Shattered: Tale of the Forgotten King Pre-Alpha Preview

An interesting game announced at E3 this year, Shattered is touted as a 2.5D platformer RPG in which you play as a silent ‘wanderer’. The wanderer searches the lands of Hypnos – a ruined, near lifeless land – for lost memories, hoping to find out more about the place and himself. The game offers a metroidvania vibe with its side scrolling, large levels, backtracking and potential for hidden secrets, but also teases an interesting dynamic of 3D boss fights – with the perspective changing when you encounter these foes. I thought the game sounded rather interesting when it was revealed at E3, and the developers Redlock Studio gave us the opportunity to try out a very early build of it.

The game starts with us spawning in a black and white plain, ruins in the background and near no signs of life. Surrounding us are a group of gateways, two of which seem to be active with portals. Next to one of them sits a skeletal like creature who gives us a little introduction. We’re in the Hypnos realm, a once lush land with colossal cities and dense forests. The king is no more and all have been slaughtered by things known as ‘Demiruges’, and our wanderer has awoken too late to do anything about it. That’s as far as the explanation goes, so the only thing left to do is head into the portal.

On the other side the perspective shifts to 2D, and the metroidvania influences become apparent. The map design features higher and lower levels, some leading to hidden areas, chests and so on. It doesn’t seem quite as complex as Castlevania/Metroid titles – backtracking doesn’t appear to be a thing – however on the surface it’s the easiest comparison. Jumping between platforms, and enemy encounters are also present.

As we make our way along the level, the first enemy comes in sight. Quite a tall, dark creature – powerful looking, but also slow. There are two attacks currently present in Shattered, a simple fast attack and a more powerful one. You can also block, roll, and use your freakishly high jump to effect in combat, and it looks like these elements may become important.

As it stands, in the current state of the game, combat is pretty rudimentary. None of it flows particularly well, you can’t effectively use dodging and blocking within combat, and it’s honestly just less hassle to run past most enemies. They can do a fair amount of damage to you, which is why I think the dodge and block mechanics could be more important as the game progresses, but the AI just isn’t there at the moment.

If you do decide to kill your enemies, you can loot them for curious items. Health potions were about the only item I understood, but there are a host of others things you can pick up. There is a crafting system involved – if you come across the crafting area in the level – and when you combine some items they produce something else, but there appears to be no specific formula to follow – I mixed a few random items together and produced an unusual little trinket (no idea what it’s supposed to do). There are more important items to find which help with progression, such as keys, and an eye in one case, as a blind creature was blocking our path (getting the eye for it made it realise we weren’t foes); you’ll need to look out for these as you explore (maybe you can make it to a higher platform and there will be some interesting stuff up there).

Aside from the challenge of enemy encounters, the level also offers some puzzle/platform gameplay. Obviously, jumping to and from platforms is typical of this broad genre, but there’s also obstacle style challenges. Dodging swinging hazards, slamming walls, crumbling floors and so on. It’s certainly a challenging set of obstacles, and one that puts me back a few deaths.

If you read my original article on Shattered, you’d know what I was most excited about were the boss battles. The rest of the level taking a 2D perspective, boss encounters switch to a 3D one. Unfortunately playing the preview didn’t quite satisfy my original enthusiasm. As I’ve already mentioned, the combat just isn’t there yet. The boss encounter shows it has attack patterns and you will need to utilise that dodge ability well, but there’s not much else to it.

It’s really difficult to judge at this time – I’d even go as far as to say I’d rather not have played the game at this early stage, because it’s hard to enthuse about something when so much is missing or doesn’t work. On a positive note, however, the aesthetic and setting are quite something. The cryptic tales the skeletal-like creatures regales you with are mysterious and intriguing, and there seems to be a cool world and backstory to the game. I like the inclusion of 3D boss battles, and assuming more is added to the levels, the metroidvania styled exploration could be quite fun. But the combat needs to significantly improve. Though, cited to release sometime in 2018, there’s plenty of time for all that.