The era of roguelike reviews has come to a close… for now. I’m sure we’ll cross paths again in the near future. Anyways, no today’s game falls under the other popular genre nowadays: retro arcade nostalgia porn. Ok ok… sounds a bit derogatory, but hey, if it plays well and modernizes some of the oldies…. Dire Vengeance most closely resembles Ghost n’ Goblins or Altered Beast, as well as the upgrade system of Gradius. I gotta say, the animations and some of the enemy movements can be pretty stiff. Like things get hit, die, and there’s not exactly like a death animation; they just poof. The feeling of landing or receiving hits can be a bit unsatisfying, but close enough that I can mostly register damage. The game is pretty rooted in emulating old school arcade difficulty, with restarting progress from the start of level, limited lives, and no difficulty levels to select at the start. I’ve never been huge on extremely punishing, low mistakes, trying over and over until you do a perfect run. I don’t mind doing that once I’ve completed a game and want to challenge myself, but from the get-go…. And I gotta say, I was not able to complete this game. From my understanding there are 8 stages to complete, and I only got halfway. The enemy designs and some of the level layouts get pretty exciting and hectic, and the rocking metal guitar soundtrack really sets the mood. But for me, I threw up my hands when the tiniest mistake (mine or not) cost me precious time and progress to reset the level. I really tried to power through for the sake of the review, but I just ended up watching a playthrough to fill in the rest of the gaps. I think in this way, Dire Vengeance really doesn’t feel like a modern take on an old favorite, but rather an average facsimile of the past.

The game wears its inspirations on its sleeve, from the medusa heads to the various weapons reminiscent of the classic Castlevania games. Controls are very simple with a double jump, special weapon key, slash, and the aforementioned Gradius inspired upgrade system. As you progress through levels, you build up a meter that indicates a powerup you can cash in for spending your meter. You can wait for more lucrative rewards, or power yourself up as soon as one is available. Each powerup has 2 tiers you can level up, and all upgrades are loss when you lose a life. Yeah about that… you don’t lose lives and keep going, you have to reset from the start of the screen. It’s not AS brutal as it could be, you could reset from the start of the level every time, so there are checkpoints. But if you game over in classic fashion you do have to start from the beginning. Not new game, just start of the latest level you’re on, so similar to the classic Sonic the Hedgehog trilogy stages. And yeah… I definitely rage quit because it feel utterly tedious making so much progress and getting so many powerups only to lose them all, and have to continue that screen with nothing. The game really doesn’t account for players restarting from scratch, so I found it nearly impossible to build my stats back up during the course of a level unless I perfected it. I was never able to even reach some of the higher perks you can build towards: I only got the first few rungs. And since you have to continue where you were naked, it makes it harder to progress and game over makes you reset. So it’s this vicious cycle that can be very testing on your patience depending on the type of player you are. I’m sure for veterans of classic Nintendo Hard games, this is nothing new, but I don’t think that accounts a large representation of modern gamers. Controls themselves are mostly responsive: it does really simulate that era of games, with a little bit of the Donkey Kong run off a ledge jumps. There are some gotcha surprise moments at times where enemies will just suddenly spawn on top of you if you run through the level too quickly, so I found myself playing extremely safe, waiting for enemies, and could never really get a good flow to just run through the level without starting and stopping constantly. And when things didn’t go well, it just added to my frustration of how much time I felt I was wasting just to get through it all. Now I think a lot of this is my personal experience, I’m just being transparent that I was really trying to give the game its fair shake, as I really enjoy the genre. I think long gone are the days where I can just play a game for hours on end like Contra or Ghouls n Ghosts until I beat it. I just don’t really have the time and patience to throw myself against a brick wall and not feel like I’m making active progress. Sure sure, git gud and whatnot, but I’m just keeping it 100 that that’s not how I enjoy spending my precious leisure time.

Not much else to cover; the bosses start off pretty unassuming but towards the latter half from what I watched get more intricate and inspired. Artstyle is pretty middle of the road for me, but I do like the music, even if the variety is lacking. When I’ve played Indie games like Hollow Knight and Ori (ok these may not be fair comparisons)… I did play the Ghosts n Goblins remake, and got through it because its accessibility options were flexible enough to let me take it at my own pace and level up. I also played Cyber Shadow, which was more Ninja Gaiden classic inspired, but that game also felt much more creative and much more fair. I think for me, this game feels TOO stuck in emulating the past, a NES game that only has 2-4 hours of gameplay that it needs to stretch out by virtue of its relentless difficulty. I honestly don’t even think this game is all that brutally difficult: nothing was really grabbing me to want to continue playing. No real story or evolution to the gameplay that made me feel like I was missing out on anything I hadn’t experienced in the first half of the game. Granted, some of the bosses looked more tolerable to face than the levels themselves. I don’t think I can give this one the seal, purely on the principle that I couldn’t stomach finishing more than 50% of the game, and it doesn’t do enough to compensate in ways previously reviewed games have.

Dire Vengeance is developed by Magic Shot Games

Available on Steam and Switch for $14.99

Provided Review Copy via devs

Hellfirebam has not awarded Dire Vengeance the Indie Gamer Seal of Approval