Developer: Julian Edison, Dolores Entertainment
Publisher: Julian Edison, Dolores Entertainment, Hidden Trap
Platform: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One
Tested on: PS5
In Celebration of Violence (PS5) – Review
For today’s review, we’ll be looking at an interesting Rogue-like, dungeon crawler game. In Celebration of Violence seems like the perfect name for an action-packed and gory game. There will be a lot of blood flowing and people burning, while we hack and slash through everyone we encounter as we ‘celebrate’ the pixel-infused violence. Let’s see how far we got in our glorious but gory adventure.
Story
In Celebration of Violence starts with a story about a peasant getting his family murdered by ‘violence’. Everyone in the village is watching how it happens and nobody helps the peasant out. The game does have several different characters that see this harrowing experience go down. There’s a priest who called it the will of god, as well as a hero who swore vengeance, a soldier who awaited orders to intervene, and the peasant who is the victim. After the storytelling of this little story, it asks for who you are. The answer to it is that you are the unspeakable violence. The story itself is very vague and it also feels somewhat nonsensical.
Graphics
In Celebration of Violence utilizes 8-bit-like graphics. With pixel art such as this, you cannot really go wrong. Most items are recognizable, but the simplistic style does make it hard to see what is what at times. At points, we feel like the 8-bit aesthetic might be a bit overdone, as it’s an easy choice for developers to make something simple such as this. Even though the gameplay does reign supreme in games such as this, we understand that a lot of people will be turned off by the simplistic visuals. Nonetheless, it was quite satisfying to see all the gore and blood being sprayed around.
Sound
The music in In Celebration of Violence isn’t bad. It is simple, sad, and a little bit spooky. There are moments when the music just stops. The SFX are also not that bad. It still is in the theme of an 8-bit game. There are simple sounds for when killing enemies, heartbeats when getting wounded, and more intense when you are bleeding to death. It’s all very functional, but it’s not necessarily something to write home about.
Gameplay
In Celebration of Violence is a roguelike game, which means that we are going to die a lot and start from zero again. There are no save points or a way to save the progress you have made. When you start there is a character customization screen, but to change your appearance, we did have some difficulties. There is no cursor to show us where you are, except for a yellow square. To actually select something, you’ll have to use the touchpad, instead of the D-Pad or joysticks, which felt a bit tedious to work with.
After you have created your character, you get dropped into the game. The controls are explained by a picture of your controller with lines toward the buttons explaining what they do. It’s a simple way of showing how things work, but it suffices for a game such as this. You’ll always start out in a safe zone, but the moment you leave, you’ll be attacked by everything in sight. This is where the celebration of violence begins. Be warned though, as the safe zones aren’t completely safe either.
Combat is an important aspect of this game. Each weapon type has its own way of attacking or swinging. There is also a dodge and a parry option, for those who enjoy some defensive options. Another way to inflict damage is the use of magic. Spells are obtained by interacting with a book with the right amount of currency that you have collected. You’ll have to pick one of the spells presented to you, and after this, a spell will drop to the floor, which you’ll need to collect to be able to use it. We accidentally walked past the skill after we selected it, making us lose our precious currency and the ability to cast said spell. The health system in the game is also original, as when you reach a certain threshold, you’ll keep losing health no matter what you do. Healing options are also very limited in the game.
The enemies vary between animals and people. Sometimes enemies drop down weapons that you can pick up or potions. Potions can be thrown. They also drop a currency that can be used for obtaining items or magic spells. When you die, there is a percentage of how violent you were on the run. You also get experience for the next run that can upgrade some passive skills. As a whole, the game’s controls are responsive, and they go hand-in-hand with the action. It did take us a while to get certain timings right.
Conclusion
In Celebration of Violence is a good roguelike game that has all the right elements for a few entertaining runs. It does display more blood than some other games in the same genre and adds the difficulty of losing health when you are on a certain percentage. The limited availability of spells adds a strategic element to the mix, which is also quite nice. The game’s name makes it look like you just go and kill everything on your path and have one big gore fest, instead, we got a more tactical game than expected. The way it looks and sounds reminds us of how old-school RPGs looked or sounded like. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a bad thing, as it gives the game a certain charm, but it might go under the radar for gamers who expect more in terms of graphics. All in all, it’s a fun little game.
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