KAKU: Ancient Seal – Game Review

KAKU: Ancient Seal is a new action-adventure indie game from the developer Bingobell (China). Looking through the game’s introduction trailers, you can clearly see the influence from the game series The Legends of Zeldaspecifically version Breath of the Wild.

Let’s take a look at the following review with Vietgame.asia!

YOU WILL LIKE

HOURS OF ENJOYABLE ENTERTAINMENT!

The journey of Kaku – the main character of the game – takes place right in a segment of chasing a small flying pig, leading to a series of small events that cause him to fall into a mysterious ice and snow cave. After escaping from the cave, the story begins.

Actually, the plot content of Kaku: Ancient Seal… there’s nothing to discuss, the main thing the developer wants players to experience is the gameplay.

As an open world game with a large map, the first commendable point of the developer is that it does not create a series of crowded things on the map like most games today (typically of Ubisoft).

Amount of content of Kaku: Ancient Seal is condensed, mainly in unlocking “Crystal” pillars, solving puzzles or finding your way to treasure chests, green energy blocks, and “lore” pillars scattered for players to hunt. . Occasionally players will be given a few small side quests, they are not many but the rewards are quite worth taking the time to do.

Kaku: Ancient Seal also offers a lot of interesting puzzles, climbing, and platforming. Most of them are carefully designed, some places even make the writer “die up, die down”! Although it does not allow players to be as creative as my style The Legend of Zelda: Tears of Kingdombut overall the game still has depth and is worth experiencing.

It can be said that the discovery array of Kaku Ancient Seal It’s done quite well, very entertaining and can make players go through all the areas to search every corner thanks to the clever design of mysterious areas and winding paths.

The game’s combat system is divided into melee and ranged combat, the upgrades for both play an important role because the game is quite boring and challenging at first. Don’t neglect upgrading your range because there are many types of monsters, especially bosses with 4 types of attributes. Besides combat, these 4 attributes also help in the puzzle solving process.

The melee combat system is quite effective as besides quick normal attacks, players also have other powerful techniques such as the ability to transform into a “Saiyan” like Songoku – when the attacks are extremely fierce, shocking the entire screen. Similar to long-range abilities, close combat also has 3 other “ultimate” skills for players to “beat” difficult enemies.

The exploration of Kaku: Ancient Seal is done quite well, very entertaining and can make players go to all areas to search every corner.

Equipment system of Kaku: Ancient Seal are streamlined, intuitive and they all have different advantages and disadvantages, further improved thanks to runes to “press gems” to increase the main character’s abilities. These equipment are beautifully designed and worth searching for in the game’s vast and rich map.

Graphics by Kaku: Ancient Seal The later it gets, the more impressive it becomes. Although it is an indie game, the art direction is relatively harmonious and many scenes will captivate players. Surprisingly, the game also runs very stably on Steam Deck and during nearly 15 hours of play, the writer has not once crashed or encountered any errors that affected the experience.

YOU WILL HATE

NOT FINISHED

Although the developer has delayed it many times Kaku: Ancient Seal completed, but the “early-access” appearance is still present from beginning to end of the journey.

The first thing that’s easy to notice is the sloppy user interface, with tons of crowded text and fonts or an untidy, unprofessional menu. Especially when players open the game map, they are immediately overwhelmed! Honestly, they’re not bad, they just need to be trimmed down and they’ll be fine.

Next, although the open world is really beautiful, the distribution of game progress is uneven, especially in the ice and snow area, which is quite boring when the story is long and uninteresting to increase players’ excitement. .

Although the amount of content to be discovered is not overwhelming, it is also repetitive, making it possible for players to “skim” over it later, because there is nothing special to look forward to anymore. And probably 90% of the main and side missions are collecting this or that item or defeating this and that group of soldiers. Fortunately, thanks to the level design being good enough, at least players can still play around.

The next confusing point is that the most interesting part of the game is that the challenging dungeons are “thrown” through another universe – literally? Why aren’t those dungeons applied to the vast world of Kaku: Ancient Seal To create more excitement to explore?

And to add to the confusion, the stat upgrades for equipment and skills are also in that separate universe! While the game has stone tables to “forge” fuel, why not integrate the ability to upgrade skills and weapons there, instead of having to separate them to make the player have to wait to refill each time they need to upgrade something? scene (loading)?

The game’s other major regrettable point also comes from trying to “swing” in the open world, with a common weakness: superficial plot investment. All of them are added in the true sense of “giving”, full of pitfalls and creating the feeling that the plot is added last in the development process, to so-called “lead” the player into the world of the game. Kaku: Ancient Seal.

Although we understand that the game wants players to focus on the gameplay experience, if they want to intentionally indirectly tell stories to enrich their world, Kaku: Ancient Seal it should do as well as other indie games, e.g Journey, Figment 2: Creed Valleyetc

Because of the sloppiness in the plot, the development of the main character seems to be absent, leading to the sympathy of other supporting characters also disappearing. Unintentionally, causing the overall experience of Kaku: Ancient Seal lost points. Not to mention the game is also very “sparing” on cutscenes, instead, dialogues and 3D images of the characters look… boring.

The voice acting uses its own language, such as Gravity Rush Remasteredbut the music or sound is not outstanding, which “contributes” to creating a bland score Kaku: Ancient Seal.

sloppiness in the plot, making the main character’s development seem nonexistent, leading to the disappearance of the sympathy of other supporting characters.