14 DAY TRIAL // Side-scrolling brawlers have always delivered some great experiences over the years, and given their relatively simple nature, lots of independent developers have tried their hands at crafting such titles in recent times.
Warlocks vs Shadows (or simply Warlocks, as it was originally named last week) from Frozen District and One More Level is no exception, with the two companies bringing forth a pretty interesting side-scrolling action brawler that also adds in role-playing game elements and quite a few playable characters.
Does Warlocks vs Shadows perform the necessary magic skillfully or should it go back to apprenticeship in Steam Early Access? Let’s have a quick look.
Warlocks vs Shadows is looking quite good for Early Access
Warlocks vs Shadows is, more or less, feature-complete in its current Steam Early Access build, according to its developer and publisher, but lots of user feedback is needed in terms of the abilities of the different characters, as well as their general design.
As of right now, you can enjoy a single-player story mode in which you go through different levels filled with waves of respawning enemies. You can pick from a series of great characters that all offer variation in the definition of a warlock. You can have a teleporting warrior, a pyromancer, an ice mistress, a shaman, a brutish warrior, and many others, each with different abilities and attacks.
You deploy the four main abilities by pressing the corresponding keys, in a way similar to Risk of Rain, another recent side-scrolling brawler. You can also activate healing potions that can drop from enemies.
What’s more, and here is where the RPG elements kick in, you can level up your respective skills, increasing their potency or effects. You can also pick up bits of armor, new weapons, and other such things when they fall from killed enemies. You can equip them in the inventory screen, or sell them when merchants pop up at the end of certain levels.
The whole Warlocks vs Shadows experience is fast paced and things get even more hectic when you delve into its cooperative and competitive modes. You can team up with a friend locally or go up against three other people.
You can use your standard abilities or try out your luck and get random modifiers that range from shortened jumps to poison attacks and other such things.
All in all, the Warlocks vs Shadows Steam Early Access version is quite fun even in its beta status. There are still plenty of areas that need work and some classes are much better than others but you can still have a lot of fun.
