As part of the Steam game preview, you can currently try Enotria: The Last Song. The action RPG follows in the footsteps of the Soulslike genre but comes with a fresh setting and nice ideas. MyMMO editor Karsten Scholz has taken a look at the potential gem in the context of Find Your Next Game for you.
Since it clicked for me, I have found great enjoyment in the emotional rollercoaster of frustrating defeats and satisfying victories that a Soulslike adventure can evoke in me.
The best gaming experiences, in my opinion, have so far exclusively come from the studio that has shaped the genre with Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls and has refined it over the years, I am of course referring to From Software. However, I also enjoy the imitators, such as Lies of P and Lords of the Fallen that were released last year.
It was therefore a given that I would check out the currently playable demo of Enotria: The Last Song as part of the Steam game preview. The Soulslike comes from the Italian indie studio Jyamma Games, which was founded in September 2019 and has since released four mobile games. The team now comprises more than 50 members, and is venturing for the first time into a AA project.
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A typical Soulslike
After just a few minutes with Enotria: The Last Song, it is clear that this action RPG is a classic Soulslike that adheres to the well-known basic structure:
- By defeating your enemies, you collect a soul-like currency called Memoria.
- When you die, your corpse remains at the location with the Memoria you have gathered so far. You now have one chance to return to your body and collect the currency. If you die during that attempt, the Memoria is lost.
- At glowing fields, you can invest the collected Memoria in level upgrades, adjust your fighter’s loadout (more on that shortly), learn new talents, or fast travel to another one of the fields. Once you use the service of the “bonfire,” you regenerate your health points as well as healing charges, and all non-boss enemies respawn.
- In the world, shortcuts can be unlocked to minimize the running paths between “bonfires” and, for example, a boss.
Many familiar elements are also present in the combat system.
- Your standard repertoire includes a light and a heavy attack, a dodge move, and a parry skill. A stamina bar limits how often you can attack, dodge, sprint, and parry.
- In combat, you may also use consumables and up to four skills.
- Similar to Sekiro, foes possess a kind of posture bar. By filling this bar with attacks and parries, your opponent is stunned, allowing you to deliver a particularly devastating blow.
The Special Features of Enotria: The Last Song
While many elements of Enotria: The Last Song may feel familiar, I really enjoy the special features of the game after the first few hours. First, there’s the game world, which is noticeably shaped by the developers’ Italian homeland.
Although there are certainly areas that emit dark fantasy vibes, you can also expect bright sunflower fields and colorful coastal settlements in Enotria. Italian folklore and the masks of Arlecchino (also known as Harlequin) also play an important role.
The masks that you can find throughout the adventure define the loadout, bring special effects (with the starting mask, heavy attacks deal more damage), and provide the hero with a varying number of slots to equip learned perks in order to activate them.
The passive perks are found in the highly branched talent tree of Enotria. With the upgrades unlocked there, you strengthen your offense or defense, as well as the effect of active skills and effects.
You can also define four active skills, up to six consumables, a secondary item, plus two weapons for each loadout. You can switch back and forth between the peacemakers and between up to three loadouts at any time during combat.
Another special feature reminds me strongly of the new Lords of the Fallen. In Enotria, while you cannot switch between two worlds, there are opportunities to adjust reality in certain places, thus creating paths that allow you to reach new areas of the game world for a short time.
Solid Soulslike Experience
So how does Enotria play in the demo? The AA-Soulslike leaves a solid impression in the demo. The controls of the fighter feel precise, the strikes have a certain weight, and you must carefully navigate through the world to avoid falling into a trap set by well-placed enemies.
If you take on too many enemies at once or a strong foe lands a direct hit, you can find yourself defeated on the ground faster than you can spell Hidetaka Miyazaki. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that there are barely any animations to protect the hero from the strikes of the enemies.
With the first boss Curtis, there is also the fact that even he has enormous health points and receives hardly any posture damage from parries and hits. So you have to play quite a long time without making many mistakes to eventually bring him to his knees (or farm Memoria extensively beforehand to gain level upgrades and enhancements for the weapons or masks).
Here, the developers should look into the balance of the entry boss. The performance of the action RPG also needs optimization due to regular drops in frame rates. Technically, you should not expect a AAA visual spectacle, but I quite like the game world, where there is already a lot to discover early on, thanks to the beautiful light moods and the Italian flair.
So anyone who can get something out of the Soulslike genre and isn’t exclusively subscribed to the works of From Software should check out the demo and just give it a try.
Enotria: The Last Song could become a solid representative of the genre, with an unexhausted setting and nice ideas. The final launch is scheduled for September 19, 2024, for PC, PS5, and Xbox. Alternatively, you can simply wait until Shadows of the Erdtree arrives: I have already fought 4 bosses in the Elden Ring DLC and have seen them more often than I would have liked
