![]() The frenetic pace can feel a bit too much at times, and enemies don’t give any quarter. Damage comes thick and fast, and enemies lean towards having a little too much health at times.Īs you play through the levels you are able to choose between your next reward, either an item, skull, or gold. ![]() Skulls can be broken down into bones, which can then be invested in your other skulls to upgrade them. Upgrades see your lively little pixel art avatar develop each time: over the course of a playthrough a swordsman skulls goes from wearing a drab little hood and rusty sword, to wielding a legendary blade whilst decked out in ornate armour. Skills develop this way too, with the aforementioned swordsman going from a few paltry swipes, to a skill that triggers tens of phantom slashes to strike all enemies affected by his sword’s bleed debuff. ![]() The layering of these skills and skull swapping shenanigans can swamp the screen in chaos, with legendary skulls adding even more effects to the mix.Īll of the skulls have wonderful skills that come from a pool per skull,and the inventiveness is above and beyond what you’d expect – there are nods to Metal Slug and Ghost Rider here, and skulls like the Samurai, Ninja and Challenger could even support a whole game on their own with their smartly tuned skills. The combos enabled by items and swapping skulls begin to feel decadent in their complexity. ![]() SouthPAW games have managed to get a huge number of sprites and effects working on screen without even a second of slowdown during play. It really cannot be understated how aesthetically pleasing the game’s 16-bit art style is.ĭespite its frenetic nature, everything feels crunchy, responsive and well considered except for the aforementioned enemy health pools, which are the one consistent bugbear. Levels are ornate, with expert parallax effects and a sense of character that drips from every pixel. The handful of bosses the game throws at you are animated wonderfully and have bags of character, and some of them are truly epic in scale. The music is also incredibly catchy and well produced, with melodies that will bury themselves in your head for hours at a time.Īs with many recent roguelikes, the ultimate downside to the game is the investment required to make progress. Skul isn’t easy and the price for permanent upgrades – bought with dark quartz at the start of a run – are a bit too steep. As you progress further through the game, you’ll unlock new helpers at the start that can boost a new run with a couple of free skulls or items. Pathing also becomes a little predictable when it becomes obvious that chasing skulls to crush them for run-lasting upgrades is the best option, especially with the tiers of upgrades being quite pricey.įor those put off by how punishing it is, a rookie mode can be toggled on to halve damage, but doesn’t stop the game from being a stiff challenge towards the end. There are some with difficulty spikes with the multi-phase boss fights that have a plethora of over the top, screen filling attacks that require perfect timing to dodge, which can feel a bit much when health refills are infrequent.The human race attacking the Demon King's castle is nothing new and has happened countless times before.
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