Welcome to our review of Warlocks II: Godslayer, out now for Nintendo Switch. Join your warlock-to-be in an epic quest to dethrone vile gods and to restore the balance to the world. We tested the Nintendo Switch version, and were very pleased – so let’s jump in!
For those unaware, Warlocks II: God Slayer is the sequel to a game named Warlocks vs Shadows (Steam), which is an action-filled hack ‘n slash game. It was also the first game ever developed by Frozen District and was not received very well. They spent a lot of time reading and watching players’ feedback and rebuilt the foundations of the game. I personally did not play the first game, but it wasn’t really hard to click with Warlocks II’s story, so don’t let that stop you!
Story-wise it’s as basic as you can get. You take on the role of one of the aspiring members of The Order of Warlocks. You can choose between a total of five different warlocks, each with a different skillset (comparable with Diablo and such). I tinkered around with Shax, the Spirit Lord most of my time. A necromancer.. of sorts. Next, to Shax, there is Jack the Pyrodancer, Kheera the Shaman, Cormag the Drunk Goat (riding.. a humanish thing) and Willow the @EWitch. No, this game does not take itself seriously, and that takes its toll after a while. But back to the story!
This time around you’ll have to face a much bigger threat, than in the original game. By slashing hordes of shadow monsters in the past, Warlocks have angered the Gods, who now turned against them. In result, you can now either give up, ask for mercy and then quietly die, as “mercy” is not a word easily found in Dark Gods’ vocabulary. Or you could release all your godlike powers instead and make the Gods pay for their betrayal. Be sure though, that they’re not willing to go without a fight and they’ll throw at you all kinds of seemingly hilarious pixel art opponents. Don’t be fooled by their funny looks however as rest assured, they’ll use any means necessary including their special skill sets to take you down. With the aid of giant bosses, they will bring your skills to the test. Slay or get slain. There’s no other way.
The story is drenched in pop culture references and sidenotes to other games, music and even itself – since why should you take yourself too seriously? Well, in a hack ‘n slash I search for a Diabloesque feel and being the class clown really slowed down the game for me. I was fine with searching for some lost cows, but getting a hangover potion for some drunk dude in a mythical God-labyrinth..? Not my cup of tea. Warlocks II: Godslayer feels like a Metroidvania (it even has the classic map system in place), but plays more like Lego Harry Potter. Each chapter you’ll dive into a magical fireplace to transport yourself to the said planet to complete certain tasks for The Order of Warlocks. It works for this game since you don’t have to do a lot of backtracking (*unnecessary backtracking) – which is great for a game of this length. You can finish the main story between 8 and 10 hours with one character, so that’s 50 hours of content if you complete it with all five.
The game runs fine on the Nintendo Switch. I had some issues with non-responsive controls in ‘cutscenes’, which forced me to reboot the game. There were also some audio drops, but nothing too spectacular. Godslayer runs in both Docked and Handheld mode and it really felt like a game you could play while lounging in the backyard. It offers a nice-to-look-at pixelated art style, cheesy humor, a pet system, and an extensive skill set. The only thing I really, really hated was the difficulty ramping after completing a planet. I over-leveled a little bit on the first planet since I couldn’t find a certain sidequest, but even with the extra skills, the enemies on the second planet hit .. hard.
To conclude, Frozen District really stepped up their game and created a good game. It has some flaws and maybe some things that are up to personal taste, but hey, that’s a videogame. Overall Godslayer does what it promises – killing lots of stuff with your warlock buddy in a world of cheesy humor with a Diabloesque sauce to finish. Now let’s hope they patch out the freezing bugs.
