CONNECT ENTERTAINMENT
W
FEBRUARY
ith the Demon King in chains, the First Hero arrives victoriously to the kingdom, unaware that a tiny, adorable, multi-faced revenge would soon cut a swathe through the ranks of his allies over and over again—not to defeat him, per se, but because of the amount of entertainment each attempt would bring. I am in my 200th+ run through of Skul: The Hero Slayer, a rogue-lite from Korean developer Southpaw Games, and I still have that strong “just one more quick game” feeling well into 2 a.m. What keeps me going on my quest in this fast-paced 2D pixelated platformer is the hilarious and interesting main mechanic of being able to swap out the main character’s skull. By changing skulls, Skul (the skeleton of a child, no less) can transform into one of the fallen allies of the Demon King and use their powers on his quest for revenge. There are over 30 skulls to choose from, including mummies, minotaurs, dark knights, and even the Grim Reaper itself.
There’s also numerous skulls that reference pop culture including ‘80s arcade and film classics, as well as my personal favourite: a certain fiery motorcycle-riding speed demon with a thing for chains. You can wear two skulls at a time, which makes for fun gameplay, as each skull has two random abilities out of a pool of four. This means that every combination is unique and can be experimented with in dozens of scenarios. You can call down a devastating meteor as the warlock and then swap to the ninja skull to dodge attacks until the meteor skill is recharged. Naturally, some of these skulls aren’t as strong as others. Why wouldn’t you choose the (checks notes) skull of the ghoul that lets you eat enemies and grow in size and damage output as opposed to (checks footnotes) . . . the archer . . . who shoots arrows . . . like, normal arrows (insert Hawkeye joke here)?
RECOMME 20 |
