More than just a competent roguelike fresh out of early access, Skul: The Hero Slayer delivers power-swapping action and a mostly satisfying loop that should sufficiently satisfy your Dead Cells or Hades cravings.
After a few dozen runs through Skul: The Hero Slayer I was surprised that the game kept managing to dole out new items and powers for my minuscule skeleton to use in his fight against the forces of good. Like many roguelikes, Skul needs a deep pool of variety to incentivize players to keep pushing through familiar fights and repetitive content. The game pushes a unique power-swapping mechanic that would make Kirby grin and it’s there that Skul becomes something more, despite striking many familiar cords that would make lesser games crumple.
Irresistible scope of Hades be damned, I must confess to not having played one of 2020’s obvious champions. Despite this glaring hole (I’m waiting for a PlayStation release), Supergiant’s ability to weave a tale in a roguelike seems to be one of Hades‘ highlights. Still, I love roguelikes. There’s something about these games that are so inherently simple yet complex enough to beg repeated plays. But stories have never been their strong suits and Skul makes few strides in that arena.
SouthPAW Games gently twists the narrative by passing the baton over to the perspective of the “bad guys” or, in the world of Harmonia, demons. The Demon Castle has been overrun by the knights of Carleon and the Demon King has been kidnapped. Skeleton and ogre warriors are defeated and the Witch has been captured. Skul, a tiny skeleton, borrows a fellow skeleton’s head and fights his way through the steel plated forces only to be absolutely walloped by a human calling himself The First Hero.
Skul might not have skin and his friends might have two heads but these aren’t your typical monsters. Players learn there was a truce between the demons and Carleon and that something or someone caused that truce to be broken. From there, the story doesn’t really go anywhere and that’s perfectly okay. Bits and pieces of plot unfold through cutscenes, after boss fights, and a handful of conversations between characters. Other NPCs will offer some world building if you pester them enough but the repetitive, lengthy nature of gameplay almost guarantees you’re going to forget most of the finer points. Of course Skul’s past is important and certainly there is more than meets the eye to the heroes and their fight against the demons. But did I care? Ultimately, I thought Skul had a cute but forgettable story that didn’t force itself down the player’s throat and resulted in a surprisingly lengthy finale.
The meat of Skul: The Hero Slayer is the dozens of skulls that players can equip to alter and improve Skul’s base abilities. In his starting form, Skul is a simple fighter that can whack heroes with a large bone club, throw his skull for magic damage, and teleport to where that skull lands. Throughout every run whether at a shop or as a reward for clearing a room, new skulls can be equipped that grant new powers and a new moveset.
Skulls range from simple in concept to weird or referential. The most common skulls are basic physical attackers that use swords, shields, and daggers to attack. Players may come across a genie that triples in size after bursting out of a magic lamp or a Ghost Rider knock-off that uses a chain and can hop on a motorcycle to run over enemies. Once I played as the Predator and several times I had a warrior skull that had a red slash across his face like Kratos.
Visually, Skul‘s design impresses as each of these skulls looks and animates differently and usually has multiple forms when upgraded. But the beauty is not only skin deep as players will find out when experimenting with various builds. Skulls focus on power, speed, or a blend of the two. Personally, I gravitated towards power skulls as they doled out more damage but players have the ability to equip two skulls at a time so striking a balance is not difficult to do. Regardless of what head he has, Skul is capable of double jumping, dashing on the ground or in mid-air, and attacking. Equipped skulls can have up to three unique abilities that are set to a cooldown and are mainly used to deal burst damage or eliminate multiple targets at once. Many skulls are equipped with passive abilities that trigger when their requirements are fulfilled. Finally, when swapping between either skull, a unique ability will trigger but also prevent players from swapping back until the cooldown resets.
It may sound overwhelming but players can easily see what a skull can do from their menu or by simply standing over the skull and reading its stats. While I found most skulls to be satisfying to use, it can turn exhausting after encountering the same dozen or so skulls for the initial chunk of the game. I constantly came across the werewolf skull, the Groot-like Ent skull, and basic melee fighters.
