Rift Keeper

The problem with playing hundreds of games each year is that there are a lot of perfectly good titles that I completely forget about after only a month or two. The calendar may tell me that I reviewed Hellfront: Honeymoon and Omensight in January, but do I remember anything about them? Not really. These were good games that I praised at the time, but they weren't memorable enough to stick in my head for more than a few months. I have a hunch the same thing is going to happen to Rift Keeper, the sophomore effort from Firewood developer Frymore. It's a solid side-scrolling action game that is perfectly serviceable in every way, yet I know that the whole thing will be a complete blur by the time spring rolls around. I suppose, that could be the first warning signs of a serious brain problem, but I choose to believe that it's because there's nothing about this game that stands out.

We're told at the start that Rift Keepers are specially-trained warriors who protect the land from other worldly monsters. There's lore about growing old and red priests, but all you need to know is that the Void God Xal'Sheth threatens the world and you're there to make sure that doesn't happen. The result is a fairly straight-forward 2D action/adventure game that feels a lot like a low-rent version of Dead Cells.

The idea is to fight through thirty increasingly difficult stages in an effort to collect loot, level up and defeat the three bosses that stand in the way of peace. Each stage may be randomly constructed, but they all play out exactly the same way. Your job is to kill at least 70% of the enemies in the level and then find a rift back to town. This starts out easy, but the enemies will grow stronger and more aggressive each time you enter the rift. You don't want to be too reckless, because once our hero dies, we lose all of our weapons and reset back to the beginning of the game.

There's nothing especially new or original about this concept, but Rift Keeper gets most of the basics right. The nameless hero is easy to use and it's fun smacking down the ghouls and goblins that haunt the dungeon. He starts out with a powerful whip, but the trade-off is that he only has a few moves. This is the kind of action hero who can't even jump and attack at the same time, at least until he finds a projectile to throw. A lot of the game is about learning the trick to defeating each enemy and, well, killing them. You've probably seen all this before.

The hook is that you'll find loot and gold in each dungeon, which you can use to trade and buy new weapons and accessories you'll eventually need. The starting whip is effective in the first few levels, but you'll definitely need a stronger axe if you hope to defeat the later bosses. You can also equip rings and necklaces that will increase your health and strength, all of which will disappear the moment you die. You'll want to keep buying and collecting better gear in order to keep our hero breathing, if only to get to the next rift zone.

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Like I said, this is a perfectly good action game that I enjoyed playing. The problem is that the game ends up being too easy. Once you find a powerful axe and spell book, you're basically unstoppable. This is especially true when it comes to the three bosses. The first is the most challenging, thanks to some serious cheap hits, but the rest barely put up a fight. In fact, I was legitimately surprised when I beat the Void God Xal'Sheth without even once getting hit. And without a proper ending, the whole thing felt painfully anticlimactic.

The other downside of being a powerful warrior is that all the levels start to blur together after a while. The game tries to mix things up with different colors and sprites, but it's not enough to keep the action fresh. And while I like being able to keep playing harder and harder stages after beating the boss, all it did was highlight how similar the dungeons are. And it certainly doesn't help that every stage has the exact same objective. It's not that the game is bad, but rather that all of this repetition ultimately makes Rift Keeper boring and kind of a chore.

If nothing else, Rift Keeper proves that developer Frymore knows how to make a solid action game. This is a side-scrolling adventure that gets most of the fundamentals, even if it's far too repetitive for its own good. With the same objectives, weapons and enemies, every level starts to feel the same after a while. Couple that with bosses that barely put up a fight and you have a far-too-easy platformer that runs out of gas long before the anticlimactic fight with the Void God Xal'Sheth.