Ever wondered what would happen if your actions would determine the difficulty of your playthrough? Welcome to Sin Slayers, in which your exploration through the world determines the monsters you encounter (through a certain degree). Have I piqued your curiosity? Well, let’s enter the world of Sin Slayers then.
Sin Slayers is developed by a small team of five. Every one of them has a long career in making videogames for the last eight years. They worked in different companies, both big and small, and made both casual mobile games and massive multiplayer hits. They combined their knowledge into making Sin Slayers, an RPG with roguelike elements, set in a dark fantasy world. In this entry, you create, equip, and lead a team of heroes. Each unit will have its abilities and weaknesses, so plan your combat strategy accordingly. You’ll journey through stinking primeval forests, boneyards riddled with crypts and the graves of fallen warriors, and other places even the bravest adventurer would fear to tread.
Sin Slayers
Battles, traps, and bizarre enemies… Everything and everyone wishes to take your life, but don’t succumb to despair. Between fights, your party can take their rest at a fountain or while on the road in an old church, which leaves its doors open to the weary and wounded. Travel every path and byway of the Valley, obtain new weapons on the field of battle or by fulfilling quests, gather ingredients for magical elixirs and resources to craft armor and amulets. If a particular item is beyond your crafting ability, ask the blacksmith in the Old Church for help.
So storywise, the story revolves about several servants of a once prominent and wealthy Empire. Each of these servants represents a class from the standard RPG handbook. All wars were won, all inner conflicts solved, the honor and glory were split equally. People told legends about them, and bards sang their songs. But being humans like us, no one lives forever. These heroes have their own stories, merits, and rewards, but there is one thing that bounds them together – they are sinners, and their sins are enormous. They were tired, and their souls wanted to rest, but unknown forces kept them alive. Then one day, everything changed.
When the clear sky was covered with darkness and flash struck the center of the town square, crimson flare outburst and covered everything around, When it was over, and darkness faded away, those ten heroes disappeared. They vanished without a trace and a blood spill. The story only starts there. They found themselves in the old church, in the nameless world, and the place known as Last Sinner Valley. And now, to come back to the world of the living, undead souls of the heroes have to walk through seven circles of hell and fight the dreadful enemies of all humankind, the incarnation of evil – Lords of Sins and their minions.
Mechanics
So, what we got here is the lovechild of Diablo’s Lore and the mechanics of Darkest Dungeon. To get back to the ‘real’ world, you’ll have to defeat the sin lords (Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, etc.) and complete quests along the way. But before you gain access to these Sin Lords, you’ll have to defeat a sub-boss in the same realm you’ll find the Sin Lord. Meanwhile, you’re party gains new additions and is not strong enough to take on the Sin Lord after defeating the sub-boss, so you’ll have to grind your way through the same realms over and over again – not only for the experience but for items and crafting materials as well. This takes action out of the usual way an ARPG plays (Like Diablo, Torchlight, Van Helsing, and many others), but also does not fully follow the same mechanics as Darkest Dungeon.
Issues
Instead, we get a hybrid of both genres, which led to grinding, failing, restarting, grinding, winning – repeat, repeat, repeat. I don’t mind a little grinding, but when the controls are not specified (nor findable in-game) either, it makes it hard to like a game. I’ll explain with an example. Each character has a unique skill they can use outside of battle. The priestess can use group heal, which recharges by walking through non-explored area’s. I could not figure out how to activate it, and I pressed every last button on my Switch. When I took my Switch out of the dock, I pressed the icon on the touchscreen; et voila, group heal was activated. It was these kinds of annoyances that should not have been there since it’s not a bad game. It did, however, make my time with Sin Slayers less joyful. So to conclude – it’s a good attempt at creating an RPG with an old school Diablo feel but in a more confined setting. Due to some controlling issues, I did not enjoy the game like I thought I would.
