Hunter's Legacy

Hunter's Legacy is a frustrating game. Not because it's overly difficult or hard to control, but rather because I spent the entire time trying to figure out why I wasn't having any fun. I mean, it's a 2D platformer with a likable feline hero, takes place in a gorgeous hand-drawn world and takes a lot of inspiration from the Metroidvania greats. And yet, despite what sounds like a winning formula, I found the act of actual playing the game to be a real slog.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: You play Ikki, a noble Iripur hunter who must go on an epic adventure to retrieve the Fang of Alliance and defeat the evil Morodir. But instead of simply taking the direct route, we'll first need to pick up a trio of orbs to unlock a gate. This means traveling all around the neighboring areas, including the maze-like forest, the cloud-covered mountaintops and the evil castle.

Despite not being an especially original set-up, this should have led into an entertaining 2D platformer littered with cat puns and anthropomorphic fun. We've seen the Metroidvania formula used countless times before and it almost guarantees a good time, even when the components don't quite come together. But that wasn't the case with Hunter's Legacy, and it took me a good chunk of the game to put my finger on the problem.

Like most games in the genre, we're given a large and diverse map full of interconnecting areas. We can warp all around the neighboring areas, but the orbs you need to collect are on three distinct paths. The problem is that the stage layouts make getting around a real pain. You'll get stuck in vines, clobbered by aggressive enemies and stuck dealing with frustrating dead ends. And that assumes you don't get hopelessly lost along the way.

I probably shouldn't gloss over the aggressive enemies, because that ended up being one of the most frustrating parts of Hunter's Legacy. None of the enemies are fun to fight. They all gang up on you, chase you around the level and float through walls. They tend to stick to you, making it hard to fight them. They're so annoying that I found myself spending a lot of time just dodging them while running to the next checkpoint.

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Of course, none of these issues are necessarily bad on their own, but they begin to add up and slow down the pace. It feels like you're interrupted every time you start to get a rhythm, to the point where I could never get a flow going. We're supposed to be some badass warrior, yet the enemies have no problem getting in cheap hits and Ikki barely has any moves. And again, all this assumes you know where you're going. I found the map to be woefully inadequate, leaving me more lost than I was before.

It doesn't help that Hunter's Legacy doesn't stray too far from the Metroidvania blueprint. In fact, it recycles most of the upgrades, such as a ground pound and air dash. There's never a point where the game introduces a bunch of cat-related abilities, it's just the same crap you see in every other game. And there isn't much of it, which I found a little surprising. We basically only get a few upgrades that have very limited uses, making this feel a lot more limited than other games in the genre.

I will say that the bright and colorful graphics are a nice change of pace after some of the games I've reviewed recently. Ikki is a good looking hero and the world has a cool hand-drawn look. I do wish that the locations were a bit more original, but like everything else in Hunter's Legacy, you've seen it all before. Still, the graphics are sharp and I like character designs.

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On the other hand, I don't like the boss fights. For one thing, there aren't very many of them. The problem is that most of them take far too long and can end in cheap ways. There's one boss where the wind will send you flying around the screen in some glitchy ways. And even the most tolerable boss fight ends up being little more than mindless hacking and slashing. These battles left me baffled and a little angry.

This is an example of a game that has all the pieces, but can't quite put them together. I like the hero and the colorful world, but hated how difficult it was to get around. Hunter's Legacy is a disappointingly shallow experience that never fully embraces its feline theme and constantly comes up short. You're betting off staying up late watching cute cat videos on YouTube.