This sentiment began to seep into the roguelike nature of Skul in a negative way. Being a fan of the genre, I often look for how a game will make players stronger for subsequent runs while allowing them to dive deeper or play a little riskier. The power crawl in Skul feels aggressively slow, especially when attempting to rapidly progress through the game. Players acquire a currency called Dark Quartz that can be given to the Witch to upgrade Skul‘s base stats and grant some extremely useful benefits. Investing in Dark Quartz is the primary way to increase physical and magic damage and raise HP. Players can also reduce cooldowns, come back to life after hitting zero HP, or slow down time after a swap.
Dark Quartz isn’t a rare resource but the amount required to update a stat begins to dramatically rise after investing in a couple levels. Getting past the second main boss proved to be the first daunting task of Skul but even after repeatedly dying at this point, I usually would only earn a few hundred Dark Quartz. With the priciest upgrades costing upwards of 3000 Dark Quartz, it’s apparent that SouthPAW expects players to focus on combat prowess and skill rather than pure stat boosts.
Enemy design in Skul is fairly basic and the difficulty often leans towards sheer numbers and fast attacks. Being constantly aware of enemy placement and attack patterns is crucial. Players need to know when to jump out of the way of a ranged attack while dashing away from traps and damaging AoEs. In the third world and beyond, players should expect large trap rooms and a flurry of enemies that become increasingly hard to avoid. Death is expected, especially if you aren’t careful. What may be a gift and a curse is that the formula for level randomizers runs pretty dry. After about thirty runs I felt like I had seen every configuration the first few worlds had to offer. The only way for players to progress is to kill every enemy in a room and there were times I unknowingly knocked an enemy off a platform and had to run back to find them before exiting. I dreaded rooms that were a series of floating platforms that spawned mages who shot fireballs at me while I had to constantly jump around to kill them–which is no easy task if your equipped skulls do a slam attack instead of mid-air slashes.
Because Dark Quartz upgrades are meant for base stats, luck is the biggest factor in play for Skul. Yes, that’s a genre hallmark but here, it can feel a bit prohibitive. Unless you are lucky and get an extremely strong skull, it’s best to focus on upgrading a skull using bones. Bones are given when destroying an unwanted skull or from a captured friendly that might be randomly found during a run. Common skulls take anywhere from 10 to 30 bones to upgrade with rarer skulls requiring even more. An upgraded skull does more damage but can gain a new ability.
Players can also spend gold to buy items that enhance your abilities. Items may increase max HP, increase physical or magical damage, or something more drastic. Players can find items that conjure up friendly spirits that attack enemies, items that cause explosions when attacked, items that drop bombs when dashing, or items that grant random bonuses every few seconds. There were times I collected items in Skul that triggered effects and I wasn’t entirely sure why. Unfortunately, only nine items can be held at a time so there will come a point when players need to decide what items will benefit their currently equipped skulls or push them over the edge.
Gold, items, bones, and upgraded skulls do not carry over into new runs. I expected this with gold, items, and even bones but I was disappointed that upgraded skulls reset. After this realization, I felt slightly defeated but it also allowed me to put more focus in how I directed my runs. At the end of each room, Skul usually gives players two doors to go through. These easily identifiable doors will lead to items, gold, or a new skull. I eventually forced myself to try for each skull room to give myself enough bones to upgrade even the most basic skull. The results were surprising as even the most common skull can be a more effective killer when boosted.
By the time players are skilled or strong enough to near the final boss, Skul: The Hero Slayer becomes a strange dance of difficulty and wild action. Watching a room flood with enemies and praying that you have enough health and smart enough timing to execute the right combination of abilities doesn’t get old. Yes, it has a tendency to get frustrating as a full run can take at least an hour and defeat at a late stage means retreading increasingly lackluster boss fights. If Skul‘s upgrade economy was a bit more generous, it would be palatable for more inexperienced players.
Regardless, the ability to swap back and forth between multiple skulls is a delight. Dedicating enough time to learn how even the simplest skull can become a deadly warrior is a satisfying punishment few games properly execute. Because of this, Skul: The Hero Slayer becomes more than just a competent roguelike, with strong enough bones that could grow over time.
