Seraph is all about jumping, flipping, dashing and shooting demons in the face – providing they have them. There is no aiming required in Seraph your gun auto locks on to nearby targets meaning you can focus solely on movement and you’re going to need to keep mobile almost all the time because if you don’t you’ll probably wind up dead.
Seraph, from UK based developers Dreadbit, is a 2D action platformer where you play as an Angel who is battling her way through a prison – called the Corangelus, a nautical vessel that is infested with demons to restore her lost powers. You must utilise and master your mobility and powers in order to defeat your foes.
The game features and interesting difficulty mechanic that is shown in the bottom corner of the screen at all times. It essentially means the better you’re performing the more difficult the game will become for you, which also means that you’re rewards will be a lot better. Over time you’ll also be earning XP, finding new weapons and unlocking new abilities, these can range from things like health and damage buffs to more interesting abilities like being able to push enemies away from you in a sort of force push like way, that will knock back all foes a few metres. There is a surprising amount of depth to get in to once you start to progress further through the game. In order to unlock some of the abilities you’ll need to collect certain items by defeating enemies. The one problem I have with the abilities and crafting is that you can only do it at the end of levels, there is no option to do it mid game which is a little frustrating, but not a huge issue.
The gameplay offers a very polished experience with the combat being slick and satisfying. The auto aiming doesn’t feel cheap or make things too easy as movement is very much required to prosper and needing to aim at the same time could make things pretty frustrating and probably too difficult. The addition of the difficulty multiplier mentioned earlier also helps to keep things fresh and ticking over with the game usually always offering some kind of challenge and boss fights giving you that extra little bump in difficulty.
Levels are randomly generated meaning that a play through should feel pretty unique, but I did think that some of the level designs felt a bit too similar in places, with a dark and almost modern industrial theme seeming to run throughout the game.
For me the story was largely forgettable, it wasn’t that is was that bad, I was just more interested in jumping around and shooting stuff and that’s fine! Sometimes it’s ok to just have gameplay that is really enjoyable and I certainly enjoyed what was on offer here.
Seraph is available now on PC and is coming to PS4 at some point, but no date is confirmed. Release on Xbox One is also planned at some point but it seems like its dependent on how well it sells.
-Will
