Retroview - Enclave

Steam Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/253980/
Source: Youtube Channel TopWare Interactive

I have never heard of Enclave and don't remember its name when it released over 10 years ago on Xbox.  I saw it pop up on Steam 3 days ago alongside a whole slew of other old games and for some reason Enclave caught my attention.  On steam, it's listed as an RPG and it worried me because I was thinking it might be filled with long dialogues, traversing long empty roads, and incomprehensible skill systems (some RPGs are still like that today).  Looking up some gameplay videos, I realized that it wasn't an RPG at all!  Enclave is a Hack-n-Slash, Action-Adventure with progression on a per stage basis.

I'm gonna go ahead and get the bad aspects out of the way first.  Attacks do not connect to the enemies a lot of the times because of the awkward animations for sword swings.  Sometimes enemies are shorter than the player, but the player can't aim downwards.  Level design is pretty open which allows for some non-linear routing, but it's also confusing and causes the player to often get lost.  If the player is killed, they either start the level over again or respawn at the last check point.  The problem is that it just happens when you lose all your health and it just happens, you don't really see your character die which feels weird and makes you think it's a cutscene happening.  There are 12 characters to choose from, but a lot of them feel clunky and useless.  The sword swings are just so inaccurate and unreliable that I end up using the huntress because the bow and crossbow is significantly more accurate.

With that out of the way, let me point out some of the aspects that made this game fun.  Levels are short and pretty straight-forward except when the levels are confusing.  This makes it really easy to pick up and play and not have to endure long winded dialogues and cutscenes (there are some and they're pretty boring, but I think they can be skipped).  The game boasts itself for being atmospheric, and it kind of is.  The game has that medieval fantasy theme going and it feels nice as part of the experience.  Once I got the hang of how the game worked, combat can be kind of fun in a dumb way.  Combat doesn't have too much depth to it, but it's straight-forward and relaxing.  Overall, I think it's a mildly entertaining game to play and it's not particularly long.  I can see why it didn't have much exposure or popularity when it came out though as the quality of the game isn't entirely high.  But for the price of $2.49, it's worth getting to change up the pace of my gaming.  Enclave will be 50% off for $2.49 for another 4 days.