In its Nintendo eShop listing, Dark Scrolls is described as, “…a fantasy-themed action platformer that fuses shmup-style chaos with roguelite progression and is packed with charm, challenge, and secrets. Set forth on your quest to [INSERT GOAL HERE] with one of the worthy yet quirky heroes in solo or cooperative play, local and online. Hack, slash, and dodge through hordes of enemies and deadly traps in procedurally generated runs of hand-crafted rooms and levels using each hero’s unique attacks and abilities to your advantage.”
Let’s unpack this, shall we?
First thing that jumps out at me is the “[INSERT GOAL HERE]” statement. Are they trying to be mysterious, did they forget to add something, or are they trying to channel DUDE from Free Guy? It could be a hook, but the quest seems to be to win the game, unless there is some other hidden agenda. The publisher also likens Dark Scrolls to a shmup/roguelite mash-up. Here, there seems to be some agreement with what you will see in the game, but the similarities to either genre are, shall we say, rather generous analogies.
Having gotten that rant off my chest, let’s take a look at what this game looks like. Dark Scrolls is another nod to the retro, 16-bit aesthetic. But given the scale of the characters and other stuff on the screen, it’s a bit too chunky for my taste. You can tell what things are supposed to be, so it isn’t too bad, but the retro blocky thing is becoming passé.
The game starts you in a small hamlet with only a couple buildings to stroll past as you head off to your adventure. Of course, you can stop in the store on your way to certain death, and pick up some helpers—that is, if you have the coins for it. There are a host of environments to work through, and, in a game like this, “work” means to shoot everything that moves and try to not get killed in the process.
This leads me to one of the less pleasant aspects of game-play; you have only one life available to get through the whole level from start to boss. Along the way, there are some hearts the game will drop for you. If you can get to them in time, it can replenish your health bar. If you take too many hits, you die, and the game will make you start the level over from the very beginning—no save points, nothing helpful, just starting over without the ability to even skip the intro cutscene. This style of level grinding got to me after only about 30 minutes, and it did not get much better.
When we turn our attention to the audio, there is a little more hope for the game. The music is appropriately whimsical and the sound effects are well suited to the action.
As for the gameplay, there is a bit of a mixed bag here. The controls are mostly easy to manage, but there are a few minor quirks to which you will need to adapt. Being a sidescroller, all you need to worry about is up, down, left, right and jump to get you around the arena of the moment.
Speaking of jumping, there is an unfortunate effect you will encounter; jumps near the top of the screen will often result in hitting your head on the top of the game world. When this happens, there is a rebound effect. This means that getting to the treasure chest on the highest platform becomes almost impossibly tricky, and rather frustrating.
As for moving around, there is one feature to know about going in—you can change direction of travel (left/right) with the joystick, but if you are firing your weapon while you change your direction of travel, the direction of your weapon’s fire does not change. You have to stop firing, change direction, then start firing again to get your attack to change direction. This isn’t tragic, but it can cause a few extra deaths if you don’t update your way of moving around.
There are three heroes from which you can choose to start the game—a nimble knife thrower, a burly axe wielder, and a floating mage—with the total eventually reaching nine. Each has different attacks and strengths, but since you have to get all the way through a level in one pass, it’s a bit difficult to make the best of each character until you die a couple times.
Another nifty feature of this game is the ability to play local or online co-op with a friend. This is the best way to play, as the combo attacks and revivals can help quite a bit on getting through the levels. Just don’t get too worked up about who collects more coins.
Dark Scrolls can be a bit of fun as a familiar sidscrolling roguelite. But there is nothing original here, and the few annoyances might become more irksome as you churn your way through the lather-rinse-repeat cycle of level grinding to get a bit ahead. There is nothing tragically wrong with this game, but it is uninspiring in equal measure.
