izigame.me

I am very split on this game, hence why I wanted to write a review.
On the one hand I really like the setting, the characters, the myth it is trying to tell.
It plays fairly well, some interesting tools and I actually loved the boss fights.
But I think the execution in general leaves something to be desired.

The story had potential, given its setting, but fell flat due to the bad writing and vagueness of it in my opinion.
First, the dialogue in this game, imo, is not grea.. The swearing really puts me off in this slavic setting. Moreover, it feels like gen alpha or gen z language, which does not age well, does not show professionalism and takes me out of the immersion of the story. This is something I did definitely expect to be better in this game, given its focus on story.
Moreover, this feels like a story that just misses the pieces in general of the whole puzzle. An overused comparison to be sure, but dark souls does does this a lot better, because the story is there, just in the item descriptions. At least most of it.
I think this story would have benefited from a bit more clarity on certain things, especially since most will not be familiar with the legend of Baba Yaga. In this case, it is NOT a bad thing to have a bit more of a linear and clearly told story and theme. Give a bit more depth to these characters, explain the scenario's a bit more, explore the character backstories more and you have a fantastic story on your hands.
Also better voice acting could have helped, but this was not the turn off for me and I know this game probably had a limited budget, so I will let this one slide.

I also think the world could be a bit more diverse with more enemy variety, a bit more environment variety, etc. Given the small studio, it is understandable, but It does get boring for me after a while. Hence why I did not want to explore more other than finishing the story, sadly I did find a very cool area, which I wont spoil, but other than that, nothing that drew me to the world.
The same holds for the combat and movement in this game. The combat and movement sometimes still feels very clunky. Sprinting does not feel like sprinting, you get too easily interrupted and there is very little to change up the combat imo. It is either doing damage, doing damage over time or doing build up and then a lot of damage, all with the bow and perhaps with a bit of magic sprinkled in. Kind of obvious given the tags, but I still wish for a bit more variety. I did not unlock all the skills, because the game was not fun enough for me personally to unlock them all, so I could be wrong, but man, the fact that I did not care about the skills is not a good sign.

Sadly, even though it is an indie studio, I cannot recommend this game. I feel as if the slavic myth was the main driving force and that was all they wrote in terms of quality. It is an ok game, but they really need to step up their game if they want to make something truly memorable. All the components are there, it is just a matter of executing them better than they have now. Hopefully, through this, they can read the feedback and improve these components in their next game, which, even though I did not enjoy the game that much, I am still very much looking forward to, if they do continue development of course.