It’s always hard to review a game based on a demo. There are so many aspects you don’t have access to and so many promises yet to be met. However, once in a while, you’ll come across a demo that’s so enjoyable and intriguing that it will leave you thinking about the game long after the playable demo period is over. Batora: Lost Haven is one of those games.
Batora: Lost Haven is a currently in development hack-and-slash RPG game that is set for a full release sometime this year. You control a character named Avril who finds her entire life in turmoil and her world torn to pieces. Avril’s entire planet, and with it, her home, has been decimated, meaning she lost everything and everyone important to her.
However, all is not entirely lost as Avril is no ordinary girl. Gifted with multiple extraordinary powers and abilities, Avril is now on a mission to save her planet and her loved ones, and it’s up to you to help her do that.
The game’s main mechanic is managing Avril’s two health bars, one orange and one purple. The orange bat is Avril’s physical power, and the purple represents her mental power. Don’t let the addition of the extra bar lul you into a false sense of security. Avril dies if one of the bars gets depleted, and you’ll have to load from a previous save point.
You’ll encounter two main types of monsters throughout the game, orange and purple in colour. Attacking one of these monsters using a power with a matching colour will trigger a natural synergy and do way more damage than any other attack. This mechanic creates some engaging and exciting combat when you face more than one type of enemy and need to constantly switch between your two power types to turn the table in your favour. One of the best examples of this mechanic was the one bass fight included in the demo build. The boss would constantly switch his colour, meaning you would also need to continually evolve your playstyle to match his.
There was a strong push for your choices to be essential to progress the game in the demo. However, our time in the game wasn’t long enough to see how this impacts the overall story going forward. And while we only have one boss fight to judge by, overall, everything did seem to be pretty fluid and well balanced.
As a respite from battles, there are also mandatory puzzle areas that need to be completed to get the items required to advance the story. The puzzles offer a good break from the constant fighting. While not overly challenging, they did need a moment of thought. They resulted in a great feeling of accomplishment when completed.
From what we’ve seen so far, the puzzles all follow a pretty standard pattern: Avril will need to switch between her mental and physical skills to activate switches, manipulate platforms, and move objects around the platforms to unlock access to other areas.
