Game EXP: Skelethrone: The Prey (VSD & PC)

 [Disclaimer:  I received a review key for Skelethrone: The Prey through Keymailer, a third-party website/company that connects publishers and developers with content creators.  The game was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played and content be created through the playing of the game and the experience.  Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.]* 

Skelethrone: The Prey

Release Date: March 14, 2024

Systems: Windows, Linux, 64-bit Processor

Publisher: Valkyrie Initiative

Developer: 70'Strike

Time Spent:  2 Hours 54 minutes

Skelthrone: The Prey is the prequel to Skelethrone: The Chronicles of Ericona where you play as the character of Ericona who is on a mission to. . . do something?  Not be killed by a mysterious woman and her undead army for reasons that I would assume become clear(er) in The Chronicles of Ericona.

The game looks kind of like a 2D Dark Souls mixed with Blasphemous and a splash of the Metroidvania era of Castlevania games.  But thinner.  I don't know how else to explain it apart from that.  The artwork and aesthetic is very pixel art adjacent, but the pixels themselves are small in a way that makes the oomph of hits, both from your character and the enemies feel less than impactful.  This is all probably a weird way of saying that I enjoy a lot about the art and the look of the game.  I like the design of Ericona, somewhat reminiscent of Alucard from Symphony of the Night, but again, smaller pixels, more detail but at the same time, about the same amount of detail.  I like that there are foreground environmental elements that never felt like they got in the way of the gameplay or that they were placed in a way that felt cheap (i.e. obscured the game in a way that played against the player).

Mechanics-wise, the game is heavily inspired by Dark Souls, although there are some departures that I liked.  First, there is the classic bonfire where you can rest to regain all HP, restore the number of healing potions/crystals you have, and respawn all previously killed enemies except for unique bosses.  You can level up and fast travel between bonfires, although in Skelethrone: The Prey, there is practically no reason to do so unless you plan on farming XP from enemies earlier in the game.  And like in Dark Souls 2, I think that enemies stop de-spawning after being killed a certain number of times as you can see in my second gameplay video (see below).  However, scattered throughout the world map, and from what I could tell, usually right before a boss battle, are lanterns that act as respawn points if you die, but will start you at the same amount of health and healing crystals you had when you activated it.  What I liked about this, was that it functioned how I use save states in the Mega Man games but doesn't decentivize getting gud because you still have to make your way from the last bonfire to the lantern relatively unscathed, but it just means that you don't have to repeat the trek every time you die from the boss.

While there exist similarities to Dark Souls, Skelethrone: The Prey is significantly more forgiving in almost every way imaginable.  First, when you die in a bottomless pit, you immediately respawn on the last grounded surface you were standing on with a chunk of your life missing; I don't know the specifics on how much life is taken but unless you upped your vitality stats and nothing else, you might be able to survive three falls without fully dying.  Second, while boss battles are similar in that you do minimal damage while attacking a health bar 1/2 the length of the screen, I often found myself able to spam the attack button for 3-9 hits, especially during the Mardek's Machine fight.  And from what I could tell against the three bosses you fight, the majority of their body is open to attack; for instance, during my first attempt at Mardek's Machine, I was only attacking the eye/chamber thing thinking that that was the obvious video-game weak spot.  Lastly, something about S:TP that made it stand out from many Metroidvania games was that many enemies (including bosses) didn't inflict damage on you just by touching your character.  With the exception of two floating enemies, you could pass through enemies without taking damage, but only if the weren't actively performing an attack animation.  This definitely threw me on a couple of occasions as I would often wait for enemies to move from the edge of ledges that I wanted to jump to, afraid that I would be knocked back Castlevania-style and fall into a pit.

