Lords of Exile (Nintendo Switch) – The test

Many games have given their name to a genre: Mario Kart, GTA or even the one that interests us today, Castlevania. Clones of these famous games followed, taking advantage of the hype generated by the original game! But are these substitutes really worth it?

Conan in Kimono

Lords of Exile is an action-platformer in which the player controls Gabriel, an orphan taken in by a village in the Far East. The latter, destroyed by marauders, pushes Gabriel to become an assassin by learning the techniques of the samurai to never again let such events happen without being able to act. Here we are in control of a bloodthirsty hero who will have to fight to free the lands of Exilia from the curses that weigh on them, and avenge the death of his fiancée in the process.

This whole story is just a pretext to destroy enemies with great blows of blades. The game is very similar to Castlevania: you progress through two-dimensional levels with horizontal scrolling and you move from table to table. The jumps, the enemy movements, the traps that we encounter, the flying, crawling or jumping enemies, we clearly feel the connection with Castlevania in all of these elements.

You will have to go through eight levels with end bosses whose patterns you will have to discover and understand in order to complete the game. The levels have poetic names such as the cursed mountains, the anger of Nagoro or the fortress of Galagar. We are very much in the tone of the 8-bit games of the late 80s, during the NES era. The graphics are to match, a very retro pixel-art, but which is well done, which is clear, fluid and above all very readable.

A Belmont cousin in the Land of the Rising Sun

There is one small problem that deserves our attention, however: the jump mechanics are not absolutely precise and, at times, cause you to miss certain jumps or prevent you from crossing certain passages on the first try. In any case, failure is never punitive. You start again at the beginning of the level or at a checkpoint and you can continue your path.

At the end of the level, defeating the boss allows our hero to unlock new powers, such as a shadow that appears in his wake and allows us to use a devastating weapon. To do this, you have to fill up your fury gauge, which is added to the life bar at the top of the screen. You also unlock a double jump at one point and other special features that will allow you to complete the eight levels in a few short hours. The die & retry is present, but having checkpoints in the middle of the course means you don't get frustrated by having to start all over again.

In addition to these various special powers, Gabriel has a main weapon which is a samurai sword and by breaking crates, he can pick up throwing weapons like daggers or scythes. From time to time, we find places where we can buy back life or refill our fury gauge, small bonuses very useful to reach the end of the level. It should be noted that the game only saves our progress when we beat a boss, so it is imperative to reach the end of the level to be able to resume later without going back to the beginning of the game. Finally, it should be noted that in terms of sound, we are in full retro trip with 8-bit sounds and aggressive and heady music like at the time.

Lords of Exile is available oneShop at a price of twenty euros.