Game Review: ‘Ravenlok’

May 3, 2023

Written by Daniel S. Liuzzi

Cococucumber is an indie game studio that’s been making a splash in the ocean of game development with its interesting titles. I’ve been lucky enough to get the opportunity to experience their latest title, Ravenlok. I would like to thank Cococucumber for letting me take a trip through the looking glass with this one.

 

 

Ravenlok is a Voxel art-style game in the third person where players take on the role of a girl who is brought into a magical world where a prophecy foretold her intervention and bringing peace back to the dark lands that are becoming corrupted by an evil queen.

 

 

 

 

Now onto the game itself. The controls for Ravenlok are surprisingly minimal but satisfyingly simple. The game responds well to a controller (which is suggested for use for PC players, I know, clutch the pearls PC folks.). The game’s soundtrack actually has quite a chill vibe to it, I love how the level song changes its intensity depending on how far you progress within that level. The sound design is pretty decent, especially the sounds of some of the enemies are pretty cool. A minor gripe I have when it comes to sound is the lack of voiceovers, I think a game that looks like this storybook should have some form of spoken dialogue, not just for when the character says a line before using a powerup.

 

The game’s art is pretty awesome. Usually, I’m not a big fan of voxel-style art in games (because it gives it a cheap look in my opinion) but it’s been done quite well in Ravenlok. I really like some of the designs of the monsters you face in some parts of the game but wish there could have been more of them.

 

When it comes to gameplay, I feel the game could have been a bit longer with larger levels. I’m not gonna lie, it took me maybe 4 hours to beat the game, I won’t really hold it against this game a whole lot as it is an indie title. When it comes to the game’s story, it’s clearly a twist on Alice in Wonderland, why the approach of keeping any mention of elements from the story out of this game (with the exception of Tweedle Dum and Dee) is beyond me but it’s clear there are a lot of Wonderland elements in this game.

Also with this story, at the start of the game, you can give the character any name you want but it’s only mentioned a couple of times and really has no purpose since the main character is listed as “Ravenlok” because she has black hair, or suppose to have black hair.

 

Overall, Ravenlok is, OK. It’s fun to play, especially with some of the farming you have to do to earn coins and feathers to upgrade your powers, which if you’re into hack-and-slash games you can find enjoyment in that, but as mentioned before, the game is not that long. This is what I would call a “Rainy Afternoon” game, it’s not bad but it’s not something I can see people wanting to go back to playing once they beat it.

On my scale of 1-10, with fun combat, good music, good artwork, and great controls helping the score stay high, the short playtime, little if no replayability, and confusing (storytelling) identity, Ravenlok is a 7-10.

 

Ravenlok comes out on May 4th for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

 

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