Ravenswatch – PS5 Review

Ravenswatch is a top-down roguelike action game from French crew Passtech Games and while we’re probably all a bit over the roguelike wave now, this is one that, to Passtech’s credit, does offer up some pretty interesting ideas.

For a game that doesn’t really offer much of a story (there’s an opening cutscene but that’s about it), Ravenswatch borrows from all manner of tales and fables that most gamers should be familiar with.  You start off with a choice of four playable characters.  Beowulf is your go to for hacky-slashy, tanky combat while The Snow Queen prefers to operate at range using ice decoys and projectiles to do damage from afar.  But you’ve also got some more unique characters too.  The Pied Piper damages enemies with musical notes and can summon a small rat army.  His weapons also behave differently between day and night because at night his shots will pierce.  He also has an aim-to-shoot primary weapon, giving him a real twin-stick shooter feel.

Also interesting is Little Red Riding Hood.  She initially appears to be a fairly vanilla character but at night she turns into a much more powerful wolf which is a super cool mechanic and gives her a really unique playing style.  Aside from that initial quartet you also have other unlockable playable characters such as Aladdin, Geppetto (from the Pinocchio story), Melusine, Carmilla (vampire) and Sun Wukong who all unlock under various conditions.

The game initially requires you to beat three chapters.  You start off in the first area and then just have to explore what is a randomly-generated layout.  Each of these stages is peppered with enemy mobs and points of interest.  You’ll find stashes of dream shards (the game’s currency), sub-bosses, the occasional task to complete, treasure chests and so on.  There’s not really any side quests or adventures – the closest to that is one where you help defend a guy’s home – so really it’s just a case of running around trying to find cash and upgrades.

And you really do have to run because each stage has a strict time limit.  You get just ten or so minutes to explore before you are then teleported straight to that chapter’s boss.  And once you beat them, that’s it, you have to go to the no chapter so there’s none of the usual roguelike stuff of searching every corner of the map to make sure you’re powered up enough for the battle ahead.

In terms of the combat, it’s the variety provided by your playable characters and their possible builds that shines the most.  The actual feel of the combat is a little bit light, a lot of enemies with a lot of health getting slowly chipped away.  It’s not particularly exciting for what it is but it’s the tactical options that make it good.  We found ourselves drawn to The Snow Queen’s ranged build and you really have to be mindful the whole time and think tactically about how to take on your foes.  Other characters behave in different ways and so every player should have a fairly unique experience while playing.

That’s also down to the sheer number of attacks you have on offer.  Each character has attacks mapped to various buttons and triggers on the DualSense, all with cooldowns, upgrades and perks to consider.  Ravenswatch can get pretty complicated in that respect and while that’s great for longevity and depth, the onboarding for new players is pretty harsh with barely anything being explained.  You just start off in an area with a shopkeeper (who you can’t buy anything from at that point) and then just pick a direction and have to figure out everything for yourself.

It does eventually start to make sense though and before long you’ll start making some decent progress.  You’re kind of locked in on one character for a while though as they start levelling up which is a shame but understandable and it does take a while to get into how they all play and develop so expect to spend a lot of hours figuring out Ravenswatch‘s many complexities.  There’s a lot to discover for sure.

What we liked about all this is that, as complicated as it all is, Ravenswatch felt a lot more direct than Hades.  There’s very little faff in terms of story and getting started.  We’d have liked a bit more handholding at the start and there’s still stuff that we don’t entirely get even now but we prefer the direct approach than having a million tutorials thrown at us.  What we weren’t thrilled about, and it’s a real issue for the whole genre, is the repetitiveness of it all.

The three chapters all feel very similar and all you’re doing is playing through them over and over until you unlock new ones later on.  And of course, when you die it’s back to the beginning.  Between that and the time limit, it just feels like you don’t really get to be part of the world and instead each run just feels like a supermarket trolley dash or something.  We even found ourselves running through mobs just to get to the points of interest and avoiding certain things (such as that house defending task) because we couldn’t spare the time for them.  After dozens of runs, the idea of starting from scratch yet again isn’t all that appealing.  But many players out there have happily put in hundreds of hours on the PC version so your mileage very much could vary.

The other consideration is that there’s a big focus on co-op here.  Played solo, the game is enjoyable but can be a slog.  The online co-op supports four players but you might struggle to get your mates to shell out £25 for yet another indie roguelike and, because it’s no longer 2008, you’ll find that most online players don’t have their mics turned on.

Visually, we weren’t all that impressed.  The quality of the graphics is pretty good.  There’s a sort of cel-shaded look to things and it’s nice seeing little animated details in the background (not that you ever get to stop and admire them) but the areas themselves are pretty bland.  The characters and their foes look alright and are well animated but the game isn’t amazing looking and having the build number permanently stamped in the top right makes the game look a little unfinished.  It feels like the art design kind of lets things down there a little.  That said, the action is nice and clear even during the biggest battles and that’s what matters.

There’s definitely a lot to like with Ravenswatch though and when you put a good run together it’s as satisfying as any good roguelike.  What shines here is the roster of playable characters though and the various builds you can create.  The grind, repetitiveness and stark nature of the game aren’t enough to ruin that but maybe hold the game back from true greatness.