I really don’t think it’s appreciated how much of a powerhouse Analgesic Productions are. Comprising just two developers, Melos Han-Tani and Marina Kittaka, their work always manages to present new takes on established genres, or games that have become genres. There’s both Anodyne 1 and 2: Return To Dust, which borrows from various Zeldas in fresh ways, Sephonie, an involved and conscious take on the 3D platformer, and now Angeline Era, a nonlinear action-adventure game inspired by the early Ys games and Irish mythology, which just got a release date.
That release date is December 8th, a date that’ll arrive faster than you realise, but let’s put the inescapable passage of time to the side for the moment and focus on why this game has won me over so much. If you didn’t know, my own name, Oisin, is Irish, and comes from a myth itself. Seeing as we don’t see much Irish mythology in games all that much, you can see why I’m down to clown off the bat. But a concept does not sell me on a game.
What does sell me is its execution. That Ys-inspired gameplay comes in the form of its bumpslash combat. This works wonderfully simply: you bump into an enemy, you slash at them! Some enemies are easier to slash than others, some may jump, or produce spikes, or can’t be hurt from particular directions. Said bumping applies to pretty much everything too, you have to bump into NPCs to talk to them, bump into chests to open them, into items to pick them up. There’s a real sense of playful simplicity, an attitude of “how can we apply our main verb anywhere and everywhere?” that you can feel just from its demo alone that I adore.
There are mysteries galore too. Much like RPGs of old, it has an overworld to traverse, but it’s up to you to find levels to explore. It doesn’t matter what order you do them in, just go out there and search every nook and cranny you can. Once again there is a design mentality here that feels retro, but sorely missed. There’s no handholding to be found here for the most part, it’s just go out and do/ seek the thing; at one point I was even told that I wouldn’t be told how a particular mechanic works, and that I’d figure it out. I did! How delightful.
If you want to give Angeline Era a go yourself ahead of its December 8th release date, there’s a demo on Steam – or just wishlist it!
