Raji: An Ancient Epic

Review

Raji: An Ancient Epic is an action-adventure game set in ancient India and offering an amazing representation of the old world. This is a beautifully crafted world full of colors, ancient monuments built by both men and Gods, an excellent selection of music, intense combat, well-scripted, good voice acting, narrations, and much more.

But what puts the game in the spotlight is its incredible story of a sister who will go to any length to rescue her brother. She was chosen by the gods to stand against the demonic invasion of the human realm. Her destiny? To rescue her younger brother and face the demon lord Mahabalasura.

The game also features lore and mythology from ancient India, wars between the demons and the gods, the God’s origins and powers, the history of Hinduism and ancient architecture, etc.

Plot: A young village girl named Raji and her tiny world that revolves around her younger brother, Golu. Her world was small and they were happy with each other’s company, until the day the demons took Golu away from Raji. She tried desperately to reach him in time but failed.

Now Raji and Golu find themselves separated in the middle of the Great War; a war between Gods and Demons. However, the Gods themselves did not intervene.

The gods have plans for young Raji. As she sets out to find her younger brother and confront the powerful demon lord, Mahabalasura, Raji finds herself in the hands of the great Goddess, Durga. With the blessings of Durga and other Gods, Raji sets out on an epic journey of great difficulty.

Many hurdles will come in her way, and many demons will cross her path but the goddess Durga is confident that she has the strength and desire to reach her brother in time and confront lord Mahabalasura.

Gameplay: Having an intimate knowledge about Hinduism and ancient India, I was very comfortable getting into the game. The game features a lot of lore from ancient India, which is amazingly depicted through narration and beautiful artwork in the form of murals, shadow puppet shows, structures, etc. which gave the game a great flavor.

These featured lores affected the story and gameplay greatly. As I know a few things about the ancient Indian culture and Hinduism, I raced to find inaccuracies and errors, but to my surprise a lot of them matched up, and I got to know a few new things as well, and missed a lot while marveling over the beauty of this game.

Our main protagonist Raji is an acrobat, which plays an important role throughout the game. As she utilizes her skills of acrobatic performance throughout the game and combat.

The in-game movement plays out very well with its top-down and side-scrolling camera angles. The movements are basic with WASD to move. But jumping, vaulting, sliding, etc. is where the game shows its impressive animations covering Raji’s skills as an acrobat.

The only downside to Raji’s impressive movement animations and skills would be her speed and clunky movement at places; for such an agile and limber person, Raji should have been much faster.

And as for the clunky movements, they led to me to fail quite a few easy jumps, just because I was a bit to the left or right. But other than that, it was smooth sailing to the end.

Combat; this game brings some intense yet easy to handle combat (a little bit too easy). Blessed by the gods and weilding the weapons given by the gods, combined with her impressive acrobatic skills, Raji is one tough nut to crack!

As you progress through the first phase of the game, you will get all the required tutorials for the combat machines and get to try them out on the demons at the same time.

Raji features quite a few impressive and bold combos for you to perform. To perform each combo you will need to run and jump off polls, carts, and walls. Also, as you pull off these combo moves, you will see some stunning attack effects and lighting. Each are very well designed and animated, and if you think about an actual acrobat, the moves would actually be possible to pull off by someone skilled enough, which was refreshing to see.

As you progress, Raji faces stronger opponents with impressive skill sets, but Raji being Raji, an absolute star blessed by the gods, the combat sessions are mostly easy.

However, as mentioned earlier, Raji’s clunky movement machines fail to implement its amazing combos.  Getting into the right angles at the right moment is important to pull off a combo move, which is not that difficult, but while you are doing so the smaller demons will stack upon you, resulting in a fail.

Puzzles; Raji features a few well-placed puzzles, which were very easy to complete and each served a purpose in-game.

The puzzles were mostly aligning pieces to view a bigger picture or to open gates and passages. Or shifting gears to start a function.

World design: Raji features a stunning portrayal of ancient Rajasthan. The world is constructed around ancient man-made and god-made structures, which were well-designed and era-appropriate. With the absence of UI and no vision hindering structures, there is nothing to stop you from enjoying Raji’s amazing art style and lore. The game also seems to pay a great attention to lighting and reflection, which in turn made the game look absolutely gorgeous.

Voice acting/ Narrations: Raji is being watched by the gods, and as she passes through places of great importance, the dialogues between the gods and narration of the events will kick in. I must say the dialogues and the narrations are well-scripted and acted.

Strong Indian accents were present throughout the game, which did not bother me (but I did wonder what the game would sound like with the whole game narrated and acted in Hindi). 

Music: Well-selected and implemented music throughout the game, which added great flavor.

Review written by BiteMexD for Zeepond.com!