Dark Flame – Pre-Alpha Download November 5, 2015 November 5, 2015 by Calum Fraser Dark Flame blends Castlevania inspired visuals and exploration with Dark Souls levels of punishing difficulty and tactical combat to create an epic 2D pixel art action RPG with deep gameplay and stunning pixel art animation.
“Dark Flame is a solid retro-style ARPG that can easily appeal to any fan of this genre”
Dark Flame is a modern 2D ARPG that borrows elements from the classic and retro ARPGs of the past; it takes clear inspiration from Castlevania: Symphony of Night but it was also influenced by current games such as the Dark Souls series. The game includes platformer elements considering this is a 2D side-scrolling game, and it also allows for the creation of diverse areas that reward players for returning to them.
Currently, there is only a pre-alpha demo available which means that features are missing, and the final release version might be quite different to what can be seen right now. This is important to keep in mind when having a look at the demo or reading reviews about Dark Flame when it gets closer to release date.
Players control Taharial, a knight who has been tasked with investigating a horrible event that may have unleashed a terrible evil back into the world. The aim is pretty simple, fight through the monsters that have begun to appear and defeat the bosses to progress through the game. Sadly, the plot isn’t really mentioned in the alpha as it focuses more on the gameplay so don’t expect to see much of the storyline just yet.
The tutorial at the start of the game is good; it teaches the basic mechanics of the gameplay to help the player get started on their fight through the dark medieval world. There is room for improvement with the tutorials in the game, however, especially when the Pyre Concept and teleportation is introduced later in Dark Flame. It’s still only a pre-alpha demo, so this will probably be changed later down the development line.
Exploration and combat are the two key features in this demo where players are encouraged to collect new equipment to progress through different areas; enemies respawn whenever the player returns to that screen, so it’s also possible to grind a few levels before attempting to take on the boss.
Combat in Dark Flame has some clear Dark Souls inspired elements and works very well; players are faced with a variety of interesting enemies which each have their own forms of attack and movements. Each type of enemy will always behave in a certain way which makes it possible to learn, predict and dodge their attacks. There’s enough variation to keep it engaging and challenging while also making it entertaining and satisfying.
Dying will happen often, and the game features a handy death counter on the stats screen; respawning works in a style similar to Dark Souls which suits this game perfectly. On death, players will drop all of the money they collected and need to go back to their point of death if they want to re-collect it all. Death points are marked on the map which is incredibly useful for finding the right room again and the large gravestones pinpoint where the money has been dropped.
Like with other RPGs, players can level up their stats in a way that suits them; there are no set classes in Dark Flame which provides players with quite a bit of freedom as they customize Taharial. While the Pyre Concept hasn’t been completely added to the game just yet, it will allow players to further customize their weapons and skills to suit their play style.
It’s difficult to play Dark Flame without noticing how smooth the retro-style graphics are; they suit the old-school RPG genre and give the game a much darker atmosphere. The graphics are great, but the music in the game is just as strong. The soundtrack suits each point in the game and works nicely with the graphics to form the atmosphere for the game.
Dark Flame is a solid retro-style ARPG that can easily appeal to any fan of this genre; the game is currently in a pre-alpha stage, so there is still plenty of work to do. Overall, the game is entertaining, difficult and features a lot for players to explore. While there are a few things that need some extra work done, these are things that would typically be added to the game as its development progresses.
More information on the game can be found on the Dark Flame website.
Dark Flame is a Castlevania fanboy’s dark dreams come to (un)life. It’s been Greenlighted and now a Kickstarter is making the rounds to fund up the final graphics and sounds. We first talked about it a while back, and now an updated pre-alpha demo is available for download here. A wee bit more info about the game follows for those who need more convincing.
Dark Flame is a clear tribute to Castlevania and perhaps most specifically Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Aside from the animation presumably being closely modelled on SOTN’s Alucard, your character is more the baddass sword swinger type rather than a do-gooder whipping boy, and can learn various magics and abilities to help him in his travels. This by the way, is a Very Good Thing(tm), as SOTN was probably the best Castlevania ever made. So far, the demo is looking to capture the classic SOTN look and feel, but showing enough promise to be distinct enough to hold its own. It’s a dark world, one where you fill the metal boots of a crusader in the midst of the Baltic Crusades, whose brothers have all gone insane from some mysterious malevolence, and death comes quickly to the unprepared.
All the staples seem to be here. Hooded freaks with daggers roam the halls, while zombies shuffle about underfoot, waiting to be made into zombie-slices. Hitting foes causes numbers to dutifuly float above their head, indicating how much damage was done. Your character gains xp with each bloody victory, and with each level up you get to choose with stat to improve (which you couldn’t do in Castlevania). Another refinement of Castlevania formula is the thin green cooldown timer under your health bar. In Dark Flame you are able to execute multiple rapid swings – faster than ol Vamps JR. in Castlevania could – but each swing depletes the bar, meaning slashing with wild abandom may leave you open to attack. Perhaps in a nod to Dark Souls, a sense of darkess and fragility – due here fact that you are a mere human – premeates the game; gampeplay is shaping up to be action-focused yet death comes quick and fast if you are careless.
Being a pre-alpha story, Ken Masters still has long hair and your character can’t yet utilise his full repertoire of moves, or find and equip armors. Nonetheless, the demo provides a good bit of platforming hack-n-slash action, and I found a new sword, some spells and a certain classic vertical movement enhancing ability pretty early on to play with.
Dark Flame (updated pre-alpha demo) | Download on Indie DB
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