Title: Graven
Developer: Slipgate Ironworks
Publisher: 3D Realms and Fulqrum
Release Date: January 23, 2024
Reviewed On: PC
Price: $24.99

In this first person action adventure RPG, the player explores a dark fantasy world. Moody and filled with puzzles, Graven hits that Dark Ages plague horror feel, mixing Eldritch horrors into a gritty gloom that quickly captures the imagination.

Assuming the role of an Orthogonal priest, exiled for the crime fo retaliation against the order for sacrificing his adopted daughter, the player embarks on a quest to hunt down the foul heretical sects responsible for conjuring plagues and twisting the natural order.

Analysis

Gameplay

If you’re prone to more destructive and chaotic urges, you’ll quickly find you’re expending more resources than you need. It doesn’t take much to set bodies on fire, and considering they can explode, it’s better to quickly cast your spell and continue on your way.

Hard kicks [Q] came in handy to break barrels, especially as it helps you avoid switching while under attack. Between barrels, boxes, defeated enemies, and secret stores, there are plenty of different ways to get everything you need to play casually. Enemies are diverse, approaching and attacking in different ways, keeping you on your toes.

Puzzles are relatively simple and grow harder as you go. Paper keys and notes with clues exist in game, but they aren’t straightforward. Whether diagrams which need to be overlapped or riddles, you aren’t going to get exact instructions.

With multiple weapons to collect throughout, it is easy to develop different attack strategies to deal with enemies. Certain weapons work better than others, giving critical blows to a wider variety of enemies than others. Both the smith and the alchemist can upgrade your gear, but make sure you do all the updates you can while in Cruxfirth. It’s the longest of the three sections, and you need to take advantage of it.

If you’re looking for a 90s action nostalgia kick, Graven delivers. Unfortunately, while you get a lot of bang for your buck and a strong variety of side quests alongside your main goals, Slipgate Ironworks stumbled in the execution.

Stumbling Blocks

Thought developers promised a map, there isn’t one, and it is a huge hindrance. Each section of the game is labyrinthian, so not even having a clear path tracked after you’ve been through an area and cleared it makes any mini-quests near impossible. Plus, with the sheer amount of secret stores and hidden lore, you need a map if you are a completionist.

During my first run, I had two side quests in process when I headed to a newly cleared area without any idea that once you defeat the final boss of Cruxfirth, you automatically move on to Grimwine.

If you die, you may just respawn right beneath your enemy, quickly being killed again. Despite having passed several checkpoints, you might alternatively respawn at the beginning of a section or even a city. Why have checkpoints if you’re not going to use them? It simply slows progress as you have multi-reloads to get back to where you were originally.

Quick Highlights

Voice Acting

The voice actor in the opening sequence fits wonderfully with the gloomy aesthetic. Similarly, the ferryman has a strong presence, working hard to set the atmosphere.

Pet the Dog

In Cruxfirth, there is a dog besides the smith, and Slipgate Ironworks ensured we got that cute puppy fix, letting players pet them.

Storytelling

From the premise to the side quests, Graven offers a mountain of lore. If you want to get a lot of game for your money, this one is worth it. However, if you have a bad sense of direction, the sheer size of some of the areas you explore as well as the twists and turns will easily balloon the time you spend doing any given task.

Artwork

While the in-game art isn’t perfect with odd angles and repeated features, it hits that 90s nostalgia head on, and the art surrounding the game as well as the concept art are fantastic.

On the whole Graven wonderfully captures the Dark Ages, riding that grimdark fantasy aesthetic for all its worth.

Explosives

There are quests which require explosives, but the game gives you far more than you need throughout, giving you a wonderful chance to have fun with projectiles and combustibles, sending larger enemies flying with flare. As enemies refill cleared areas regardless of how many corpse piles you clear, you’ve got to find a fun way to clean them out in mass.

Final Score (4 out of 5 Stars)

While Graven could do with an aggressive polishing, there’s no doubt that you get an awful lot of game for the purchase price. Anyone with a bad sense of direction or a short temper probably should avoid until a map is included, but if you’re content to run around like a chicken with its head cut off or you have a talent to memorize level layouts, you’ll find a lot of depth for a game whose main character was a priest for a religion whose symbol looks like a weaponized piece of Swiss cheese.

Graven will drop you into its world, and whether you sink or swim is entirely up to each player as only some big bosses have health bars, and there’s a lot of trial and error, but you’ll easily have dozens of hours of gameplay for better or for worse.

Tell us what you think! Will you be playing Graven? Share your reactions in the comments below or join the conversation on Boss Rush Network’s Discord and Facebook.

Disclosure: Boss Rush Network received a review code for the PC version of GRAVEN. Neither Slipgate Ironworks, 3D Realms, nor Fulgrum Publishing made any stipulations upon this review, nor did they or any representatives read it prior to publication.

Featured Image: Slipgate Ironworks

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