KAKU: Ancient Seal is a new action-adventure indie game from developer Bingobell (China). Looking through the game’s introduction trailers, we can clearly see the influence from The Legends of Zelda series, specifically the Breath of the Wild version.

Let’s take a look at the following review with Vietgame.asia!

YOU WILL LIKE

HOURS OF ENJOYABLE ENTERTAINMENT!

The journey of Kaku – the main character of the game – takes place right in a segment chasing a small flying pig, leading to a series of small events that cause him to fall into a mysterious ice and snow cave. After escaping from the cave, the story begins.

Actually, the plot content of Kaku: Ancient Seal… there’s nothing to discuss, the main thing the developer wants players to experience is the gameplay.

As an open world game with a large map, the first commendable point of the developer is that it does not create a series of densely packed things on the map like most games today (typically of Ubisoft).

The amount of content of Kaku: Ancient Seal is condensed, mainly in unlocking “Crystal” pillars, solving puzzles or finding your way to treasure chests, green energy blocks, and “lore” pillars. scattered for players to search. Occasionally players will be given a few small side quests, they are not many but the rewards are quite worth taking the time to do.

Kaku: Ancient Seal also offers a lot of interesting puzzles, climbing, and platforming. Most of them are carefully designed, some places even make the writer “die up, die down”! Although it does not allow players to be as creative as the style of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of Kingdom, overall the game still has depth and is worth experiencing.

It can be said that the exploration of Kaku Ancient Seal is quite well done, very entertaining and can make players go through all areas to search every corner thanks to the design of mysterious areas and winding paths. smart and clever.

The game’s combat system is divided into melee and ranged combat, the upgrades for both play an important role because the game is quite boring and challenging at first. Don’t neglect upgrading your range because there are many types of monsters, especially bosses with 4 types of attributes. Besides combat, these 4 attributes also help in the puzzle solving process.

The melee combat system is quite effective as besides quick normal attacks, the player also has other powerful techniques such as the ability to transform into a “Saiyan” like Songoku – when the attacks are extremely fierce, dazzling the entire screen. Similar to long-range abilities, close combat also has 3 other “ultimate” skills for players to “beat” difficult enemies.

The exploration of Kaku: Ancient Seal is done quite well, very entertaining and can make players go to all areas to search every corner.

The equipment system of Kaku: Ancient Seal is streamlined, intuitive and they all have different advantages and disadvantages, further improved thanks to runes to “press gems” to increase the main character’s abilities. These equipment are beautifully designed and worth searching for in the game’s vast and rich map.

The graphics of Kaku: Ancient Seal become more impressive as the game progresses. Although it is an indie game, the art direction is relatively harmonious and many scenes will captivate players. Surprisingly, the game also runs very stably on Steam Deck and during nearly 15 hours of play, the writer has not once crashed or encountered any errors that affected the experience.

YOU WILL HATE

INCOMPLETE

Although the developer has delayed many times for Kaku: Ancient Seal to be completed, the “early-access” appearance is still present from the beginning to the end of the journey.

The first thing that’s easy to notice is the sloppy user interface, with tons of crowded text and fonts or an untidy, unprofessional menu. Especially when players open the game map, they are immediately overwhelmed! Honestly, they’re not bad, they just need to be trimmed down and they’ll be fine.

Next, although the open world is really beautiful, the distribution of game progress is uneven, especially in the ice and snow area, which is quite boring when the story is long and uninteresting to increase players’ excitement.

Although the amount of content to be discovered is not overwhelming, it is also repetitive, making it possible for players to “skim” over it later, because there is nothing special to look forward to anymore. And probably 90% of the main and side missions are collecting this or that item or defeating this and that group of soldiers. Fortunately, thanks to the level design being good enough, at least players can still play around.

The next confusing point is that the most interesting part of the game is that the challenging dungeons are “thrown” through another universe – literally? Why aren’t those dungeons included in the vast world of Kaku: Ancient Seal to create more excitement for exploration?

And to add to the confusion, the stat upgrades for equipment and skills are also in that separate universe! While the game has stone tables to “forge” fuel, why not integrate the ability to upgrade skills and weapons there, instead of having to separate them so that every time the player needs to upgrade something, they have to wait for it to be loaded? scene (loading)?

The game’s other major regrettable point also comes from trying to “swing” in the open world, with the usual weakness: superficial plot investment. All of them are added in the true sense of “giving”, full of pitfalls and creating the feeling that the plot is added last in the development process, to so-called “lead” the player into Kaku ‘s world. : Ancient Seal.

Although I understand that the game wants players to focus on the gameplay experience, if they want to intentionally indirectly tell stories to enrich the world of Kaku: Ancient Seal , they must do as well as other indie games, such as Journey , Figment. 2: Creed Valley, etc…

Because of the sloppiness in the plot, the development of the main character seems to be absent, leading to the sympathy of other supporting characters also disappearing. Unintentionally, causing the overall experience of Kaku: Ancient Seal to lose points. Not to mention the game is also very “sparing” on cutscenes, instead the dialogues and 3D images of the characters look… boring.

Although the voice acting uses its own language like Gravity Rush Remastered , the music or sound is not outstanding, which has “contributed” to creating a bland score for Kaku: Ancient Seal.

sloppiness in the plot, making the main character’s development seem nonexistent, leading to the disappearance of the sympathy of other supporting characters