Face Your Demons In Sin Slayers (Review) – PC
What a great time for video games! Not bound by the technical limitations that existed years ago, games can look and feel like just about anything. One of the benefits of this is that games can still be pixelated – installing nostalgia in all of us while trying new ideas and mixing types of gameplay into a package that wasn’t possible when video games began. Enter Sin Slayers. At first glance you’d think sin slayers is thirty years old, but as soon as you dive in you’ll see just how modern this game actually is.
In Sin slayers you’ll find yourself in a war-torn land looking for refuge as the game begins. Discovering a church, you dive in looking for sanctuary. Inside, a blind sage tells you that you are now stuck until the last of the Deadly Sins fall in battle or you die trying.
The church will be your home base where you will select your party, learn new skills, and prepare to set off into one of the seven regions as you attempt to bring down each of the deadly sins. With a total of ten party members to select from as the game progresses, it’s important to select your team of three based on their abilities in order to be successful once you head out from the church into the supernatural world of sin. It’s also at the church that you will use items and skill points in order to level up your characters. You can choose which ones you level up which adds some depth to the game since they do not level up automatically. Choosing to level up one character will use your points, meaning that you’ll need to battle some more in order to level up another character.
As you explore, you’ll find new characters that you’ll bring back to the church for refuge. These characters will have goals for you to accomplish in order for them to join your party or for experience points and items. These act as the side missions in the game. One nice thing about these quests is that a lot of them can be done while you’re out on your main mission without taking up a bunch of time on worthless errands the way a lot of games are set up. You may be tasked with killing two hundred enemies or twenty of a certain type of bad guy. Each of these can be achieved while battling in the world as you search for the Deadly Sins.
Once you select a party and your mission, you head off into one of the seven vastly different areas in order to take down the bosses and ultimately rid the world of sin.
The levels are grid-based procedurally generated levels that makes each playthrough completely different. The game mixes elements of rogue-like games with tactical and JRPG gameplay. Since the world is grid-based you’ll choose which direction you want to go in, but be warned, the world is a dangerous place.
As you traverse the world, you’ll be tasked with making decisions that will have a huge impact on how the game plays out. Sin Slayers uses a sin system that as it increases the world becomes more perilous. For example, there will be many dead bodies that you come across on your journey. When you happen to find one, you’ll be asked if you want to search the body or leave it alone. Searching will add sin which causes the enemies you face to be even more difficult based on the amount of sin you have or leaving the body will actually take some of your sin away. This will cause battles to be easier, but also means you’ll be leaving whatever items they had on them behind. The choices you make here matter and it’s completely up to you how you play the game.
You’ll also find traps, fountains, portals, enemies, and so much more littering the lands. Traps can be dismantled if you have the right items. Otherwise, you’ll be forced to take whatever damage they cause. Fountains can heal your party as you rest while portals send you off to another part of the map. Each character has a specialty that they can use on the overworld but, once it’s used, you’ll have to wait until you discover a certain number of new squares on the grid before it replenishes – so use them wisely.
The battle system is easy to use yet surprisingly deep. In typical JRPG fashion you’ll fight the sins and their hoards using a turn-based battle system. After each turn the characters will receive a rage point that can be spent in order to use the character’s special skill. These could deal more damage, hit or heal multiple targets, and a variety of other things. The battlefield is also littered with items you can collect by searching barrels, vases, and tombs as the battle progresses. Simply clicking on something will tell you if it’s empty or if you’ve found an item. Though everything can be done with a simple click of the mouse, you’ll be juggling a lot of things during a battle, so you’ll want to pay attention. Selecting a move or item to use, who to use them on, and searching the battleground will take a lot skill – but in no time at all it will feel completely natural.
Recommendation: Sin Slayers will appeal to fans of modern and classic JRPGs alike. With a simple battle system, yet complex sin mechanic, mixed with procedurally generated levels and seven distinct regions to explore, Sin Slayers never feels repetitive. Created by a small team of five in Russia, this game is a breath of fresh air in a crowded year for games. One negative is the translation of the narrator in that sometimes what he says doesn’t match what is written in the subtitles. But that’s a small complaint that never really takes away from the experience.
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*Sin Slayers was provided to the reviewer by the publishing company but this fact did not alter the reviewer’s opinion*
