This game is heavily inspired by the mechanics and design of Dark Souls, however adds its own unique spin on this by introducing puzzle solving and platforming elements from games like The Legend of Zelda.

A definite must buy.

did not enjoy the game

Chibi Zelda-Souls is a very nice summary...
You start off as a character with many "lives/classes" and if u die with one, you will pick another class/character, you have to ress the dead one with a ress scroll you buy for 60 coins, and the dead one will be unaviable until you ress them or break their graves, which destroys all their inventory including money, but their acuumaleted XP will remain. You will eventually after the tutorial get to a base which is sort of like a nexus or a hub, from which u access the other areas. As well as stock up on supplies, and you will get new merchants after u kill a boss.

As you get into the game you will mostly be using a sword and bow, or staffs for magic. I do not think the parry function is in the game yet so u will have to make due with blocking. Chests have randomized loot. for the most part, and respawn like enemies.

The enemies are alittle dissapointing in terms of variety, you have 4 types.
The skeleton which comes in a variety from sword+shield, sword, agressive and though red type, a "suprise" one which comes outta chests, and bow men.
The slugs or jelly beans are wither blue, red or green, Red ones can divde them seves after they loose some HP, Green ones ooze and can casue DEF down, all of them can make you oily which meakes it easier to get set aflame.
And some weird flying purple eye/orb with eye, which will either shoot, grab you or fly towards you with the propeller on their head.


In addition to a health bar and stamina bar, the stamina drops as u run/sprint, jump or fight. You also have a hunger meter, so u will have to get and eat food, luckily in the first areas it is not a very big problem to find, and some enemies have a chance of dropping some. If your hunger meter goes to zero you will start loosing HP until u eat.
All characters share progress, all though the enmies will return if u enter another zone, or die. They also share XP so that you dont have to level up another one, makes it alittle easier.


The game has some nice levels/zones, atm we have 2, not counting the tutorial, a forest and a castle. Both are very fun to explore but with the repetetive and punishing enemies, it gets abit tedious after you get stuck in an area.
There is also some intersting puzzles allthough the solutions are not always so obvious. And you will eventually discover the games crafting mechanincs, like cooking and upgrading weapons.

All in all a very fun and enertaining game. cant wait to see what comes!
If you have any questions dont hesitate to ask and I will try to respond as well as I can

Pretty good game thus far. Would like to see what weapons will be available after EA. Really like that it works completely with my PS4 controller without any extra software. Just plug it in and it works for this. Music is decent. Combat seems fairly fluid. Graphics are ok. Only encounter minor frame rate drops when entering a completely different part of a zone, or teleporting into a zone, otherwise it seems pretty consistent. Feels like a combination of elements from Dark Souls and Legend of Zelda.

Pretty good so far. You'll probably find a lot of people talking about the positive ways in which this game reminds people of Dark Souls so I'll skip that part and say that the enemies are pretty cool looking, status ailments are used in kind of interesting ways (the revive item, a literal written contract, can be destroyed by fire so you will need to avoid enemies that cause Burn) and most of my problems at time of writing come from the fact that the Early Access doesn't have all of the content.

Grinding is a bit of a problem right now, but I can't tell if the need to grind is a design choice or just the result of the current build only granting us access to the starting areas while also granting us access to weapon/armor upgrades that cost way more than starter enemies drop.

Early Access Watcher Reviews Inferno Climber

Update Version: v0.1.01

Disclosure: This game copy was bought by the reviewer.

Gameplay Example: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Egqg-18xVtc

WARNING: KEYBOARD SETTINGS ARE CURRENTLY UNPLEASANT. AVOID FOR NOW UNLESS YOU PLAN TO USE A CONTROLLER.


Dark Souls has redefined the definition of difficulty and established a genre catering to masochists in both gameplay and terrible game glitches. Due to the increased popularity of such games, a plethora of imitators and adapters have sprung up from every corner of the spectrum. Arc System Works, the developers behind the BlazBlue series, are throwing their hat into the ring with Inferno Climber and take the opportunity to make a couple of drastic tweaks to the formula. While this review will take a look at these changes, the most important factor to focus on will inevitably be the issues regarding glitches and bugs. Will these issues be enough to seal the doors on this crypt or is the game currently established enough to justify the entrance fee?

I really hate to compare the game to Dark Souls, but similar to the frustrating difficulty, the story takes a nod from the passive storytelling structure. Each class is given a short side story at the character selection phase then sent off to fight a dark evil in a "suppose to lose" fight. Forced to sign a contract in order to return to life, Death instructs the hero to bring him the 5 purgatory stones as per the agreement stated in the contract. This sums up the general narrative for the hero with plenty of small story tidbits scattered in the world on sign posts. It is more a placeholder to justify the gameplay than the main focus.

