When the first trailer for Ravenlok appeared online, my interest was piqued, here was a game that seemed to take the combat of an Action RPG and mix it with the Alice in Wonderland stories. Now that I have had the chance to put the game to the test, was it worth the wait or has the experience left me a little mad?

The story of Ravenlok is simple, you play as Kira, a young girl who has just moved to an old farm house in the country. Whilst helping put things away, Kira discovers a mirror in the old barn and when she looks closer a hand reaches through the mirror and pulls her in. This new world she has been dragged to is called Dunia and the reason for her abduction is that she is the Ravenlok, the hero prophesised to defeat the evil queen and save the world. From here its pretty much a routine adventure, meet some characters and complete a quest for them and then move on. Many of the characters are taken from the Alice in Wonderland books and some like the Mad Hatter or the March Hare are easily recognisable, some of them have been replaced by new characters. There isn’t a reason why it is like that, but some like the Gryphon don’t appear in the game, but there are new folks like the Botanist who do. Kira isn’t the smartest person either, she gets pulled into a world and the first thing she does is talk to a rabbit and rather than freak out, she just accepts things and agrees to help. Each time she meets someone, she just accepts what they say and agrees to help them in whatever mission she has been given, not a great basis for a player character.

While the story might be simple the gameplay is even more so, except for one big flaw, before I get to that though, the basics are important. Kira or Ravenlok as people call her, can attack and dodge and then as she progresses through the story, she will unlock new attack options and spells. As the game is played from a blend of isometric and top-down, there are times combat feels like a twin-stick shooter, but with sword, shield and magic, its more like The Legend of Zelda. Across the various locations that you can explore, enemies will start to get tougher and therefore require more thought on how to attack them, more so when there are heaps around. A lot of the progression is tied to helping folks out, getting items and then taking them to a person or place, the main goal is of course to collect the heart shaped keys that will unlock the gates to the palace.

The problem is that the game barely explains anything, beyond a basic combat tutorial, you are left to your own devices. Now normally you might think that is a good thing, except the game has systems in place that it doesn’t detail, and that is not a good thing. The first boss that you encounter can one hit kill you and it happened to me a lot, so I left him alone and spent a good 30 minutes killing the 9 enemies before him over and over again, in order to level up. There was nowhere else in the world I could go, so it was those same folks continuously in order to gain more levels. After all that effort however, I was still level 1, I had seen no increase to my stats, so I started trying to find other paths and when that failed, I tried being tactical in defeating the boss. After more than a dozen deaths, I gave up and just started talking to everyone I could, only to find out that there was a fellow near the witches hut that could level me up. The fact that he looked like another character and was surrounded by food – like the other character, did in no way make me think he would assist with leveling me up, but that was the entire point of the character. At this point, due to my constant grinding on those same enemies, I had enough skill points to jump from level 1 to level 7 and the end result was that the boss died with only a few hits.

Now normally I am not opposed to effort like that being an issue, the problem is that the lack of explanation didn’t stop there, there is no way of knowing if items in the world are interactable, unless you basically stand on top of them. One quest early on had me waking up five statues in the mushroom forest, simple except that the ones you can wake up, look identical to the ones that don’t, so I had to basically hug every statue around to find the right ones. After another boss fight, I had no clue on where to go next and the game didn’t offer a single hint and it was by randomly walking around the walls of the ancient mansion, that I found a path forward. With characters that have barely two lines of text, once you have helped them, no map or visible hint system, the games progression felt like it was tied more to luck than anything else.

While this is not an issue per say, the game has two sets of collectables that you can obtain, the first are figurines which are scattered around the place. They can be hidden in corners or clearly visible and if you collect enough, there is a collector who will exchange them for items. The other collectable are hats, apart from one single hat that you need for a quest, the rest are entirely cosmetic and even the one attached to the quest doesn’t provide any buffs. The latter of the two is also tied to something some people maybe fine with, but the game provides achievements so often they mean nothing. I am not kidding when I say within the first 30 minutes of playing the game, I got 6 achievements and one of them was for naming my character, which is a requirement to start the game. I also got an achievement for putting on each of the hats, that isn’t one for all the hats, but one per hat. There were a trio at the end, one for reaching the queen, one for defeating her and then one for going home. Achievement hunters will likely love this, but given how simple they are to earn, it undercuts the whole system.

Something that brings me back into a happy place is the games presentation, which is a mix of 3d pixel art and scenic landscapes. The pixel art generally gets applied to the helpful citizens of the world, with some enemies also getting the treatment, while Ravenlok/Kira looks fairly normal. The result is the Lego game look, where there are a heap of realistic worlds, filled with blocky characters and for the most part it works here. There are some cutscenes that truly feel epic and provide some amazing visuals, which provides further evidence for the work the team have done.

On the sound side of things, there are no spoken voices and characters thankfully don’t use gibberish speak, most of the ambiance is derived from the music. The music is fantastically whimsical at times, the Mask Mansion piece being one of my favourites, but it has a problem. The music hard cuts between locations, so each time you head back into a space, the music starts over and with those cuts, it is noticeable and annoying.

Ravenlok is a fine game, it’s not overly long and nor is it that hard, at least once you know how to level up. The games biggest issues for me, were the lack of explanations or direction and even when you do find yourself making progress, the game never celebrates your success. Kira isn’t really a protagonist you will care about either, her lack of interest on returning home until the very end and her ‘Yes Man’ complex makes it hard to connect. Ravenlok is one of those games that if you play it, you will likely enjoy what it offers, but once you are done, it won’t remain in your thoughts. With basic combat, unnecessary collectables and a confusing progression system, it is a one and done experience.