Written by Patrick Orquia
Title: Raji: An Ancient Epic
Developer: Nodding Heads Games
Publisher: Super.com
Genre: Platformer, Action, Adventure, Hack and Slash
Number of Players: 1
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Release Date: August 18, 2020
Price: $24.99
Indian culture is one of the oldest in the world. From cuisine to movies to music, its influence is really far-reaching. Now, it can be seen and heard in a video game, which is a long time coming.
In this game you play as Raji, a woman who has to go through an epic journey to rescue her baby brother Golu, who got kidnapped by demons. The game is narrated by the Hindu god Vishnu, the preserver and protector of the universe, and Durga, goddess of war. The two converse with each other throughout the game and can be heard from time to time as Raji progresses into the adventure. She receives blessings from the gods in the form of additional weapons and skills that she can use to defeat the demons that regularly blocks her way. She receives orbs as she defeats enemies and with enough orbs, she gets upgrades to her skills, like additional elemental boons to attacks.
This upgrade system and overall gameplay is similar to that of the God of War games, but less gruesome. Raji has her basic light and heavy attacks and you get to further learn attack combos for each weapon that you acquire to hurt multiple enemies at once. You can also perform a finishing attack on weakened enemies which refills your health; fail to do so and you will get nothing. This is quite frustrating, especially if you have to deal with multiple enemies at once, plus each enemy encounters usually comes in 2 or more waves of enemies, so it is essential to get additional health because you have you start from the beginning of the encounter if you die.
Aside from the combat, the game’s other highlight is the area puzzles. They are not very difficult to solve, but they add to the lore of the game, like the circular puzzles (very reminiscent of those in Paper Mario: The Origami King) providing background stories about Raji and Golu. Aside from the puzzles, you will also encounter some murals that depict characters and stories from the Hindu and Balinese mythology, narrated by Vishnu and Durga themselves. You get to have in-game lessons, which I do appreciate, but they somehow stop the game in its tracks as they really don’t serve any purpose in the gameplay. They optional, so if you want to keep on moving in the game, you can skip these.
If you are not fighting off demons and solving puzzles, you will spend time exploring the world. Well, exploring is overselling it, as the game is very linear, and you have to follow the path laid upon you with very little opportunity to check out other areas. If you ever do check them out, you will find that they are usually just dead ends and maybe there will be an altar where you can get orbs, but pretty much that is it. There is no other collectibles in the game, and the many different game elements scattered in the world are just there for decoration. The game design is top notch, but they really don’t serve any other purpose, as they cannot be destroyed, perhaps to get orbs and such, which is quite a shame. There are also some static NPCs that you won’t be able to interact with.
The game is very well-presented, at least, the intention is very much there. However, this game suffers from a lot of performance issues that would most like hinder anyone’s ability to fully enjoy the game, at least on this Switch version. There are almost constant frame rate drops that happen and this makes it hard in combat as your timing will be way off, impacting your attacks and dodges. This results to cheap deaths and much frustration. The frame rate drops also happen outside of combat, which makes the game even more frustrating at times. There is also the floaty controls that impact both combat and the platforming sections, wherein Raji will perform unnecessary somersaults instead of just doing a simple wall climb. It is also hard to precisely aim at platforms that you have to jump on to, resulting to even more cheap deaths. Fortunately, the music stays in tip-top quality all throughout the game, and this game really sounds good, with all the different sounds of sitars and tablas and other Indian instruments harmoniously keeping you on the move.
Overall, Raji: An Ancient Epic is very enjoyable game, albeit a short one, if you manage to look past its technical flaws. The overall production value of the game is top notch, especially for an indie game studio’s first outing. It didn’t quite stick the landing, but maybe if they manage to patch up the game in the near future, it will be a game that is really a worth-while to play. The game launched as a Switch exclusive, but now it is also out on other platforms, where this game probably looks and plays much better. If you only have a Switch, maybe wait for a sale, as this maybe doesn’t worth its asking price for the time being.
REPLAY VALUE: High
PROS
- Amazing visuals with Indian culture-inspired aesthetics, despite the low graphical detail
- Amazing cutscenes
- Amazing voice acting
- Superb musical score
- Very good narrative
- Excellent boss fights
- Very good use of HD rumble
- Ideal for handheld gaming
CONS
- Frequent and very noticeable performance dips and frame rate drops in and out of combat
- Encountered a few glitches
- Platforming sections lack precision, resulting to cheap deaths
- Non-destructible objects
- Lack of HUD
- Floaty controls
- No indication of how much orbs have already been collected
- In-game mythology lessons through illustrations and narration are much appreciated, but they stop the game dead on its tracks as they don’t really serve much purpose in the grand scheme of things
RATING: 3.5 gods and demons
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