the developers couldn’t fix all of the problems that 3D graphics tend to introduce. For example, there’s no camera control, which leaves you at the mercy of whatever camera angles the developers chose for each screen. These are usually fine, but they prevent you from exploring as much as you’d like to, and they make a few of the platforming sections a lot harder than they need to be.

Garshasp: The Monster Slayer Screenshot

Then there are the invisible walls. I first noticed these in my first boss battle, not five minutes into the game. The monster was much bigger than I was, and it was obvious that I should be able to run between his legs when he attacked me. Yet every attempt to do so failed. Further, if I tried to dodge toward the screen in some parts of the arena, I was blocked in my attempt to do that as well. The trick to beating the boss wasn’t to figure out any sort of strategy, but to figure out where I was allowed to move.

Also, because of their complexity, 3D games seem a lot more prone to glitches; even big-studio releases often need a long series of patches. I found some serious ones during my time with Garshasp. For example, using the Control-Escape shortcut to minimize the game caused my mouse pointer to disappear. There was another issue during a particularly obnoxious sequence in which you have to propel a raft forward and kill enemies at the same time. After this, you must platform over water (falling into this water causes instant death, of course), then fight through a few layers of enemies on the ground. During this section, the game froze on me twice. While the checkpoints are distributed liberally, the save points are a bit rarer, and these freezes cost me quite a bit of progress.

Garshasp: The Monster Slayer Screenshot

Another issue is the combat. The basics of the fighting system walk the line between simplistic and overly complex. The right and left mouse buttons trigger normal and heavy attacks respectively, holding down the center button blocks (and allows you to perform an extra-powerful strike that drains a meter), the space button jumps, and the shift button causes your character to perform an evasive roll. As you kill enemies, your character slowly develops, and new combos become available. These are all the tools you need to craft an engaging fighting experience.

But that’s not the way it works out in Garshasp. Most of the animations take too long to play out, leaving you vulnerable to enemy strikes. In fact, if you use a heavy attack, many enemies will be able to wind up and hit you before you’re able to block or dodge. I often found myself starting a combo before the enemies had even reached me, just so I could deliver the powerful final blow without being interrupted. In addition to causing frustration when enemies get difficult (which, fortunately, isn’t too often), this makes the combat feel a lot less visceral than it should.

There are smaller mistakes here as well. For example, the checkpoints save your health level, which you can boost only by finding glowing orbs. It’s possible to get yourself into a situation where you have virtually no health, and yet a ton of enemies to defeat. The difficulty spikes seemingly at random. The platforming sequences are some of the most frustrating in recent memory, while most of the fights are easy. In one sequence, I managed to avoid fighting some of the monsters by flipping the switches in a different order, and this “trick” didn’t seem intentional on the developers’ part.

To be fair, some aspects of Garshasp are quite enjoyable. Aside from the technical problems they cause, the graphics aren’t bad at all. They look a little bit dated, but they draw you into the game world and create the impression of an endless environment. The cutscenes are even more visually impressive. There isn’t much voice work aside from the occasional story narration, but those segments are performed well. The music and sound effects fit the subject matter and the location without seeming over-the-top. Some might dislike the lack of multiplayer or the campaign’s short length (maybe four or five hours), but I think the developers were wise to limit the scope of their project as much as they did. And at the end of the day, who doesn’t like running around and hacking at monsters, even if the experience isn’t as smooth as it could be?

It’s a credit to Dead Mage Inc. that with a tiny staff and big ambitions, they created a $20 product that in some ways rivals big-budget hack-and-slash games. By all means, they should be proud of their accomplishment, and I will be eagerly waiting to see if they can hone their craft with their next release. As for Garshasp: The Monster Slayer itself, though—well, let’s just say I won’t be playing through it a second time.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 3.3 Graphics
The visuals are great for an indie title with such a low budget, but they create technical problems for other aspects of the game. 2.7 Control
Controls feel pretty clunky because the animations take so long. 4.2 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
Solid but infrequent voice work, good sound effects, and enjoyable music. 2.7 Play Value
This game is short, and it pales in comparison to bigger-budget titles. 2.7 Overall Rating – Average
Not an average. See Rating legend below for a final score breakdown.

Review Rating Legend
0.1 – 1.9 = Avoid 2.5 – 2.9 = Average 3.5 – 3.9 = Good 4.5 – 4.9 = Must Buy
2.0 – 2.4 = Poor 3.0 – 3.4 = Fair 4.0 – 4.4 = Great 5.0 = The Best

Game Features:

  • Deep combat system with various combo moves and upgradeable abilities throughout the game.
  • Rage attribute lets you slash more enemies as they bring you more scars.
  • Intense combat engagements using Garshasp’s special hand blade based on quick-time events.
  • Cinematic in-game camera following the hero in the epic environments that are traveled in his journey.
  • A fantasy world filled with ferocious monsters from ancient literature and Persian Mythology.
  • Platforming elements.

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