The devs of a legendary indie Zelda-like have a new retro action game with "bumpslash" combat, and its Steam Next Fest demo is a gem: "Fans of Ys, take note!"

I've never been so happy to be surrounded by bugs than I am while playing the Steam Next Fest demo for Angeline Era, the self-described "wild Bumpslash Action-Adventure!"

While the sight of roly polies and weevils usually makes my skin crawl, the hunched beetles wearing red spots, spikes, and acorn masks in Angeline Era's demo-exclusive overworld simply make me scoff. Their mushy minds can't comprehend the fact that they are no match for the propulsive strength of my bumping into them. This triggers them to attack, and my crop top-wearing adventurer slashes their little bodies apart in one or two hits. Therefore, a "wild Bumpslash Action-Adventure!"

With a pile of bug bodies behind me, I wander through Minecraft puffs of grass and dirt in search of more enemies, occasionally pressing Y on my Steam Deck to search seemingly blocked passageways for another path through.

Sometimes, doing this triggers a screen overlay with a timer, and I have to quickly hop over tree roots and defeat a resilient enemy before being allowed to duck deeper into the dark. These surreal fantasy moments remind me of my favorite parts of irreverent, early Zelda games, as does dialogue from helpful beetles wearing hats, who confess all-caps truths to me like: "I CANNOT JUMP. I CANNOT ESCAPE. MY FATE IS SEALED."

As a pixel wanderer with big brown eyelashes and, as I mentioned, a crop top that appears to be bulletproof, I heed their desolation while continuing my bumpy journey around smartly designed platformer levels. Developer Analgesic Productions, who also created the gossamery Zelda-lite Anodyne, describes them in a press release as "an Ireland-inspired, lush world of forests and ruins."

"A world influenced by Irish fantasy and arcane Christian myth," the release continues, while the game's Steam description proclaims that "fans of Ys" – the JRPG progenitor of bump system combat – should "take note!"

Indeed, there's a lot about Angeline Era's demo worth exclaiming about. Its no-buttons combat feels both meditative and mystical, while gobbling optional slabs of meat at dressing table checkpoints is completely medieval. This, to me, is the best kind of action game — one that prioritizes energy and mood over mandatory objectives. Most levels don't even need to be completed before I go ahead and grab a new weapon, or a strange crystal scale…

I'm impressed. Backed by a soundtrack that diffuses like a waterfall, Angeline Era fuses tangible combat with the gauze fabric of dreams because, as the game says in its Steam description, "life's not a checklist, it’s an experience!!"

This cozy roguelite tricked me into trying a dungeon crawler by using farm sim features as bait, and I think the Steam Next Fest demo has officially converted me.