Decay of Logos Review - Decay Of Dreams

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Decay of Logos. From the title, I thought this was going to be another one of those logo/company guessing games however I was relieved to actually find a rather cool looking third-person RPG game. Developed by Amplify Creations and published in partnership with Rising Star Games, Decay of Logos has been on a journey since early conception by game designer and programmer Andre Constantino in 2014. Playing as a young girl named Ada you explore the fantasy world with your mystical Elk as you seek revenge on the culprits behind your village being destroyed. All is, however, not what it seems.

Gameplay

Yes, everything isn’t at all as it seems! I will confess, I have held back on writing this review for a little while. I wanted the devs to address issues that other gamers have picked up on and give them a chance to repair the game. Some things have been implemented however the gameplay is still not the best.

Decay of Logos is a puzzling game, from the off it is up to you to wander around and work out what you need to do. Small glowing rocks dotted along the grassy landscape offer you an insight/tutorial into what the controls are such as light and heavy attack, jumping, sprinting, etc. a little akin to a Dark Souls style but without actually telling you what your goal is.

As you explore the world, you encounter a handful of different enemies, from a small onion with teeth to wooden walking trees that seem slightly modelled on ‘Groot’, some with shields and some that do not. Locking onto your target helps you aim your attack, well it should do in theory however what I found was that there seemed to be a delay when swinging your sword as the enemy slowly animated around the screen.

The frame rate suffers horrendously during a battle and this also makes it hard to time attacks and defensive manoeuvres. Other frustrations that I encountered was that some attacks failed to connect on occasion despite connecting fine the last time. When the enemy attacks it appears as if they have a massive area of attack damage leading you to be hit even though you think that you are out of distance.

This was evident during the first goblin boss who used a foot stomp attack when you were in front of them, however, even if you had managed to get behind them the forward-facing attack that they carry out still managed to knock Ada to the ground. Another thing that really bugged me was the amount of damage an enemy would inflict, especially early on in the game, for example, if you caught a swing of Groot’s sword you would lose almost 3/4 of your health.

After two hits you are dead. If you are to die you respawn right back at the beginning of the area, oh and talking of respawning, so do all of the enemies you have killed so far. Bit by bit the joy of what could have been a really good adventure game just gets sucked out of you. Decay of Logos feels so unbalanced.

Combat aside, you seem to level up randomly as there isn’t an experience bar to look at. Levelling up allows you to become stronger therefore I found that the enemies now became a lot easier to kill. this didn’t, however, make combat any more fun due to the other issues.

As you explore the open world there are many caves and tunnels to explore that reward you with weapons, armour and magical potions. It is worth noting that Decay of Logos uses a degradation system therefore you will need to constantly switch your items to ensure maximum damage and defence. Usually, it isn’t hard to find something with better stats than what you currently have though.

Asylums seem to be a favourite in Decay of Logos. These are basically a series of large structures housing multiple platforms, ladders, locked doors, platforms to jump across and ladders. Did I mention ladders? they do love a good ladder! Most of the time you need to do a bit of puzzle-solving such as find a key for a door or a lever to let you into the next room. Bewarned, enemies can be relentless if you encounter a few of them in one room. Cue getting Ada stuck on pieces of scenery and objects as you try and position her for an ambush or during combat.

Right at the beginning of the game, you make friends with a mysterious elk who, once bribed with berries, allows you to ride them. This comes in handy when wanting to quickly get through certain open-world areas however the control of the elk leads you to walk them into rocks, trees and anything else you don’t really want to walk into.

Graphics

Decay of Logos is great visually with lovely vibrant artwork however that is about it. The frame rate drops make the gameplay seem jerky especially during combat and the character animations are slow. There are also strange things going on when you are not charging around, this was evident when I witnessed the elk slowly slide away from me while on a grassy plain and concertina up onto a rock face with its back legs sticking through it. It was such a shame.

Audio

The soundtrack is atmospheric, giving Decay of Logos a mystical eerie feel to it. The sound effects are not the worst you will ever hear with swinging metal swords landing blows making a nice swish and clank and footsteps running through grass making that crisp crunch. Once Ada has a few potions strapped to her belt, however, she does begin to sound like a milkman carrying the empties though.

Longevity

I’m sorry, Decay of Logos is not going to hold your attention for long in its current form. Even IF everything was fixed it will still never be the game it could have been thanks to the terrible combat mechanism and clunky gameplay.

Conclusion

It’s not often that I have a really bad game. Decay of Logos could have been amazing. Graphically it really caught my eye at the beginning and I really wanted to get stuck into the lore behind the world and progress through the story but I just could not. It is such a shame really, hopefully, many lessons will be learnt from this as Rising Star really did have something that could have been awesome and clearly there are some talented people working for them, it just fell apart when it came to the storytelling, the structure of the game and the combat system.

Decay of Logos receives the Thumb Culture Bronze Award.