Ritual: Crown of Horns Reviews

The game is in early access, but despite this I'm impressed. Ritual: Crown of Horns has its own, consistent style. First it attracts attention through quite unique drawings' style and the sound (one of musical themes is just mesmerizing). These elements combined with the story, that has "weird fiction" vibe, create intriguing atmosphere. Second thing that makes you want to play more is gameplay/mechanics. First steps are rather harsh - but this is good - the game demands some skill from you. After you learn proper fighting rhythm you are rewarded with more pieces of mechanics. Ritual seems to be dense in balanced way - together with new mechanics the challenge is increasing (this relation works both ways). --- My curator's profile: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/33910649/

The long and short of it is that this is a top-down shooter with arcade gameplay spread across a handful of different enough levels and a smattering of story that feels like it's punching way above the weight of its presentation and having too little of an effect. Equip three weapons, three spells, a few pieces of equipment that modify them individually, kill a ceaseless (or, at least, for the duration of the 2 to 5 minute time limit ceaseless) flow of cultists with axes. Rinse, repeat. This game, at its best, reminds me of the high octane, low use brain action of classic Crimsonland. Which is gunfortunate, it doesn't quite hold up in comparison and it's really not often at its best. Games don't need to be clever but when the gameplay relies on pleasures this simple, they need to do a better job at feeding back into them. A couple choice combinations (more ammo and faster aiming for the basic six shooter, for example, or a freeze bomb and a rapid fire weapon) are so effective there's little reason to experiment with anything else, but not effective enough to be particularly fun to deploy. It was good enough to play through while I listened to some weird west appropriate podcasts, but it's difficult to recommend as anything but filler when you want to turn off your brain. Oh, and the ending is abysmal, like it's reaching very hard and very far for something clever but simply is not. And immediately undermines itself by spitting you back into the hub area to continue doing some stupid shooting.

I'm usually not a fan of twin stick shooters, but this game is really good. Not sure if I'll ever finish it, not really my cup of tea, but if you're into the genre then I'd definitely recommend it. Making every one of your bullets count rather than the typical spray n' pray is a nice twist. It's far more engaging. If you're looking to buy this game, look in the trading forums in the community thread. They gave a bunch of (presumably random) people 20% discounts on the game, and a few people that don't plan to buy it are trading it away for free. They also have a free demo, which is pretty cool of them.

It’s great. Took me around 6 hours to complete. Then spent a couple more grinding for bonus items for fun. Good atmosphere, good mechanics, mild level of difficulty. If you like twin stick shooters and the Wild West you have to give it a go!

So far game's atmosphere is awesome and overall gameplay design seems solid, movement and aiming are smooth as should be. Also it seems there is a lot of fresh and cool ideas to be uncovered. I'll definitely dig deeper and update the review after few more hours.

I won't lie, this game isn't perfect. It's at times clunky and clumsy. But damn, am I glad I took a chance despite the negative reviews. This game is definitely not for those who want a whole lot of variety--what you get in the first level is likely what you're going to get in the last level--but if you're looking for an an arcadey feel, just something to shut your brain off, this game delivers. I haven't tried mouse-and-keyboard gameplay yet, but gamepad controls feel intuitive and smooth--at times just the littlest bit clunky in the aiming mechanic, but I'm glad the game [i]has[/i] one--so many twinstick shooters don't give you that. The plot is better than I expected, from the writing to the concept to the art. The graphics are pretty good, for what it is. The whole thing is polished--menu design, sound design, score, everything. I'd argue the game is worth just about twenty bucks, but when it's on sale it can hit $3.99, which is a steal, in my opinion. If you've got the budget for a McDonald's meal right now, you've got money to buy this gem on sale--which, at the time of writing, is until the end of the week. Take a chance. Be an undead cowboy and put bullets in cultists. It's a wild ride.

