SINNER: Sacrifice for Redemption

Review

Prepare to face the sins of your past! You are Adam, you awaken in a dark and dismal place with no memory of who you are or where you are. As you gain some mental clarity, you find your feet and study the surroundings. There is a path of stones that leads into the distance. At the end of it lays a huge monolith; you venture forward to see what this is all about. The entrance is emitting an intense light. There is no other path but forward; you have no choice but to enter. When you exit the other end you find yourself in an area of smaller monolithic stones, and as you approach, the vines encasing the stones are burnt away, revealing a glyph on the face of each, each of them representing one of the 7 deadly sins. You must now choose which to enter to relive the sins of your past! Defeat your sins and discover who you are and why you’re here on trial, as your story unfolds with every win!

Released on Oct 22, 2018, by the developer Dark Star, and published by Another Indie, this is a difficult, dark fantasy, action, boss-battler, indie title, with inspiration taken from the Dark Souls Series. It features full controller support (not remappable) which I did use my Xbox 360 controller for my gameplay. Exceptionally well-done graphics and animations for all the characters, with 8 main bosses and a new addition with the last patch, making for a total of 9 bosses. The score has an anthemic and heroic score setting the pace of the gameplay, that is also well-designed. It contains deviant mechanics; instead of levelling up, your character levels down with every boss you fight. This results in progressively more difficult gameplay with every boss you beat. You do gain additional health after beating a boss, so you do not really walk away empty-handed.

I found the game to be very challenging.  Studying the bosses moves, you are able to work your way past them with enough attempts. My son was quite a bit better at it than I was. We both really enjoyed the gameplay; even though it is difficult, the combat is satisfying. When you do finally kill the boss that has been challenging you, the sense of accomplishment is well earned. I simply adored the graphical work in the title; the work on the characters and animations are simply spectacular. The world itself was a bit lackluster and void of much extra scenery, but I believe this was done by design. I do feel it would have taken away from the visual effects of the skins. I really wouldn't label it as hardcore. I wouldn't recommend it for a casual gamer either, unless you are looking for something quite a bit more challenging than your normal game style. It may have drawn inspiration from Dark Souls, but only as far as the boss battles are similar. There is no progression system, no large world to battle through, or battling hordes of enemies to reach the boss level. This title is a boss battler; there is no warming up on lesser minions, it's straight into the heat of battle with powerful bosses! Beat one boss, move onto the next; a constant flow of getting beaten down by the bad-est of the bad.

Review written by DamageInc.for Zeepond.com!