The Sacred Acorn Reviews

I was really looking forward to this because the art style looked very cute and it seemed like a short fun exploration game with combat. The combat is unbearably bad. Too slow, bad hit detection, bad windup on enemies, no input on health beside the small bar, very little magic reward for killing enemies which makes it so you can't heal. I tried to get past the first boss buts it such frustrating mechanics it's not worth it to go further. Also the hit boxes on these thorns are much wider than they should be and passing through them is also always frustrating. Cute characters and an okay story can't get me past the lack of balanced combat in a 'souls-like'

The combat was stupid and boring and there was no good aspect to this.

(A review of a game with so little time played seems very reactionary and lacks consideration, but the issues in the game are such that I did not want to spend any more time with it... Also, game development is incredibly difficult and I am nowhere near talented or intelligent enough to pull it off. This is being written from the perspective of a consumer who was very much looking forward to playing this game, while also wanting to support fellow Australians) A very pretty game, but one that I feel has a number of flaws that really impede any enjoyment that could be had: - a modern, kind of top-down/kind of isometric (sorry, not quite sure of the correct term) perspective game that only allows for 8-way directional movement, on an analog stick, is disappointing. The movements feels a bit 'sloppy' and lacks refinement, while also actively making some environmental traversal far more bothersome than it perhaps needs to be; - others have previously mentioned this, but the sound mix is lacks balance - some sounds are mixed significantly louder than others, to the point of near-distortion; - Collision detection on pick ups seems, I don't know, broken? Running around over items multiple times to pick them up is a frustrating experience; - Tying navigation progression and map usage to randomly dropping currency is, again, really frustrating; - early combat lacks 'finesse' - hit once or twice, run out of range, rinse & repeat. This prevented me from getting engaged with the game early on, particularly if you are fighting more than one enemy at a time; - the most egregious combat issue, to me, is the actual number of 'hits' and the pause between hits - a two-hit combo (which did not perform particularly reliably), followed by a near-second long pause. Combining this with the previous issue makes combat not feel very enjoyable and almost stiff; By the time I'd died trying to navigate a very narrow, twisting thorny pathway to release a captured little nut, I wanted nothing more to do with the game. I wish the development team the best of luck moving forward, but I don't want to play this any more.

A game that on an initial look can be mistaken for being cutesy and cozy, when in reality it hides a brutally difficult game. Timing your attacks, heals, dodging and dashing is essential! It reminds me in that manner of Bastion, which I also thoroughly enjoyed. The art is gorgeous, the music is simply sublime, and the squirrels are outright adorable. Definitely recommend.