The moment I saw the character models for this game, I was quickly reminded of the similar style found in Okage: Shadow King. They are thin framed with large heads and facial expressions that look as if a child took a sharpie to it. This is no way a negative, it looks rather cute for a game dealing with such themes. The environments are much more detailed, utilizing quality textures and rather dull color palettes to sell the illusion. Particle effects are decent while lighting is stabilized at a good level for the initial settings. Music on the other hand is simple enough, generally being drowned out by the sound effects even with music set to 100 in the settings. If there is a plus in this situation, it allows the user to focus more on environmental feedback with an increased survival rate.

The combat style used is third person hack and slash with an emphasis on dodging and blocking. Enemies telegraph attacks and when they are in between motions, you strike with hellfire and fury. The process of locating keys and completing puzzles is reminiscent of Darksiders and the progress will save between attempts, to a degree. Killing monsters and smash pots provide experience to level up, which grant points to increase your stats while CP acts as the currency to purchase health potions and death parchments. These parchments are necessary to revive dead characters and is the biggest change to the standard formula. When you die, you are able to select another class and resume the game with this character. All items that were gained on the previous character stick with them and you start fresh. You can revive the old character by reaching it and offering a death parchment, but in order to get the items to another character, you need to use the chest back at mountain base. It is an interesting take, but it acts more of an annoyance than a risk.

Equipment is the vital lifeline in this adventure, especially with foraging for food to fight back the hunger meter. In order to complete the provided task, you will need to utilize every bow, sword and magic staff you can find in the environment. Everything you pick up has a durability meter and will eventually break if not repaired. Food items act in the same way without the repair option. You can use ice crystals to slow down the decay process, but they are quite rare. Cooking is also an option, using items found in the environment to create better munchies. Armour and weapon enhancement is also an option that allows the user to imbed the souls of the enemies into slots to grant specific bonuses.

This will be the first time in my life I admit this, but I could not play this game using the keyboard and mouse. After about twenty minutes of frustration trying to figure out the keybinding settings, I finally switched over to the PS4 controller and my ability to play was returned. As it currently stands, you should avoid this game until they add keybinding support or improved the keyboard all together. Movement on the controller still had some issues with how excited the auto target can be. It also doesn't help how you need to fight the camera while blocking or having it get stuck when you are ambushed into a corner.

Graphical glitches are present in the current state along with questionable hit box issues. One non-graphical issue: when you die in the beginning, I encountered an issue where it reset the character select process once you died and repeated the whole boss process. Monsters can disappear into certain portions of the walls and charge back out in full attack. On a couple of corner rampages, enemy attacks have forced me into the walls and stuck me in place. Certain enemies (specifically the skeleton canines) do not even move. On several occasions, especially with flying demons, hit boxes are slightly finicky in terms of elevation. Enemies can also start attacks when they are not even in sight of you, which makes certain attack combos from enemies feel like trap layouts from Deception 4. Many can argue this is more a design choice than poor programming, but at this point it is in the eye of the beholder.

It has always been a challenge for me to properly review Dark Souls style games purely on the idea of game design vs actual difficulty. The length of the game is also in question purely on how well you can avoid the numerous traps and combo chains that will enviably cause you to corpse run more than you would in a MMO. There are specific technical issues, but nothing game breaking thankfully (unless you sell or lose a key by accident, which Arc will need to create safe guards too.) With trials available to provide as tutorials and use of books to unlock skills such as rolling and dashing, Inferno Climber provides the tools needed to at least survive. It is still pretty rough around the edges, but as it stands I recommend it purely for the current value and consistent frame rate. I strong urge The developer, however, to post a warning on the store page in regards to the keyboard issues. I will revisit this game in six months, as per the quota, for a re-review.

Pro
- Cute, but dreary aesthetic
- Combat is challenging
- Consistent frame rate
- Decent amount of content for the price

Cons
- Keyboard unusable
- Audio levels need fine tuning
- Questionable glitches

Criminally underrated and no where near as well known as it should be.

From the gorgeous (and in my opinion adorable) art style to the lovingly crafted environments, it's easy to tell this game has a lot of heart in it. The combat reminds me a lot of Souls-Like games, however being able to jump adds a layer of strategy that those other Souls-Like games lack. Little details, such as your armor design changing depending on the helmet you've got on, or your visor going down when you guard, are another reason to love this game.

It's a little unpolished, but that's to be expected of a game in early access.

I'm being totally honest in saying that I only have two gripes with this game. One: Every time you save and quit/reload the area, loot respawns, making it pretty easy to cheese the system and get tons of CP, Heal Potions, etc... rather early. And Two: The Wooden Shield is turned the wrong way on the hand, with the handles going over your thumb and pinky rather than your hand going through them.

I heavily recommend this game to anyone who enjoys games like Castlevania or Dark Souls.

