Ashzel & The Power Dagger Reviews

I bought this on sale, expecting a rough but playable indie action RPG. The game, however, is not yet in a state in which it should be asking people to pay for it. It is nothing like its description. [list] [*]You spawn into the world with zero explanation of who you are, why you're there, or what you're supposed to do. This is at odds with the marketing video, which seems to promise a story. [*]You run around a few very short levels, avoiding blue water bottles that explode on contact, collecting gold things that look like Batman logos but which have no discernible purpose other than to be collected, and grabbing sparkly, lightning looking things so you can engage in combat; unless you have one in your hand, you cannot fight. [*]There is no enemy AI to speak of. Combat means moving up to various spandex-clad Stepford vampires who blithely ignore you until you move within five feet of them, whereupon they suddenly detect your presence and move to engage. You fight by frantically clicking your left mouse button, which generates a basic punching animation complete with 1960's Batman punching sounds. You know you've won when your target stops moving and stands stock-still for five seconds, before immediately swapping to a dead-on-the-ground model. [*]Saving doesn't work. Loading restarts the entire game. [*]The excitement, eeriness, mystery, sophistication, variety of situations, complex designs, joy, sense of accomplishment, development of play style, outmaneuvering enemies, using combat skills (other than repeatedly clicking the mouse), increasing financial wealth (other than collecting Batman tokens), and epic elegant drama promised in the description are not yet present. [*]The tags assigned to this game are an abuse of the tag system. It is not an RPG, not Strategy, not a God Game, not a Roguelike, nor is it an Action Roguelike. There is no Drama, no Exploration, nor is it Realistic. There is no Mystery. [*]The music was OK for what's supposed to be a vampire game. The levels, short as they were, looked nice. But this is stub content; for this to become a real game, much more work is needed.