Fallen Angel was originally brought about via Kickstarter last October. Philadelphia based developers Matrioshka Games have now launched this pixel art ARP style hack and slash on Steam.
Inspired by John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Fallen Angel puts players in the hooves of Lucifer himself. He’s got an axe to grind with his maker and he’s on his way to the heavens above to make his point. The heavens feature seven unique realms, each with its own angelic boss.
Fans of fast-paced top-down action RPGs will be thrilled as Lucifer rips through hordes of angels, knocks them into the air, and smashes them into oblivion. Along with his normal attacks, Lucifer can unleash the beast when his Pride Meter is filled to the brim with unholy rage. Lucifer’s attacks are inspired by the aerial antics found in games like Bayonetta and Devil May Cry.
The art style is instantly engaging and what initially looks very basic soon becomes beautiful in its simplicity with some really clever effects and gorgeous pixel artwork. The music is also noteworthy here, with some really well composed backing tracks pushing the action along.
The game itself initially felt like "Children of Morta" to me, but soon added gameplay elements that set it apart. While it peddles the usual fare of upgrades, ammo, health pickups etc. it doesn't really have any character customization as such. Just a basic skill tree that gradually unlocks more abilities as you progress further into the game
The combat is clearly inspired by DMC with a combination of sword and gun attacks and it's ecclesiastical theme. However it didn't feel anywhere near as fluid, polished or responsive as DMC to me.
Most of the advanced combat moves, as well as dodging, require stamina, given that you are regularly trying to weave dodges into your attacks I never felt there was enough stamina to execute effective or satisfyingly combos.
It was also very frustrating that a dodge cancel never seemed responsive or effective, often times the character just continues to slash his way forward in the direction he was facing. This ultimately led to a basic and repetitive playstyle of run in hit once, maybe twice, dodge back out and repeat.
Once you unlock the "death from above" style dive bomb the game becomes a bit more super Mario as you just bounce on the heads of enemies and wait for your stamina to recharge.
Then there is the difficulty....
The game does a good job of familiarizing you with the controls and basic mechanics, steadily ramping up the amount of enemies on screen as you progress and become accustomed to the controls.
Then, all of a sudden the game just says "Fuck it! have at him!!" and literally throws you into the middle of an arena with several waves of tougher enemies followed by a boss fight.
The difficulty just ramped up from a casual 2 or 3 to a full on 9. A very steep curve.
Performance wise, it's a pixel art game and shouldn't tax any machine with specs greater than "potato", although I did find a certain amount of screen tear and no in game Vsync option.
I found that enabling Vsync via the Nvidia app and capping frame rate at 60fps helped with this, but it was a far from perfect fix.
It's also worth noting that there is a coop mode, but I didn't have the opportunity to test that at the time of writing this review.
Overall Fallen Angel is a decent game, both pretty to look at and fun to play. Definitely not one for those easily put off by a steep difficulty curve, but a rewarding hack and slash nonetheless.
A full playthrough will take you approximately 7 hours and there isn't an awful lot of replayability value past that. It's currently priced at $19.99 on Steam and personally I think that's a bit steep. It's a definite buy at $9.99 so one to keep on the old wishlist!
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