#Shards of war similar games Pc

It’s still playable enough, but if you can go for the PC version instead, this is one of the rare instances where the portability isn’t enough to even the balance. There are times where movement becomes so stuttery that it hurt the eyes to look at, I’m halfway certain the AI foibles can be attributed to the game being unable to keep up, and there’s a lack of detail in the graphics that I know I’m missing out on because, from the shots of the PC version of the game, Aluna is much prettier than this.

Equipment descriptions can also be quite lengthy and have a wide range of different impacts on the character, and, yes, I know that is a feature of this particular genre, but coupled with the interface this one was a bit too cumbersome for its own good.įinally, while I’m bellyaching, the Switch version of Aluna is a technical mess, and just about everyone knows that I don’t complain about this too much before it becomes really quite unmanageable. This is compounded by there being relatively few enemies to fight by genre standards – we were all a bit spoiled by the hordes that Diablo 3 pioneered – and relatively low amounts of treasure to supplement your loot with shop purchases. On the other hand, enemies don’t tend to drop all that much of it, so there’s something of a slow grind etched into Aluna which is not something that does the genre favours. As I mentioned, there is a veritable wealth of items to acquire that do a great job in giving plenty of ways to tailor your experience to your own preferences.

With few exceptions, enemies tend to attack in small hordes (which is just as well, as larger groups would become overwhelming), and while they don’t have the greatest AI, the variety in them is excellent, and because they’re modelled on a setting less travelled, they have a nice distinctiveness built right there into their design.Īs with any Diablo-like, loot is all-important, and Aluna does get things generally right. Aluna is a little too linear for its own good, but the mix of weapon types (which includes the early-era guns of the conquistadors, being set at that early point of the colonialism of South America), skills, and some dynamic combat help to make that endless push a joy. It is gorgeous, thanks to beautiful comic book strips that tell the story and some wonderfully “exotic” settings, architecture, allies and enemies, but I generally prefer when “world stories” have gameplay systems to match the culture, and this one misses that beat by a significant margin. It could have used a little more bravery as far as the gameplay systems go. It’s a Diablo clone through-and-through, and plays and behaves exactly like a western-developed game. Unfortunately, there is a negative subtext to this, and that is that Aluna’s greatest issue is that it doesn’t do enough to be its own thing outside of the narrative and presentation. It’s just that she does so in a very different setting (this game even has llamas!… though sadly you can’t pet them). Basically, she runs around killing the enemies by the horde. Aluna gets to do much the same things that her more famous mythological peers do.

Rather than the beefcake Hercules, though, Pachamama produced the much more aesthetically pleasing Aluna. She’s actually not that different to Zeus in that she rather enjoys bedding mortals and producing half-deity offspring. Sick of Zeus? Yes, anyone who enjoys variety in storytelling must surely be too. Aluna is, first and foremost, a game for those people with those frustrations. Surely the frustration is felt even more keenly by the people of those actual cultures. It speaks to a frustration that I have felt regarding the limited range of mythologies and ye olde cultures that we see in games. The game kicks off with a cutscene talking about Zeus and Hercules, before saying (and yes, I am paraphrasing here) “but you know what? Let’s talk about this South American goddess and her daughter instead”. I knew that I would love Aluna from its opening moments.