Ryn: And the thread of life Steam Demo Review
Verdict: Maybe
A gorgeous thread-of-life metroidvania let down, for now, by performance that turns its best moments into a glowing-whit
Ryn: And the thread of life had me the moment it loaded. It's a 3D Metroidvania Hack and Slash with a low-poly, storybook-Horror look, and that look held up for the whole demo. You play a rag doll fighting through a mansion of dolls with a giant pair of scissors. I finished it in about fifty minutes and enjoyed the story and the style. The trouble is it ran badly enough that the best moments kept getting swallowed by glitches, right up to a mini-boss where the screen turned pure white and I lost all the graphics mid-fight.
My verdict is a maybe, and it's a maybe with a big caveat on how it runs for you. If it performs like it did for me, the glitches and the white-outs will drag down a game that looks and sounds lovely. If it runs clean on your machine and you dodge the issues I hit, there's a good hack-and-slash here worth your time. I want more of this world once the performance is sorted, so I'm keeping an eye on it rather than writing it off.
Pros
- The art, music and overall style held up the whole way through, and it's the best part of the demo
- Health shown as lines of thread you re-sew to heal ties the mechanics straight into the story
Cons
- Assets kept glitching out, objects turning glowing white and the carpet vanishing, with near-constant stutter
- A mini-boss whited out completely mid-fight and the screen shake brought on motion sickness
- Keyboard and mouse made the platforming a real struggle before I switched to a controller
The mansion and how it plays
The whole demo takes place inside one crumbling mansion that belongs to an ivory doll, and it works as a Metroidvania in miniature. You hunt through rooms, double back, and pick up pin needles you can throw to take out eyes that lock doors shut.
Plenty of it is Platformer work too, jumping over traps and shoving objects around so you can climb over barriers. On keyboard and mouse the Platformer sections were a real struggle. That only eased off once I switched to a controller.
Combat and progression
Combat is where the Hack and Slash side earns itself. Ryn's main weapon is an oversized pair of scissors, and the same pins you use on doors double as a thrown weapon in a fight. You're mostly cutting down chess pieces, a couple of different types. Then winged gargoyles show up and turn it into an Action puzzle. Those you have to fight in mid-air, double jumping and chaining attacks just to stay off the ground. Quick-time events are stitched into the bigger fights as well, so the Hack and Slash isn't only mashing.
You collect two currencies as you go, cogs and buttons, and for most of the demo I only found one thing to spend them on. A cat lady sells you fish tokens, and those tokens open chests. Inside the chests are mini dolls that bump up some of your abilities. It's a small progression loop in the demo, and I'd expect it to open up a lot more in the full game.
Art, style and story
The art held up the whole way through, and it's the strongest part of the game by a mile. The character, the creatures, the mansion, all of it is done really well, and the music and overall style back it up. My favourite touch is the health bar, which is lines of thread across the top of the screen. To heal, Ryn re-threads and sews herself back together.
As an Adventure it also leans hard on story, most of it delivered as text. I'll admit I skimmed most of it, but you still get the general idea.
Performance problems and the ending
Here's the problem. It ran badly for me the whole way through. I was streaming, so that might be part of it. But I kept the task manager up the whole time, and nothing ever spiked when it struggled, not the CPU, GPU, drive or connection. Objects would drop out and get replaced with a glowing white blank. The carpet kept disappearing and reappearing. The constant stutter made the jumps and the combat both harder to time than they should be.
The worst of it was a mini-boss, a big horse chess piece. The screen kept shaking until the whole thing whited out, and I lost all the graphics mid-fight. That one gave me a bit of motion sickness, and I nearly didn't finish because of it.
The demo closes on a giant boss you don't actually get to fight, with a note to come back for the real thing. Honestly, I was half relieved. It looked terrifying, and I wasn't convinced I could have beaten it anyway. I want to see more of it, more levels and baddies and scenery beyond this one mansion, but the performance has to come first.
Developer: Innombrable
View on Steam
Tags: Metroidvania, Hack and Slash, Action, Adventure, Platformer, Indie
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