Luctus

TheAwakening
Nov 16
3 min read

Overview

Luctus brings forth a story of revenge as Nora, a fire mage, loses her sister and is determined to resurrect her by performing a lost ritual, where the ancient protectors of the earth guard the essence she needs.

It features pyromancy both in melee and ranged attacks, and also defensive spells, against multiple enemies and powerful bosses that are difficult to combat. Some small puzzles are featured along the way. While the story and lore aren’t that much, the combat is not perfect but plausible, requiring using everything at your disposal.

(Note that the game uses a few AI artworks, but everything else, the characters and music, is personally crafted.)

Gameplay

Nora has both a fire whip as a melee weapon and can cast fireballs at a distance. When you use either, they have a couple of personal, special abilities that cover some range and deal more damage than basic attacks; they do not share cooldowns. Other abilities include dashing, parrying, and regeneration, the latter requiring fire essence, which is limited. Switching weapons takes a bit of time, but our character, as well as our foes, can be stuttered or stunned; it is a bit difficult to do so right in the heat of the fray. Learning to constantly use all our abilities can do serious damage.

Combat is chaotic as we face several opponents at once. Some prefer to avoid you by running away and launching projectiles, while melee combatants will slowly walk to your position. Managing both will get you damaged eventually; using defensive and healing abilities is very important unless you are very good at kiting. When it's time to face the boss, getting hit is out of the question, as regenerating health is very slow, and if not upgraded, being damaged will lose that health. I found it very easy to just fire away at range rather than getting closer to melee, but the latter deals a bit more damage.

As we progress through every chapter, we get upgrade points in a pool of both passive and basic attack abilities and the other of special abilities, such as summoning a phoenix and making it more powerful. Not all upgrades can be bought in the full game; it's important to pick what does best based on your playstyle. You can upgrade your max health, boost your parry or regeneration, increase basic damage to one of your weapons, or enhance your cooldown abilities. Also, special charged attacks will be unlocked mid-game; they take a while to charge but deal even more damage.

Other level features are small puzzles and run puzzles that require dashing and jumping twice to close long gaps. Puzzles that require your wits have hints if they are too difficult; you won’t miss anything by asking for the solution. Just like upgrades, there is an ultimate you can pick out of three choices. Anything you choose will help you reach towards your goal, which will take you less than a couple of hours, depending on your combat skills. Remember to take every approach with caution, because if you die, you have to start the wave of enemies again from the start.

Audio & Graphics

Every boss has been drawn with rotoscope animation, while the other characters are just pixel animated, the results being very well crafted. Its rock tunes fit with every level and every combat scenario. You can see blur effects on some abilities too. The game runs generally well; you don’t need to change any settings. I wish the UI were always visible to have better muscle memory of the spell buttons. The game is recommended with a controller, but I had no trouble finishing it with a keyboard & mouse.