Twins of Olus Steam Demo Review
Verdict: Play
A narrative twin souls-lite where you swap between a little sword warrior and a floating ghost mage, carried by lovely a
Twins of Olus hands you two characters and asks you to switch between them on the fly. There's a small sword-swinging warrior called Lions, and a ghost mage called Creo who drifts along beside him. I played about fifty minutes and finished the demo. Here's my honest confession up front: I spent nearly all of it as the warrior and barely touched the ghost. I still had a great time.
My verdict is a play. Twins of Olus looks great, sounds great, and the humour had me doing a Cockney accent on stream for a map-seller I'll never see again. I finished the demo happy, even though I basically ignored one of its two main characters. That's the thing I most want the full game to fix, push me into spots where I actually need the ghost, and the twin idea could turn into something really good. As a first taste it's an easy play.
Pros
- The two-hero swap is a smart traversal-and-combat idea, and throwing the ghost so you can teleport across a gap just works.
- The writing is very funny, from a Cockney rhyming-slang map-seller to Cawmila Cawford's endless caw puns, and it fully commits to the bit.
- Lovely art, good sound, and a camera that reangles itself to keep everything readable.
- Smashing everything for offerings and building a little five-strong entourage of upgrade followers.
Cons
- The demo never pushes you to use the ghost mage, so you can coast as the warrior and skip half the twin hook.
- It's easy to lose track of where you've already explored when you're doubling back, and the map doesn't make it obvious what's newly opened.
The two-character swap
The whole idea is that you flip between the two whenever you want. Lions, the little warrior, does the fighting, with a big sword and some armour, and underneath the story this is an Action game first. The ghost, Creo, can't take any damage but opens up other options and abilities.
The trouble is that the demo never really made me need Creo. I could get through most of it just swinging the sword, so that's what I did. I want the full game to test me more and make it make sense to use both characters, rather than letting me coast as one.
Where the twin idea clicks is in the traversal. You can throw the ghost across a gap you could never jump, then teleport the warrior over to where Creo landed. Combat has its own version too. Enemies drop spirits when they die, and switching to the ghost lets you throw those spirits back at the warrior to heal up. There's also a button where the spirit gives you a short burst of invulnerability, handy for a big attack you can't dodge, or for walking straight over a trap.
Combat, loot, and progression
The warrior and that big sword keep the moment-to-moment fighting firmly Hack and Slash. The enemy mix is more varied than I expected, including a crab with an artillery cannon strapped to its back. I smashed absolutely everything I could find, partly because you never know when the loot will be useful.
The bits and materials inside get presented as offerings, which is the light RPG layer here. In return you pick up little figure-like followers that trail behind you as ability upgrades. You can have up to five of them at once, so by the end I had a small entourage jogging along behind me.
Exploration and the map
The demo rewards Exploration, and I liked watching the world open out. There are small teleport portals dotted around, and once you've reached a point you can fly back along the paths to it, which speeds up crossing the map. You do a fair bit of doubling back as you unlock new sections, hunting keys and other bits to push further.
My one gripe is that when you're backtracking it's hard to keep track of where you've already been and what's newly opened. I probably missed some of the demo without realising.
Writing, presentation, and extras
The humour is the surprise. At one point a chap teleports in to sell you maps and talks entirely in Cockney rhyming slang, which had me doing my best Cockney accent live on stream. It probably won't translate to anyone outside the UK, but they went hard on the joke. There's also a bird apothecary called Cawmila Cawford who spends a good two minutes firing off caw puns at every opportunity. Even smashing crates next to the big-bird shopkeeper gets you told off for wrecking their merchandise. It's cringe humour, but it's intentional and done well.
The art and aesthetics are lovely, and the sound is great too. The camera changes its angle depending on which way you're heading, which keeps everything readable as you move through each area. It's the kind of presentation that made me want to keep pushing on just to see the next place.
There's local Co-op where one player takes each character, though I'm honestly not sure how the ghost side feels to play, given I ignored it solo. Creo can't take damage but does deal it, so a second player would be running very differently to me. There are a couple of mini-games tucked in as well, including a moment where you meet a TV-robot face on a boat and have a go at their shooting range.
Developer: Team Verdant
View on Steam
Tags: Action, Adventure, Hack and Slash, Exploration, Puzzle, RPG, Co-op, Indie
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