I have always been under the belief that games should be fun and not work. That is the main reason why I don’t play Dark Souls games. If I wanted to struggle or get a taste of real life, I would just not play games. Not making yourself miserable should always be your gaming goal.
I’m going down this road with you because recently I played Adventure of Samsara from developer llex Games and publisher Atari. It’s a game that is a miserable experience for the first 30 minutes, as the learning curve is steep and unforgiving. However, after everything settles, it’s one of the more amazing games in 2025.
Adventure of Samsara does a great job with setting up a hauntingly beautiful story while delivering accurate gameplay that hits in the right spots. It’s not perfect, though, as the controls can be somewhat unforgiving, but for the most part, the game works well. I wish more Metroidvania games were like this one.
So, sit back, relax, make sure your sword is sharpened and your armor is ready to go, we are about to embark on a quest to review Adventure of Samsara.
Narratively thick
If you want a narrative, then you get a narrative with Adventure of Samsara. You play as a resurrected Plutonian called the Solar Champion (see armor for details), who is tasked with bringing light and balance back to the land, as well as to the entire universe.
The game has a large amount of lore hiding within it, and a few surprises that relate it back to the old Atari game Adventure. As you progress through the game, you will find clues about who you are and what people expect from you. You will also literally find people who you can help, who add more context to your existence.
The devs at llex Games did a great job of breaking down this narrative and making sure the adventure was worth your time. They do a great job with building up the first act of the game with small breadcrumb details, then it gets laid on thick by the time you get midway through the adventure. To be frank, I didn’t expect this type of narrative structure for a game like this, but it delivers with mystery, compelling characters, and properly placed plot points that shift and move as you shift and move.
This story was entertaining and creative as hell.
Tough gameplay out of the gate
I truly thought this was a miserable game at the beginning of the review period. When I started it and felt the unforgiving controls, the brutal enemies, and what seemed like impossible traversing of terrain, I thought maybe I had acquired another Dark Souls adventure that I was now stuck with taking on. Trust me, the game is a booger with how it treats you right out of the gate. It doesn’t give you any confidence that things will get better.
The controls are the lead misery at the forefront of the adventure, as turning quickly and/or button reaction is just as stiff as a board. For example, the first skeleton I ran into beat the living daylights out of me about three times before I understood the delay in button response. If you press the swing sword button, the sword is as slow as the day. If it struck, and I wanted to move out of the way of the enemy counter, it would be nearly impossible, as it had to follow through all the way, reset the movement, and then allow me to dodge. The timing just felt off.
To make matters worse, it took me twice as long to figure out that I had to jump and press/hold R2 for every ledge I climbed or cliff I jumped to and hung onto. That was a scary proposition at first. Thankfully, the game has no fall damage. It does have a delay to recover if you fall from a far distance, but no damage.
Anyway, the final nail in my mental coffin was trying to understand how to heal myself with potions, which required me to stop moving and press R1. I must have died so many times trying to swing a sword and heal at the same time before realizing that a full stop is required for potion drinking.
Overall, the controls in the first 30 minutes were brutal as hell. They were unforgiving, frustrating, and finicky about how they functioned.
Then something clicked.
The game started to settle.
And all that frustration I was feeling at first began to dissipate.
The controls started to make sense, as the game was just requiring accuracy and forethought. It required me to strategize my moves and think more intelligently, and avoid hacking/slashing my way through enemies. Once I killed my first skeleton, I went to another, more complicated skeleton. Once I dispatched that one, I tried creatures hanging from the wall and/or crawling across the ground. After conquering those, I shifted myself to trying my luck at the first boss, which provided me with even more confidence once I took them down.
Slowly but surely, my focus left the irritating control scheme and settled into the story. Before I knew it, I was hitting my stride, going from place to place, and concentrating on progressing the storyline. The environments that seemed small and restrictive became huge and explorative. In other words, the game eventually got me used to everything and then pointed back to the adventure at hand.
At that point, the game truly became a Metroidvania adventure. It had me cross multiple lands, threw puzzles at me that could only be solved with objects I found or gained from fights, and it was just pure fun.
The payoff
The fun in the game begins with the action, which comes in a variety of ways. The Solar Champion starts with a sword and shield to use. The former is probably the most used object in the bunch, as I forgot the shield existed, even three hours into playing the game. The game doesn’t encourage the shield too much, but it’s there if you need it.
As you progress further into the game, the game starts to pay off and expand on how you can use the sword. For every enemy you take down, you gain some little diamonds from them. If you collect enough, you can turn them in for sword upgrades via a blacksmith in a village located at the top of the first stage you play.
Once you get the first upgrade to the sword, which allows you to charge up a sword swing and then unleash a massive attack on enemies, the game becomes accessible. It goes away from hack-and-slash expectations, and slowly creeps in good strategy that complements the action. For example, there is a skeleton that will charge at you, but if you time it right with this new sword swing feature, you can knock them back, charge again while they gather themselves, and then dispose of them with another swing. If you swung normally, it would take you at least five hits before taking them out. The new sword action makes the gameplay experience so much better, smoother, and any stiffness with the controls becomes a non-issue.
And things get better from there.
Adventure of Samsara also eventually opens a magical spell slot as you progress, which allows you to arm the Solar Champion with a short-term magical spell that could cause damage or could be as simple as teleporting you back to a safe area. Once the spell option opens and you start gathering different spells by finding orbs lying around the large environments, the game becomes bigger in scope, the action becomes better and more strategically complicated, and it gives a hint that the adventure is just going to get bigger.
And it does.
Starting with environments, I didn’t expect this simple-looking game to have so many different places to explore. You start in a cold, snowy mountain area, then after a few puzzles, find yourself going underground in a frozen terrain, and/or eventually in heated caverns of a mineshaft. Multi-tiered levels become multi-tiered lands that hide secrets. Once the first hidden item is found, the game beckons you to keep searching, and search you will.
As you go through the game, it pushes you to explore every nook and cranny, as hidden items and useful goodies are scattered everywhere. Some of the goodies are just simple ‘find me and you got me’ sort of deals, while others require you to solve puzzles and find ways to access the area where the items might be sitting. The latter of which pushes the huge environments to the forefront, while also motivating you to go off the beaten path and off story to find a would-be advantage to the gameplay.
There are so many different layers to this game that I didn’t expect. The wide array of weapons and magic, the hidden areas that you must access via puzzles, and just the huge environments themselves. All of this with a good storyline that slowly unveils itself as it progresses.
This game and its gameplay weren’t on my radar for 2025. The game will give you hours of good gameplay that keeps expanding and becoming more entertaining with every accomplishment. It’s insanely fun.
On that note, let’s wrap up this rambling.
Conclusion
Adventure of Samsara from developer llex Games and publisher Atari is a tough Metroidvania that slowly turns into one of the most unexpected and enjoyable experiences of 2025.
