Fight your way to restore Earth in Batora: Lost Haven.
New video game experiences are hard to achieve with every new release, and the many games players accumulate throughout the years. Nowadays, small gameplay changes and strong narratives go a long way to distance themselves from the crowd. Batora: Lost Haven is a new isometric action adventure by Stormind Games that aspires to create its spin on the genre and delivers in some parts but falls flat in others.
Italian game studio Stormind Games is known for the horror series Remothered, so it is always exciting to see an indie studio continue working on new stories. Batora: Lost Haven has a personality of its own that is not often seen in video games of its league. With a decidedly cartoony art style and sarcastic dialogue, what starts with a small stroll through a ravaged city leads into a narrative with lofty goals that aim high.
The story kicks off with Avril, a 16-year-old scrambling through London in a state of disrepair with her best friend and sidekick, Mila. Even though it is not entirely clear what left this city in such a condition Batora: Lost Haven reveals its hand early. Disease has ravaged the world, and only a third of the population survived, leaving the rest of humanity to pick up the pieces. While this beginning does not seem promising for our young protagonist and is plot-heavy, this just reveals what the game truly is about after the first half hour of introduction.
After inadvertently falling into some ruins, our protagonist stumbles upon two statues. These are two gods of balance whom Avril does get to mention throughout her first conversation with her best friend but believes is a dream. Luckily, these gods she’s been seeing in her dreams are real, and they plan to help restore balance to the world. Directly called Sun and Moon, with gravely commanding voices, they give their powers to Avril and tell her she is the chosen one to restore balance to not only the world but the galaxies.
Dubbed the keeper of balance, Avril must restore balance to the world. Without giving too much away, she eventually gains powers to help restore the galaxy as it was, and it’s off to the races. This fish-out-of-water narrative suits the narrative well, as the young protagonist often makes quirky remarks about the absurd situation she is in. To have these certain lighthearted dialogues might seem out of place as the situation is rather serious, but by suspending your disbelief and going into the mind of a young, suddenly overpowered girl, it is possible to find enjoyment in the conversations.
An important part of the gameplay of Batora: Lost Haven is the decisions that the game presents you with during your playthrough. Depending on which choice you want to make as Avril, you will get to decide the fate of your character, the world, and one of the game’s possible endings. Although the choices are direct and do not give too much room for nuance, like taking a rune that will only benefit and strengthen you or sharing it for the greater good, it does make you think twice about what kind of intergalactic hero you want to be.
This is where you finally get to the meat of the gameplay, which is, of course, this being an action RPG, fighting against alien monsters through different planets to find the power to create a balanced world once again. The top-down view of the action gives a clear layout of where Avril can utilize her newfound abilities and fight these otherworldly beings.
The combat mechanics consists of fairly simple moves. You can dodge, attack, and have a special move that gives a stronger hit than usual but be careful not to overdo it and leave yourself open to enemy attacks. Also, if you time your attacks at a certain point, instead of spamming your moves, you can strike harder. The interesting part of these movesets is that you can change from physical to mental attacks with the push of a button. This color-coded duality is also present in each one of the enemies that you fight against.
The physical attacks are represented by the sun and are orange, and the purple mental attacks are based on the moon. Each moveset has its stats and skills, the physical defined by short-range attacks with a sword and the mental by long-range shots to keep a safe distance from enemies. All enemies are also defined by these parameters giving Batora: Lost Haven the original spin on its gameplay. To successfully damage each enemy, you need to change your type of attack to coincide with your foes, or they will take reduced damage and, in some cases, none.
This defining mechanic of the gameplay can also be removed entirely from the game if the player wishes to do so, except for boss battles. As the combat is quite simplistic in its approach, it is recommended to leave that mechanic on as the different enemies and combination of orange and purple attacks tend to be intriguing and keep the player on their toes.
The way you move about the different planets to try and save everyone or wreck everything in your way to try to attain as much power as possible is through the small minimap on your right corner and thanks to fireflies that, with the press of a button can tell you exactly where to go at all times. This is to say there is not much complexity in the way of level design and exploration. It is also quite repetitive to try and explore on your own, as enemies will always respawn and try to attack you. It is impossible to avoid them or escape, so you are in the position of having to fight the monsters harassing you with no other option.
Platformer puzzles are also an important element of Batora: Lost Haven. In order to progress, you must complete these trials reminiscent of Immortals Fenyx Rising or Breath of the Wild, as you have to exclusively move to a different dungeon to solve the puzzle. All the puzzles are platform-based that combine your colored long-ranged & short-ranged attacks, precision, and timing. There’s not much penalty if you fall off the map, but imprecise controls can be frustrating to struggle with.
Boss fights are also in a league of their own on Batora: Lost Haven. Because there are no difficulty settings, it is easy to feel when an enemy is unbalanced, or you need to backtrack and check your runes and equipment for upgrading. Regardless, each boss has its own puzzle-based techniques to which you must adapt if you want to come out triumphant of each encounter. Some bosses have traps in the floor, others shoot lasers, and some others will need you to move at a very precise moment to avoid the dreaded Game Over screen.
Finally, the music is an exquisite highlight of Batora: Lost Haven as though there is plenty of repetition in the melodies, they are structured in such a way that you are almost ensured not to get tired of listening to them in the game’s modest 10-hour runtime. The composer Ron Fish, who also previously worked on the God of War and Arkham series OSTs, took the assignment of musicalizing these otherworldly planets and knocked it out of the park.
What starts as an exciting adventure of a young savior traveling through different planets loses steam and becomes a tedious enterprise midway. In the end, Batora: Lost Haven aims for a contained narrative that ironically struggles to find balance in a simplistic combat that is marred by difficulty spikes. Alas, fans of isometric action RPG games will find something to love if they are willing to look past its flaws.
