Steam Deck Playable!As gamers, we love seeing something innovative. Sometimes it’s a step too far whilst other times just love it. But there’s also nothing wrong with keeping things simple. Some of the simple games are the best. Light entertainment, easy to use controls and gameplay that you can dip in and out of without feeling like you have to remember what to do. And that’s where ITORAH sits. The Grimbart Tales developed ITORAH is a 2D action-adventure that doesn’t overcomplicate.
A classic concept with easy controls and a basic story that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Just what this guy needs for an hour after work.
A classic adventure with exceptionally designed areas
Mankind has vanished and ITORAH seems to be the last of her kind! In order to uncover her past you pick up her loud-mouthed axe and fight your way through some stunning hand-painted biomes. Their innocent quest for knowledge quickly turns into a mission to save this strange new world from its biggest threat: A mysterious plague that threatens to consume everything.
There’s a real beauty to this game that makes it so easy to love.
The Game
The gameplay is focused on basic combat and exploring. As with most games like this, you don’t get all of your attacks and moves at the beginning. You have to earn them by progressing through the game. Over the course of the adventure, you gain new mobility options such as ground slam, double jump, dash and throwing your axe. All of which allow you to open new paths.
Each major area contains platforming challenges and combat opportunities. Throughout the game, you’ll have to avoid obstacles, fight enemies, and gain new abilities while trying to locate keys to unlock doors within the area. Even the keys have some cool designs. Most enemies you encounter are fairly basic and easy to beat, with only a few needing a sustained attack. Boss fights are fairly unique affairs though, but once you have their patterns down they’re not much of a challenge, and that’s not a bad thing.
When it comes to combat, it is heavy and packs a punch. You’re wielding a massive axe after all. You can buy upgrades for your health and stamina, including a healing ability that gets refreshed along with everything else when you save. There’s also a cool, but ultimately pointless, addition where if you’re jumping down a hole you can use your axe to slow you down by moving into the wall. Why’s it pointless? Because you can drop an awfully long way without doing any damage to yourself.
The map size is fairly decent, but the lack of fast travelling is strange. It’s not too much of a problem but it does slow things down having to backtrack through a huge section of the map after completing a dungeon. I can live without it though as it means you can go back and explore some areas that you couldn’t get to previously without a particular powerup. However, knowing that you need to up your stamina but can’t do that without traversing half the length of the map on foot just to then travel all the way back is asking too much.
Whilst the gameplay is fun, the game does appear to lack an investable story. That’s only a slight disappointment though as you can just crack on with playing the game. Don’t get me wrong, there is a story that you progress with. But it doesn’t grab you. You get a few characters that appear for you can “talk” to, but they just say one line and that’s it. Once you realise that talking to them is pointless you end up just running past anyone ones as the game progresses. But that’s really all that is lacking in the game and it by no means ruins the enjoyment. The world and characters are interesting and so naturally want to learn more about them. Sometimes you get that, but there feels like there’s a lot missing as well.
Look & Sound
Where ITORAH really shines is with its visuals. It’s clear that a lot of passion went into the graphics and designing the game’s tone. There are striking colours throughout and the character models are incredible. The art style is truly amazing. It really draws you in and there were a few times when I just stood still so that I could soak in the details. Everything from the far background to the parts you can walk on is stunning. The character designs for Itorah and her axe, Koda, are equally well designed and they never feel like they get lost in amongst the set pieces of the world. Really, it’s worth playing just for the art alone.
Even the soundtrack, whilst not a stand-out feature, compliments the game perfectly. It creates an outstanding combination. It helps set the tone of each dungeon, cutscene and battle. It’s not a memorable soundtrack, but it fits in with the visual presentation of the game and is pleasant.
Length & Replayability
There are 21 achievements to gain, most of which you can get just by progressing through the levels. There are two interesting ones though. One is complete the game within ten hours. This is easily doable. The other is complete the game within five hours. That is doable, but would definitely be more of a challenge. If you’re an achievement completist then you should be able to do this once you’ve completed the game once and know where to go and what to do.
There’s also an achievement for talking to every character. So although gameplay/story-wise it offers nothing, you do get a sweet achievement out of it.
Conclusions
ITORAH takes many common mechanics found in adventure games but does it incredibly well. The artwork is quite simply fantastic. And when you mix that with smooth animations and a cool world, you have a game that is fun to play. Sure, it’s lacking in the story department a bit, but that doesn’t take away from much at all. Everyone is guilty of skipping scenes now and again in games, so stories aren’t always that important. ITORAH is a fairly straightforward adventure that shows that even simple mechanics, when done well, can be used to create something special. Especially when you consider the game costs less than £20.
For a debut game, this is a cracking start from Grimbart Tales and it makes me excited to see what they’ll do next. Hopefully, there’s a lot more to come from them. I score ITORAH a well deserved 9/10.
And I’m going to be going for that five-hour achievement. When I do that, instead of using a keyboard, I’m going to use my GameSir T4 Mini. Love that little controller and it should make playing a bit different.
A code was kindly provided for us to review this.
