Empyreal review: "This looter slasher's often beautiful, hand-designed levels and robust challenge kept pulling me back to go one more round"

The level I've just chosen will be 'Very Easy' according to Empyreal's instant appraisal of my fire-based loadout. So why is my character dead on the ground within 10 seconds of starting the level? Balancing is the biggest issue in Empyreal, which is ironic because the balancing of its many systems is arguably also the game's greatest achievement. It's got five elemental effects across three attack styles, all fused with gear you can mod and remod. You can re-roll stats, unlock abilities, tinker with cooldowns and hunt for ultra-rare loot knowing with decent certainty what each level is likely to yield thanks to the 'cartogram' level card system. It's exemplary in its attention to detail when it comes to the theory but, in practice, you need to be absolutely 100% on top of all these gameplay facets or you won't be getting anywhere. Think you can get by on skill alone? Sorry, mate. You're already dead.

Empyreal is a straightforward, single-player, loot-based action RPG, with a clever mix of hand-crafted levels and semi-randomly generated enemy encounters. It's a well-trodden formula, but there are some neat twists that make the core gameplay loop relatively fresh. One immediately unusual feature is the enemies' moves being telegraphed with both the move's name and an orange bar filling up over their heads, letting you know exactly when an attack will come. This gives you a neat moment-to-moment tactical slant as you balance your own attacks with defensive manoeuvres and parries based on this crucial information. It works very well against one or two foes, but can become overwhelming when you're surrounded by four or five enemies all attacking at different times, especially from off-screen.

After the initial story-building levels, the core gameplay loop begins. You select a cartogram, which tells you which of the four main biomes you'll be playing in (which are unlocked sequentially as you progress), which boss you'll be facing complete with its attacks listed, and the potential loot you can snaffle. And so you play through often beautiful, always complex, hand-designed levels, hunting for loot-filled cubby holes and shortcuts. After several big fights, you find a teleporter to take you to one of the many bosses, each featuring a neat introductory cinematic. Beat the boss, snag the loot, and head home to tweak your loadout and identify new cartograms offering new levels to play. Each run takes about 10-20 minutes, which is very pleasant, and actually a great fit for handheld play on Steam Deck.

Story-wise, you're a mercenary exploring the mysterious, monolithic Ziggurat, which is a gigantic structure on an alien world built by an ancient civilisation… and said to be holding something prisoner. It's mostly in ruins, however, with waterfalls, ferns and gorgeous broken stonework.

The more you play, the better it feels too, beginning as a slightly dreary-looking third-person game and ending up channeling Metroid Prime's Chozo Ruins, though it's not quite in the same league as that game's exquisite atmosphere, let's be clear. Nonetheless, even with its nice lighting, long draw distance, and detailed textures, it runs decently even on a lower-range graphics card like an Nvidia RTX 2070. And again, Steam Deck fits it beautifully, running commendably well even on default settings.

Top bants

There are some branching dialogue options with a few NPCs in the hub area, and depending on how you speak to characters and fulfil their wishes, there are alternative outcomes. My ending was… shall we say 'not so good'. On the way there is some strong scripting, with pleasingly blunt banter between your character and the barman, and NPCs occasionally pop up in the levels themselves, which keeps making the journey feel pleasantly curated despite its semi-random elements.

Combat-wise, you start with a glaive, which is essentially a bladed polearm for melee attacks. There's also a shield and mace combo, which is centred around well-timed parrying, and a cannon too. The cannon's gunplay changes the gameplay almost completely, incorporating an interesting skill-based reload bar that lets you choose which ammo to fire next based on when (and whether) you can time the reload – a little bit like Monster Hunter Wilds. Get it wrong and you'll be stuck with no bullets for a moment. It's an enjoyable system but I found the shield and mace the most intuitive, even if it does lack the glaive's dash ability for getting out of trouble quickly. You can charge a dash, but that's often too cumbersome in a pinch, especially as animations need to finish before you can start a new move.

The game isn't big on navigational aid. There's no map to tell you where you are, where you came in or where you should be headed, which can make for some frustrating moments as you feel like you've explored everywhere yet still can't find the teleporter to the boss. You can learn the levels as their layouts are set, but there are several different routes to the boss in each biome, so it's many hours before things start to get truly familiar.

It also isn't the best at explaining its systems. You get an on-screen tutorial whenever you encounter a big new feature or switch weapon type for the first time, but otherwise it's not always clear what the stats you're tweaking will actually do in gameplay terms. Advanced buffs like 'Steadfast' that save you from death if lethal damage hits when your health is beyond a certain point sounds good, but when the health consumable Shield IV kills you if you use it while steadfast is active (arguably when you need it most), the game can feel unfair – especially when you didn't think Steadfast was even active at the time.

On a plain

I did feel the game hit a plateau about 15 hours in. You are told what you need to do to progress, and the story is essentially waiting for you to complete this task. However, doing so requires Level 30+ cartograms. It'll likely take you some 20 hours to get level 30 equipment (which is the level cap for items), and even then you'll need to secure specific yet randomized cartograms in order to even attempt to progress. When the game is so hard, even maxing out your gear doesn't guarantee success, so you can easily spend 5-10 hours in the gameplay loop, trying and failing over and over again. At first, the game falters as your progress hits this roadblock, but then surprisingly really hits its stride as you learn its systems and finally get the job done, climaxing in an impressively dramatic conclusion.

I hit credits after 31 hours, which is about twice as long as the devs expect, so it really might just be me – though New Game+ with its Level 60 enemies awaits if you still want more. The sense of achievement as the final boss falls is immense, though on balance those few seconds of absolute, pure exaltation probably don't outweigh the hours and hours of attrition. For me there was no question of giving up. The game got a hold on me and I couldn't put it down until it was finished – the hours just melt away while you're playing it.

It feels like Empyreal would work really well as a multiplayer game, but interaction with other players is currently limited to the cartogram trading post, or gifting a fallen player's ghost 1-3 Reset Spheres, which are basically 1ups. It's resolutely a single-player game, which at least means you can pause it properly whenever you like. A rarity these days.

There are so many loot-based action RPGs, it is difficult to say this is the one you should play next. But I found it far more welcoming than the recent Hyper Light Breaker (which I reviewed in Early Access), and better-looking too. Being a budget title at $29.99/£24.99, Empyreal's production values aren't quite as high as some other current-gen games, especially when it comes to the character models, and it does feel a bit too serious and drab for its own good most of the time despite superb graphical detail if you study static screens. But it's worth playing, especially for the later runs when you finally start to swing the stats in your favor. This game is all about the buffs.

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