REVIEW : Batbarian: Testament of the Primordials (PC)
In the game world, it’s easy to go overboard with humour. Consider the discomfort of Ctrl+Alt+Del comics or Duke Nukem: Forever’s overt and apparent crassness to understand how easy it is to fundamentally miss the message. When I first saw Batbarian: Testament of the Primordials, I was concerned about this. It has bizarre cover art and a joke title that only works aesthetically. Fortunately, this is the only time in Batbarian that the graphics and humour felt odd. The humour is self-referential and amusing, and the art style is as well. This is a game that adores the fact that it is a game. It does not attempt to impress, but that is impressive in and of itself. See, I’m not beyond being self-referential.
Batbarian: Testament of the Primordials is a cave-dwelling platformer RPG with loads of humour, combining elements from Metroidvanias, RPGs, and the look of Conan the Barbarian. You and Pip, your glow-in-the-dark bat companion, are launched plunging to the bottom of a big cave after selecting your respective character. You can only see your hearts on the top left, the map on the top right, and you in the centre at first. This very instantly prepares you for the type of game Batbarian is. Because of the lack of a story and the emphasis on a map, you’ve landed squarely in Metroidvania territory, which might be frightening for people who lack patience. Fortunately, I am not one of those folks, and I have taken a step further into the void.
The first few rooms serve as a rudimentary tutorial, as they do in most games. To get to the little fragments of the story on the other side, you must jump, slash, and solve your way through each area. In some ways, the entire game is based on this notion. Its game design is similar to that of a traditional Metroidvania, in that it shows you a path, forces you to accept that you won’t be able to complete it, and then shatters that impression when you gain new abilities. Are there vines in your way? You’ll figure it out eventually. Is it possible that the platform is too high? Wait for it to happen. I wasn’t kidding when I started this game will put your patience to the test.
You might find yourself searching every room for a hidden entrance, a new challenge, or a new approach to grasp particular talents.
The humour, music, and on-the-fly action all help to alleviate any monotony that would otherwise exist. Jokes have a fairly consistent tone, and they’re frequently used at critical moments for levity or in safe areas to extract a little more information from the universe. You might discover, just before a particularly tense boss encounter, that your relentless impulse to hit everyone on the head has led you down an illogical road, or that your hesitation to bash everyone on the head has had unpredictable consequences.
This is something the show’s humour excels at. It likes to set you up for something and then pull the rug out from under you, following the conventional formula. Its best humour appears when you least expect it.
This distinguishes it from other products marketed as “comedy games.” Barbarian: Testament of the Primordials is, first and foremost, a game. Less funny games bombard you with twenty jokes each minute, never allowing you to appreciate when anything is hilarious. Rather than providing a source of amusement, the periods of stillness become your sole source of pleasure. Barbarian has some fairly good music when it comes to quiet. With midi violins, synths, bass, and drums, it creates a synth orchestra.
If you combine cyberpunk drums with a JRPG’s piano and violin, then add some 16-bit percussion, you should have a good notion of the style of music you’ll hear during your time with Batbarian. This is amplified by the sound effects. The sound of opening chests is accompanied by a joyous fanfare, whereas the sound of death is punctuated by stillness. This is a simple but effective approach to make your deaths a little harsher and your victories a little more satisfying.
Batbarian: Testament of the Primordials’ gameplay is simple at first, but it improves over time. You begin with a sword swing and a jump, and then add thrown abilities, bat manipulation techniques, and more to your arsenal. The platforming is enjoyable, but the basic attacks do not improve as you progress through the game. Later boss fights that necessitate well-timed assaults begin to reveal how terrible attacking is, while platforming serves to demonstrate how good some of the mechanics are. Pip, your bat, moves with the light.
This may be modified with things to have him stay in specific places or fly across other areas. While it takes some getting accustomed to, changing his element and placement mid-jump becomes an important feature of traversal as you progress.
While this aids in the achievement of some long-term objectives, levels, upgrades, and collectables keep you developing in the short term. It contains an experience system that grants you random stat improvements as you progress through the levels, and collectable items can help you improve your defence, attack, awareness, and even health if you’re lucky.
This implies that if an area or enemy is giving you trouble, you can opt to return later, which is a feature rarely found in most games of this calibre. Batbarian isn’t very difficult in this regard, and it probably benefits from it. Enemies, allies, and those in-between interrupt your journey through the huge caves, appearing just frequently enough to remind you that you are making progress. You (and your tiny bat pal) will make it to the end of the tunnel’s light or bat-shaped light.
