GOKEN

Review

Every 5,000 years a celebration is organized to honor the gods! The latest one wasn’t the most memorable for you, Wielder of the Fives Swords. Honestly, God himself forged five swords for you to keep this world at peace, but what were you thinking when you challenged all the gods outside the small village of Cardina? You knew one of them would get super . . . cranky! And yes, you were sealed in rocks for a few millennium!  Now, after all this time, you are finally free, but only with one of your five swords. Tell us, how are you going to recover them, my dear hero? Welcome to GOKEN!

GOKEN is a 2D action / role playing game where you play the Wielder of the Five Swords. Your goal is to recover all of your swords - well, that’s one part of it; you’ll find out the rest when you play the game!

As you start a new, you‘ll go through a short introduction of the story. From there, a girl who goes by the name of Chao will free you by finding your sword next to your eternal prison and you’ll go through a small tutorial which will show you how to fight and what you have to look for within the world.

The world consist of three islands. Two of them are fairly large and the other one is small. In this game, you’ll basically be led to your next destination where you’ll not only find important information about your lost swords, but you’ll also revitalize yourself at the Inn, buy items at the merchant shop, or even get ink at the tattooist to enhance your abilities.

As you go through this gorgeous world (artwork), you’ll come across numerous enemies, the likes of the unicorn fox, goblins, feral rabbits with swords, cyclops and stingers, to mention a few – there are many more. As you find your swords, you’ll be able to select one of them for your attacks. Now bear in mind, you have two attack buttons and up to five swords (if you get them all) to choose from. Right now, I have three of the swords and I had to swap them around to get through some of the levels. Every time you kill an enemy, he will drop coins, experience points and ink. However, ink is rare. Just hover over to collect them. With the coins, you’ll be able to purchase items from the merchant, the experience points will get your character new levels and ink will give you the opportunity to buy extra abilities. You also have a speed dash (that’s what I call it) where you can avoid being hit during battle, and which can also be useful to move faster within the world. However, you must be careful how you use it, as it will deplete your stamina gauge every time you activate it. The good news is that the gauge refills itself quickly.

You’ll fight bosses here and there, but I must admit that I would like to have these battles a little bit harder; don’t get me wrong, they are still a lot of fun!

I really enjoy the artwork as it feels somehow unique, and the animations are pretty good, too. The soundtrack is well done and the controls are responsive, whether you use the keyboard or gamepad. I did have a few freezes here and there –mostly when I was reading wooden signs within the game. Apart from that, the game was running well.