Ancient Seal Review – A Hidden ARPG Gem – WGB

Hailing from China, indie developer Bingobell is a small company with only one other credit to its name, a tiny VR title from 2017. But in 2020, they released a demo for their new project; Kaku: Ancient Seal, a far grander videogame than what came before. A few demos, some big changes and an Early Access period later, Kaku: Ancient Seal is a welcome surprise.

Kaku: Ancient Seal invokes a lot of other games in its visual style and gameplay, from Tak and the power of JuJu and Kena: Bridge of Spirits all the way to a dash of Pokemon in the form of Piggy, a cutesy flying companion who likes to exclaim his own name like a question, a statement and a swear word. In some ways the mix of fighting, platforming and puzzle solving reminds me of classic PS2 platformers, but with a modern lick of paint and a much larger scale.

The story of Kaku and the people he meets on his adventure is one of the weaker aspects of the game, although it isn’t terrible. Kaku himself is likeable enough and Piggy is just pure cuteness in a pair of overgrown ears, but everyone else is rendered down to one personality trait and nothing of substance. The lack of voice acting plays a large part in how forgettable everyone is too. Perhaps because English isn’t their native language, Bingobell’s writing style gives everyone the same voice, making them all a forgettable blur of cartoony faces.

There are four worlds Kaku will explore, from a lush jungle to a frozen wasteland, and each of those are split into smaller zones traversed by magical portals. They are gorgeous areas to explore, at times looking far better looking than the game’s presumably modest budget would suggest. It’s actually a slightly odd mish-mash of graphical quality, because while the environments and vistas are terrific, the animations are janky. For every cool enemy design, there’s a texture that looks out of place.

These graphical inconsistencies are signs of the game’s small team and small budget. Another sign is how there isn’t a whole lot to do in the spaces given to us, either. Enemies are strewn across the landscape like candy from a hastily opened bag of Skittles, there are some treasure chests to find and a handful of basic side-quests, none of which really fill the space. It gives the impression of big levels designed for the sake of having big levels rather than because the game actually needs them.

Another area in which the game is held back by its independent nature is the repetitive mission design. Whenever you head to one of the four continents (you can jump freely between them, which I love) you’ll meet a new pal, get introduced to the local bad guy or bad gal and then head off on a series of quests, usually involving talking to someone, jogging across the landscape, beating some stuff up and then doing it all again.

The good news is that the gameplay involved in doing all of that is usually rather fun, provided you can accept its limitations. Kaku is quite handy with his club, as well as a catapult for dealing with the game’s slim selection of enemy types from afar. There’s a special attack that damages an enemy’s Poise meter too, which once drained leaves them stunned. By combining the two attack types there are special moves Kaku can unleash, many of which are dictated by his stamina bar.

I did find the difficulty balancing to be a tad off. A lot of enemies are very easy to take down through button mashing, but mixed amongst them are random enemies that seem to absorb damage like a goddamn sponge. These foes look just like their comrades but will have a much higher damage tolerance, meaning they aren’t more challenging to fight, just more annoying.

The Poise mechanic is a nifty idea, but it doesn’t have as much impact on the combat as I’d like. It seemed more effective early on, but as I levelled up the damage my regular attacks did far outstripped the usefulness of Poise.

Overall, the combat is fine and can be quite fun in small doses. Over the course of the game though, its simplicity became more and more obvious and repetitive. There’s only a few enemies types and they only use a few moves, so after a couple of hours you’ve seen everything the game is going to throw at you outside of its boss fights, which are also quite basic. After a while, I began to ignore the pockets of enemies on the map because stopping to fight them all was tedious. By bypassing fights, I could keep the combat feeling fresher.

You get some light puzzle-solving and platforming to help mix up the gameplay. This is classic stuff: a double jump and a mid-air dash, along with the occasional fetching of an elemental stone. There’s a weird burst of acceleration when you press the jump button which caught me off-guard the first few times and Kaku isn’t as nimble as I’d like in the air, but once I got the hang of I had a great time.

The elemental temples are where the game really hones in on the jumping and puzzling. It’s like a collection of the classics, from rotating cylinders and walls of spikes to rising water, deadly mazes and levers. These sections are occasionally frustrating thanks to some clumsy design but are otherwise a lot of fun. Again, it has a kind of old-school vibe that I can get with.

Levelling up Kaku to tackle stronger enemies isn’t handled through menus but rather venturing into a strange set of underground runes via a portal you can open up at any time. From there you can spend special crystals and resources to level up your basic defence and damage, as well as unlock new special moves. Improving health and stamina is slightly odder though, as you have to use special Ruin Keys to open up small platforming and combat challenges. As you complete challenges you’ll move up to the next floor where the doors cost more keys to open and so on.

We can’t forget the adorable Piggy, either. Putting aside the importance to the plot, Piggy also gives Kaku a few cool skills, like being able to walk on water (is Kaku Jesus?) or leap a vast distance. I think a bit more could have been done with Piggy’s powers, kind of like Nintendo did with Link’s powers in Tears of the Kingdom, but they are still fun to use.

The game even finds time to throw in a gear system. There’s quite a lot of different armour, clubs, slingshots and runestones to find and collection, all offering special perks. Some can only be earned by beating bosses multiple times, too.

Kaku: The Ancient Seal’s biggest problem is that it’s a tad larger than it really needs to be. The claim of over 30 hours of content makes a good selling point for anyone who cares about the ratio of money to time, but the gameplay doesn’t quite support it. The environments are expansive but are mostly empty aside from the occasional treasure chest or rote quest, the combat doesn’t evolve as the game goes on and the basic mission structure repeats itself.

None of this stops me from being impressed by Kaku: The Ancient Seal. Despite its obvious shortcomings, it’s a fun time that would best be played by someone who jumps on for a few hours a week so that the game’s simplicity can remain charming rather than repetitive. I certainly can’t fault the developer’s ambition – there’s a lot of stuff packed into Kaku: The Ancient Seal, including some very cool ideas. I just think if the developers had taken a few things out and focused on a couple of their key ideas, Kaku could have been even better. Taken for what it is though, Kaku: The Ancient Seal is a charming ARPG with a strong Zelda vibe and a lot of heart.