Odinfall has the makings of an excellent twin-shooter roguelike, but it remains to be seen as to how it handles its earlygame difficulty curve and grind. Its beautiful pixel-art, creative weapon modification, and deep character-building show promise for roguelike lovers everywhere.
Chumps Preview is a special kind of post where we unofficially preview games in Early Access, Beta, or are otherwise “unfinished.” This kind of preview is meant to be a first impression rather than a definitive review where we provide a rating to determine a game’s value. As such, we fully expect a game covered in a Chumps Preview to have room for improvement, some bugginess/incompleteness, and other features associated with similar games in the category.
Twin-stick shooters are one of my favorite genres of games. When a roguelike element is meshed with a twin-stick’s bullet hell difficulty, replaying becomes refreshing despite daunting difficulty. In my time previewing developer Ember Paw Games’ Odinfall, I was reminded of the incredibly fun yet incredibly difficult Enter the Gungeon, but far more Norse and far less silly.
Okay – it’s a little silly, but not the punnyess that made me fell in love with Gungeon. It’s a mess of fun, though.
Odinfall is a Viking-themed, rogue-like, twin-stick featuring procedurally generated levels, weapon modifications, and responsive gunplay. It’s chock full of variety thanks to how weapons could be modified with up to three modifiers and I could select levels from an overworld. The levels themselves contained destructible environments – larger enemies could launch explosive bullets that would disintegrate rocks and walls that I attempted to use at cover. At the end of each short, but sweet, level, I would face a ridiculously designed boss.
Odinfall is one of the harder twin-stick shooters I’ve played as of late. Consumable rewards (think gold, ammunition, and health) that drop from treasure chests expire after sitting for a few seconds, so I would constantly have to think fast as I was dodging enemies’ bullets. I also had to learn that my own explosive weapons, like rocket launchers and grenade launchers, would hurt me if I was too close. The fact that one of my first runs ended from dying to an explosion from my own gun was frustrating, but I picked up on trigger discipline the more I played.
There are several things that could smooth out Odinfall’s difficulty curve. First, I can understand that expiring rewards are used to entice players into making risky plays in a large room full of enemies and bullets, but it’s frustrating to miss out on health upgrades and/or ammo when times are tight. If there was a way for all consumables to be vacuumed up upon the full completion of a room’s enemies, that would encourage players to attempt to finish a room in its entirety before progressing and feel like they’re rewarded without fear of an expiring reward on the other side of the room. Second, explosives don’t have the clearest explosion radii. There were a handful of situations where I thought I was outside of an explosion range only to learn that I was still too close, prematurely ending my run.
I get it, though – some roguelike twin-shooters are designed to test players’ mettle with increasingly difficult win conditions and punishing bullet patterns. An “easy mode” should be considered to keep the less-mechanically-gifted players interested in getting to the end.
Odinfall’s cast of colorful characters span both futuristic and animalistic. During my playthrough, I had unlocked three characters: Britta, a “cyberserker” who could use her metallic arm to pummel enemies into oblivion; Moose, a massive tank who can deflect damage with his shield; and Gunilla (my favorite), a gunrunner who could temporarily dualwield guns and fire them faster than usual. While they didn’t really interact with each other or Loki, I could learn small glimpses about them in the prison that served as a hub in between runs.
The more I used Gunilla, the more experience I gained that I could use to acquire perks from a perk tree. In roguelikes, perks that last between runs help make future runs easier. That said, I wish there was a way for trees to feature some universal perks that are shared across all characters, such as bonus max health or increased movement speed. It’s nice that the perks in the skill trees are currently unique to each character but seeing as there’s a leveling system and a large number of skills available, would be nice to have some more to choose from. Right now, the current leveling feels grindier than I prefer when it comes to unlocking the high-priced upper echelons of skill trees. Shared experience would be a great way to alleviate that grind, too.
Odinfall’s thematic is very unique, making for a roguelike twin-stick shooter that’s capable of standing on its own without reusing common character archetypes from other games. The decision to fuse cybernetic futurism and Norse mythology is excellent in that regard. I never thought I would see a serpentine Loki that looks more like a cybernetic Overlord than a god of mischief, but I dig it! Levels and enemies are quite colorful, with enemy bullets using a bright red aesthetic to denote danger in a colorful apocalypse. The soundtrack feels like a cross between Advance Wars’ gritty and perky guitar riffs alongside Metal Slug Tactics’ plucky nostalgia bombs. I can’t wait to hear more of the soundtrack in the full release!
For an Early Access title, Odinfall plays like a roguelike that is near completion. I’ve been conditioned to expect placeholder art, a limited set of weapons/characters, and a small handful of objectives available for players to asses as the game is refined. Instead, Ember Paw Games is using Early Access to focus almost exclusively on fleshing out its existing systems, refining the fun, and adding new characters before its upcoming full launch. While I can’t assign it a score at this time, I will admit that I had a hell of a good time in my six hours testing the game. I look forward to see how the developers evolve Odinfall in the coming months!
Odinfall has the makings of an excellent twin-shooter roguelike, but it remains to be seen as to how it handles its earlygame difficulty curve and grind. Its beautiful pixel-art, creative weapon modification, and deep character-building show promise for roguelike lovers everywhere.