Inferno Climber is a fun ARPG With Major Flaws (EA)

My ratings/review

Difficulty: 10/10 ~ My favorite thing in the game is the challenge, yes, this game is challenging, way more than it seems, it compares to dark souls in my book, also the death system is pretty unique, when you die you start off with another character lose all your stats and have to get back to your body with what they call a "Death Contract" Which can be bought for 60CP (in-game currency) Unlike dark souls (you keep all your gear only lose unused XP "Souls"), when you die you lose your Character+Items, and have to get it back with another fresh character in order to continue with your old one, makes it really hard when you get into the harder areas because you're running around with a level 1 character in level 30+ Areas, trying to find your godamm body Leveling two toons might be a good idea

Movement, Platforming, Overall Gameplay: 6/10 ~ You get some neat skills if you search around levels, you find books and read them in order to get some skills i.e Sprinting, Dashing etc, seems like theres at least 8 skills as of now, but the movement in this game feel clunky, if i sprint i cant stop until my stamina go down, even if i press the sprint button again (you'd think it would turn off sprinting but no it doesn't, you literally have to walk back for 1-2sec to stop the sprinting animation which is pretty annoying, also the platforming in this game seems too easy for me, but i'm only at 10-15% of the game so i will update reviews as i go on)

Combat: 7/10 ~ Simplistic but cool, you can either use staff,swords,bows and quickswitch between them really fast even with a controller which is nice also some weapons have differents heavy attacks overall still a very simple system could be more fancy & better but it works

Music: 4/10 ~ Really disapointed here very simple songs i don't like them, some people might though.

Graphics & Engine & Performance: 4/10 ~ The graphics even maxed aren't really good looking, which is fine with me i dont mind much about graphics, BUT there is serious optimization issue with this game, i currently have 16GB RAM a 4.4GHZ i4670K and GTX 970 and my frame dropped below 60 a few times, then go back to 240, keep in mind this is EA but dont expect to run it max graphics if you dont have something similar to my rig, i currently play on High instead of maxed because i really hate it when my FPS hit 45 randomly, others settings are way better (100+ always) Still, Serious optimization issues here.

Story: ?/10


Overall so far: 7.5/10
I'm not regreting my choice to try out this awesome game even if EA.

Am I really one of the first people to write a review? Dayum.


I only got to the first Base (not a spoiler, you can easily get there in some fifteen minutes if not less I think, I like to take my time so it took way longer), and so far, the game is quite good. The controls are decent, even though the character's movement is not as realistic in AAA games, some enemies are well-positioned (well done, skeleton from the second trial), only the inventory management and bow controls seem somehow tedious for me so far (especially the weapon swap, I'm not used to it yet). The attack system is simple yet efficient. The only issue I have would be with blocking, which is pretty useless at the beginning of the game since you can just strafe to avoid incoming arrows and run away from other attacks. Also, the camera is slightly too close to the character in my opinion. It might be a design choice, but I am still havin issues with it.

Graphically speaking, the game is not really bad-looking, but it's not brilliant either. Textures can be blurry, models edgy. That was to be expected for an "indie" game. "Indie" because it's officially an Arc System Works game, but it's actually made by around five people according to the Steam page. However, I've found particle effects to be pretty good, and taking advantage of the Unity engine.

The sound design is quite good too, with sound effects that stick with the corresponding actions, and the music, while I haven't heard it much so far, sounds good too. However, said music is pretty quiet compared to the "level up" jingle when it comes up. Then, the English translation... I'm not a native English speaker, but it seems that there are some translation mistakes right when you start the game. "the rights holders" probably actually means "the rights' holders", and the "This game recommend to use game controller!", which has since been replaced by "Game controller is recommended for this game" (they should modify to say "A game controller") made me smile. (There's also "Thanks for installing early access version", which would need to be set as "Thanks for installing this early access version".)

And last but not least, the bugs and Early Access part. You can get stuck in some places with the hitbox of the bridges, I've jumped once for no reason while walking up the second bridge before the first trial's door, and if you use the left stick while in a menu, the camera rotates/twitches for some reason. Also, speaking about twitching, the arrows twitch and do not move in sync with the quiver they are in, especially during jumps. These are minor issues, but they still show the game needs some more polish before being a full game (which is exactly why it is in EA).

Overall, I think I still need to play to get a more solid review (which I will edit over time), but so far, Inferno Climber is quite a good game, even though I was not really convinced by its first trailer (yes, THAT walking simulator trailer). In any case, maybe you should wait some more time before buying it, so that there are more (and more solid) reviews.


Thank you for reading, and happy gaming. (*does 623D*)

It's fun and they've been consistently working on making it better, so I give it a thumbs up.

I'm waiting for some more updates before I continue playing the game, which is why I have so few hours.