Review for Smoke and Sacrifice. Game for Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 31/05/2018 The version for PlayStation 4 came out on 15/01/2019 The version for Xbox One came out on 15/01/2019
The videogame world is a continuous evolution and reshuffling of ideas, sometimes right and sometimes not. If in the past the playful sectors were often well defined and crystallized, the technical evolution of programming tools has allowed the most absolute hybridization by creating sub-genres of sub-genres, for the pure taste (and in some cases disgust) of average user. This little introduction was in my opinion necessary to frame Smoke and Sacrifice, a title that mixes various elements and which could be summarized as a sort of Zelda that meets Do not starve, all united by a rather present narrative thread that makes it quite unique in the survival genre.
A dark… difficult
Smoke and Sacrifice, produced and published by Sail Games, is an RPG with survival elements set in a freely explorable world. The game, from the very beginning, will irremediably show its true face, that of a hardcore game: in fact, Smoke and Sacrifice it is not a simple title not only for the constant dangers scattered around the dark game world, but also and above all for its focus on crafting and component research. And it is a clear and strong message that the developers make us understand from the very first moments, given the almost total absence of help and / or tutorials during the course of the game.
The adventure will put us in the shoes of Sachi, a young mother desperately searching for her baby, Lio, who has disappeared into a world full of horrors and dangers. Our playful journey will begin in a "starter" area surrounded by ice, where we will be called to take the first, difficult steps of our adventure. From the first moments, we will learn the fulcrum on which the game was built, or the collection of ingredients suitable for use in the construction of equipment necessary for progression in the game. But even in these small details, Smoke and Sacrifice shows its hardcore vein: in fact, all the equipment will be subject to degradation and, at the same time, even some ingredients will be unusable if not promptly used in specific recipes. Of course, the game also offers us the possibility to repair our tools, at a lower cost than to do them all over again.
DEATH IS BEHIND THE CORNER
As already mentioned, the work done by Sail Games to make the game difficult it was carefully planned. The fighting, rather rudimentary mechanically and which boil down to basic movement plus an attack command, they will give us a hard time right from the start. From enemies with a rather predictable and easy to counter skill set, we will move on to really difficult enemies with a series of skills that are sometimes unpredictable and that will produce direct and indirect damage. Another factor to consider, this time with a raised eyebrow, is the huge "aggro area" of our heroine, who will attract the attention of enemies sometimes placed behind buildings or trees, perhaps while we are already struggling with a fight.
Another factor to take into consideration is the conspicuous difference in hitbox level between our alter ego and small / medium-sized enemies: perhaps in order to increase the perceived difficulty even more, the enemies will have a very limited 'hit area' and which, in the case of choosing to use a melee weapon, will almost always make us suffer at least a couple of hits in an attempt to put to silence the enemy. If you think that combat is the basis of the game itself since, almost always, the basis for obtaining the ingredients necessary to progress, one also has the idea of a rather long-lived game even if mechanically repetitive.
A continuous and difficult loop
If we think that a monster, on average, hits hard and will do proportionately more damage than us, together with the modest healing properties offered by the healing items, we will have very clear the factors that will make Smoke and Sacrifice rather difficult to swallow. In the game we will also have the option of using remote weapons, even if the control of the aforementioned with the levers was not particularly easy and intuitive, and traps, which will be vital to face some of the most difficult bosses. In addition to the enemies, the environment will also constitute a direct challenge to our playful abilities: there will be various biomes scattered throughout the game which will require a certain type of instrumentation for access. More, there is a day / night cycle in the game which will be taken into serious consideration, given the presence during the night hours of a dangerous fog that will quickly consume our hit points, unless you have a light source in your inventory.
If having a hardcore soul almost seems like the “way-to-go” of today's industry, sometimes excess can also lead to a noticeable minus. Here, at times, Smoke and Sacrifice seems to go down think in its founding union, that is Hard Fight / Hard Search: the entire play package offered by the game, from a mechanical point of view, is focused on the progression linked to the search for ingredients that, often and willingly, are linked to the killing of a certain type of enemy (in jargon "fetch questing" ). The whole game is based on a rather accentuated "risk / reward" system and that, in some ways, can only be fully enjoyed by lovers of the hardcore genre.
Beautiful and dark
Smoke and Sacrifice is artistically valuable, offering a hand made and vaguely cartoonish look of the highest level. The graphic style, shared by technique and dark colors a Do not starve, it blends well and certainly fits the dark tones prominent in the game. From a technical point of view, the game runs smoothly and without lag of any kind, offering high-level graphics quality and rather attention to detail. To report the animation of the characters, rather 'particular' and which make the characters take on similar movements to those of rag dolls: if stylistically the choice is more than in tone with the dreamlike and dark game world, for action lovers' canons' the choice will be a bit indigestible, at least in the very first bars. The sound sector, while not shining for originality or for particular quality, does its duty well, providing a suitable sound carpet for our dark wanderings.
Smoke and Sacrifice is a valuable game, artistically tasteful and… very difficult. His dark and surreal soul is luxuriant and cared for, but it can be enjoyed as long as you take into account a mechanically limited, repetitive game set at a difficulty that more than once will touch injustice. Surely, the Sail Games game stands out in the conceptually moribund Survival / action market with its style, both purely playful and narrative.
► Smoke and Sacrifice is an Adventure-indie-RPG type game published by Scary Curve Digital for Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 31/05/2018 The version for PlayStation 4 came out on 15/01/2019 The version for Xbox One came out on 15/01/2019