Do not listen to people who pour shit over this game - Ritual: Crown of Horns is one hell of a competent top-down twin-stick shooter (perfectly playable on KB+M at that - beaten the game 100% on it, even though the opening screen suggests a controller), that sets excellent atmosphere with its visuals and soundtrack for some serious demon/cultist killing. With an array of 8 weapons and 8 spells (which are unlocked as you tackle and beat levels in order, which are divided in three segments of the map - West, East and North), which you can combine in weapon/spell loadouts of 3, it offers plenty of adaptability options for any playstyle (although, I arguably found the shotguns to be the strongest given how much firepower they packed and how strong they were at crowd control). The story is pretty cliché - you are a bounty hunter/wild west legend who is basically a hero of the nation (there are even dime novels published with him as the protagonist), and you are sent by the Government (which turns out to be sort of an Illuminati bad guys...) to kill the Witch (...but then the Government cultists tear you up with hatchets). On the verge of death, the Witch approaches you and updates you that you have been working for the Devil himself (basically), and gives you one more chance to bring down the U.S. Government and their industry fueled by souls of innocents, raising you from the dead. From then on, you rescue two more companions (a Trickstress whose body was burned at stake, yet she cares not much because her soul was astral travelling most of the time, and an old dude who hails himself as the God of Guns and has his church and everything), and all three of them help you by providing you with options to switch guns, spells or gear (gear further empowers you and your spells/weapons, but must be bought with cultist horns which you earn by beating regular levels and challenges which are unlocked once you beat them). While the overall graphics are nothing to write home about (it's not isometric, but literally top-down view), the enemy readability is great (I'm not colour-blind though, so wouldn't know how readable they would be for colour-blind folk), the artstyle in cutscene, character portraits and loading screen is pretty good, the dialogues are nice and go well with the portrait representation, and the music is haunting. Overall, if you don't mind games that require you to think your approach through (which is the main aspect of difficulty to this game to be honest), I reckon you would enjoy what Ritual: Crown of Horns has to offer. For me, this was a good investment, and I would most certainly play the sequel should the developers ever decide to release one.

Tries to be a fun twist on twin stick shooters, but misses the mark. Too many of the game mechanics just slow things down unnecessarily. You do extra damage if you aim at an enemy for an extended time. Your actual aim doesn't matter much, but spending an extra half second to hold aim on enemies is annoying. You need to move and dash around, but there's lots of fiddly terrain that blocks you. Your guns automatically reload when you're not using them, but only if you emptied the clip so counting shots is essential. To make that even more annoying, the game frequently eats inputs so if you try to switch to your shotgun for a quick blast you might just keep clicking your empty revolver. The beginning levels are forgiving enough that these issues aren't too annoying. Once it gets challenging you feel like you just don't have control of the game and its annoying. Maybe grab it on sale if you're really itching for some new twin stick action.

Game is about a Cowboy sent on a hunt and kill mission under false pretenses and ends up getting killed by the very group that was supposedly on his side. Your revived by the person your sent to kill and together you go across america removing all the demons before it's too late. It is a top down shooter similar in style to games like Crimsonland. Gameplay consists of defending this woman while she conducts the ritual to remove all the demons from the area of suffering while utilizing spells, guns, the environment, and whatever gear you decided to equip for the level. Soundtrack is really good when your in the thick of it blasting demons with the Broken Butterfly and your really zoned in. Story overall is not bad and combined with the length of the game I thought it ended RIGHT where it should have. Even after doing all the achievements I still want to keep playing as this game simply just feels fun unlike most games these days trying to make you slog through unnecassary dialogue, lame gimmicks, rewards that don't matter, and ultimately the game feels like a job rather than something you use to blow off steam after a long day. The game ultimately just comes off as "see those demons over there that killed you? Let them know how you feel about that." The mixed reviews for this game kept me away for awhile but I can tell you with certainty if your just looking for a fun top down shooter that isn't full of flash and nonsense and just focuses on good simple gameplay then you have found it. P.S. Almost all of these reviews good and bad are down right awful. Looks like most of them either criticize it for something supposedly wrong it didn't even do, say it's boring because it doesn't play JUST like the more popular ones, that the game is dumb because they cannot beat it due to all kinds of excuses, and 1 guy even flipped out in one because you have to hit R3 to reload and says that breaks the controller. Ignore all the bullcrap of these other ones and just read this one and decide for yourself. PPS: Devs if your reading this I loved the game and I would love to know if I could get my hands on a poster for this game. Seriously dig it and solid job on it.

Honestly, this feels like the entire budget was spent on the cutscene art. The actual gameplay is, essentially, "defend the from a horde for ". This is a pretty boring formula, in a game with so few weapons, RNG for specials, etc. The presentation that was meant to be "arty" but is honestly very difficult to read well; enemies often are hard to tell from background elements, pathfind in strange ways, obstacles aren't well-differentiated visually from mere scenery. There also isn't any zoom feature to allow the player to understand where to be next, so you generally just end up hanging around the thing you're supposed to defend except when grabbing power-ups. The writing is sub-par; it feels in places like it was written by somebody from another country who watched a few Westerns and barely understands the Old West. Overall, I really wish I could be more favorably inclined to this game; I like indie titles and I like top-down shooters. But this just never kept my interest.