Preview: Seraph

As much as we all love video games, I’m happy to admit that I, like many of you I am sure, am generally pretty rubbish at them. Whether it’s thinking tactically whilst also juggling acrobatic movement or combining run and gun tactics with RPG move sets, being given so many tasks to accomplish simultaneously it can lead to seeing the words Game Over more than is good for one’s mental health. Thank goodness then for Seraph, an early access title from Dreadbit.

In the game you play as the titular Seraph, an angel trapped inside the body of a mortal woman trying to return to the ethereal plane. However there’s been a demonic incursion into the world and Seraph will have to slay the unholy monstrosities if she wants to regain her former glory. A simple enough premise, although it’s worth pointing out that the enemy designs in particular set the game apart from some of the more generic titles with similar themes.

Although visually rather standard in terms of fidelity and art style, there’s a distinct lack of court and character to the backgrounds. The enemies and player character are all quite well animated however.

Ostensibly Seraph is a side scrolling shooter, with the protagonist able to perform as variety of flips, double jumps and wall grabs to keep things moving fluidly. The game’s main selling point however is that you don’t have to aim. Seraph automatically targets the nearest enemies and focuses her fire on them. Although to some this might seem like a cop out removing an integral element of the mechanics for a tag line, if works quite well in practise. The enemies come thick and fast, and from all angles, meaning that situational awareness is required to avoid being turned into angel flavoured pulp. Not having to focus on aiming makes it that much easier to avoid damage and dole out some punishment of your own. Taking away the need to aim isn’t a case of removing an element so much as refocusing attention elsewhere.

There are also a variety of special abilities that players can use to destroy the demonic hordes. These range from boomerang like balls of divine fire to areas of affect attacks that deflect projectiles as well as throwing back enemies like rag dolls. Again, these don’t need to be aimed and there’s something quite relaxing about back flipping over an oncoming miniboss, reflecting his fireball away from yourself before raining down bullets on top of him.

Flipping (Heaven and )Hell!

None of this is to suggest that Seraph is an easy game however. You’ll die quite a lot, but the game expects you to. Each level is procedurally generated once you load into it, meaning enemies, items and objectives are never in the same place you expect them to be. The game is quick to point out that it’s not a rogue-like, which is technically true as you’re able to respawn a maximum of twice per level, before having to go back to the menu to start over again. Difficulty increase not only in proportion to the level but also in line with the experience collected from dead enemies, meaning wanting to overall progress can mean pushing the challenge up.

Outside of the actual levels, there’s a surprisingly deep crafting and levelling system, with multiple different currencies used to upgrade over all character stats, or grant special buffs and powers that can be switched in and out between runs.  The crafting materials are used to upgrade the different weapons found in the levels, different materials being found on the corpses of different enemy types meaning that the game’s enemy variety is important for more than keeping you on your toes.

It’s by no means a perfect experience however, aside from the aforementioned issues with the visual style; the dialogue is also missing an extra something. It doesn’t help that the terms used to various things come across by and large as generic, and the character of Seraph herself is little more than amnesiac springboard for exposition or a personality less husk as the game requires. I think the intention was to make her seen cold and analytical, but they’ve been if anything a little too successful.

The power of compels you!

There are also some performance issues, with frame drops present in the more animation heavy moments. It also seemed to draw more processing power than should really be required by a PC like mine, although given it’s an early access game it’s possible-to-likely that it’s lacking in the optimisation department.

As enjoyable as the game unquestionably is, it’s a little difficult to wholeheartedly recommend it in its current form, given the guarantee that it will almost certainly improve with development time. If you’re starving for something involving back flipping and gun then it will certainly satisfy the craving, but if you’re willing to wait a while for the finished product I suspect we’ll be looking at something much more enticing.

Tags: Dreadbit, Early Access, Seraph