The level design was very much classic Metroidvania.  You had you 2D map showing you boxes of rooms with open sides hinting where doors are located and if you entered a room that was also a dead end.  Although rooms would entirely be visible on the map once you entered them, you did not need to fully explore a room to find out its dimensions. The number of available fast travel locations and that the map had further open areas implied that the playable world in The Chronicles of Ericona will be significantly larger, although the lore description in the menus further suggests that there are/will be additional worlds/maps to explore beyond the one in K'ar Kaaros.  I am pretty interested to see how connected the locations will be if it will be closer to Dark Souls with gradual environmental changes or something closer to Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin with drastic environmental changes based on the world you end up traveling to.

Along with how unimpactful the hits felt, there were other aspects that I didn't entirely jive with.  There is a roll/dodge/slide mechanic and a momentary blocking mechanic, being your two primary forms of active defense.  The game tells you early on that when enemies flash red, you have to roll/dodge away from their attack, and maybe because I've played a handful of games that use a similar cue from enemies, I kept interpreting this as a tell to block, and I would end up getting hit either from poor timing on my part or because you cannot block flashing red attacks; thinking about the block/counter in Blasphemous, Metroid: Samus Returns and Metroid: Dread.  I also needed to actively think about using the block mechanic, usually resorting to just jumping (or double jumping) away from enemy attacks or completely over them to attack while their backs were turned.  I never felt that I actively benefitted from the blocking maneuver, so I used it less and less throughout the demo.

Lastly was the leveling up and progression system which was a mixed bag.  On one hand, I liked the simplicity when you leveled up at a bonfire.  The skill names and what they did in the game were straightforward, more so after you gained the secondary abilities that used Ether.  Although, I wasn't 100% clear if Dexterity modified your secondary attacks, or if it would modify additional weapon attacks that you don't learn in Skelethrone: The Prey.  This will likely be cleared up in The Chronicles of Ericona, so I'm not too worried about it here.  I was also left a little underwhelmed by the customizable stat wheel every time you collect a shard.  Bearing some similarities to the skill tree from Final Fantasy X and Path of Exile, instead of progressively learning skills along with your stat boosts, here it is only varying degrees of boosted stats.  One node might be a Health +1, while another will be an Ether +3 or a Stamina +1.  Had there been more to the individual nodes apart from a +1 through +5 to one of your three stat bars, I would likely have been more excited about customization options, but instead the shards you find ended up only feeling like another piece of leveling up with XP.

For the most part, I really enjoyed Skelethrone: The Prey with its design and aesthetic choices that felt familiar but still very accessible from a skill level.  My first playthrough took me about 90 minutes, but what ended up being my third playthrough (due to various technical difficulties during the recording process), I was able to complete everything in just under 30 minutes.  Like a decently well-designed game, the first go around felt more difficult than the last time, and learning and better understanding the game's mechanics.  Sure, not everything was berries and cream, but I came away with a positive experience and overall positive feelings about what was created here.  I am interested to see how The Chronicles of Ericona further develops the weapons and items hinted at here, which will be released in/on/around Q3 2024.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

I See My Ashes Scattered Around My Grave

*Skelethrone: The Prey is readily available on Steam and didn't technically require me to agree to anything from Keymailer to play the game.  I simply agreed to the terms of service through Keymailer to up my profile there and everything I had to say here would have been the same had I downloaded the prequel on my own.

Below I am linking my series of gameplay videos, filmed in four parts.  The first was recorded off of the Steam Deck, but then I had some difficulties recording off of the dock.  Then videos 2-4 were recorded off my laptop as I played from my laptop.  Another interesting note is that Video 2 was recorded on my second game file (the first being on the Steam Deck), while videos 3 and 4 were on my third playthrough because a video I had thought I recorded ended up only recording the audio and my desktop wallpaper.  It's a convoluted mess, but it kind of makes sense if you don't look too closely.

• Part 1: Intro, 1st Boss Fight & First Bonfire (Playthrough #1, Steam Deck)
• Part 2: Underground Caverns & 2nd Boss Fight (Playthrough #2, Laptop)
• Part 3: Underground Caverns to 3rd Bonfire (Playthrough #3, Laptop)
• Part 4: 3rd Bonfire & 3rd Boss Fight (Playthrough #3, Laptop)