Written by Patrick Orquia
Title: Cathedral
Developer: Decemberborn Interactive
Publisher: Elden Pixels
Genre: Action, Adventure, Platformer, Metroidvania, RPG
Number of Players: 1
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Release Date: February 18, 2021
Price: $14.99
When I first heard about the game Cathedral, I thought that it was another one of those super hard soulslike games with scary, pseudo-religious themes, like Blasphemous. That game probably made me scream expletives more than any other game that I have played ever (the original SMB2 aka Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels being the close second). It almost rage-quitted multiple times and really tested my sanity. Awesome game, though.
But back to Cathedral: it is yet another metroidvania to grace the Nintendo Switch eShop and thankfully, it is not as brutal as Blasphemous. The game is published by Elden Pixels, the same team behind the Alwa games, and is developed by Decemberborn. I am not familiar with Decemberborn, but I must say, they made quite an awesome game.
Cathedral is presented in retro-inspired 8-bit aesthetics with chiptunes music, very similar to the first Alwa game (Alwa’s Awakening) with a dash of Shovel Knight (and a bit of Megaman and Ducktales). Decemberborn is probably aware of this, as the game seems to be largely inspired by Shovel Knight, and it was quite hilariously referenced in the game. Unlike Shovel Knight, Cathedral is as mentioned earlier, a metroidvania, with a large map of interconnected areas, with some closed off until certain conditions are met. As typical as any metroidvania can get.
So, is Cathedral worth your hard-earned cash? Short answer: yes. First off, it is only $14.99 and you can get around 20 hours of gameplay out of it. A good bang for your buck. Plus this game really looks, sounds, and plays like a legit 8-bit game from the 90s.
In this game, you play as a mute knight. You start right smack into the action, as you try to make your way out of the titular Cathedral. You have to fight waves of enemies and overcome obstacles right on the get go. Eventually, you will encounter a spirit that you will have to follow, and in so doing you will get to fight a couple of bosses, the second of which will drop a mysterious orb. The spirit then shows you a door where the orb that you just collected can fit, and it is suggested that you find the rest of the other orbs for them to open the door. Then the spirit casts you out of the Cathedral and you find yourself in a town of Ivystone outside. Here, you encounter new NPCs where you will get information from that will help you progress further into the game. One NPC has a shop where you can buy upgrades, another one is a librarian that will task you to find books scattered across the land, and another has a crystal ball that will provide you clues one what to do next. You can even meet Zoe from the Alwa games, but it is just a one-off, blink-and-you-will-miss-her kind of cameo, but it is good nonetheless, especially if you are a fan of Elden Pixels’ earlier games (like I am). Anyway, so this town acts like the central hub on the map, and you can access multiple other areas from here. Unfortunately, while you can TRY to go to multiple areas from here, there is only one are that you can really fully explore, since you don’t have the necessary skills or equipment to visit the other areas yet.
You will die a lot in this game, and every time you die, a portion of your collected gold gets deducted from the total (at the start of the game, 10% is the penalty, but you can buy upgrades to lessen the amount of gold deducted). This may not be a big penalty, but there some platforming sections in the game that will likely result to you dying a few times before you get past them. They frustrating because they tend to be either tedious to get past through, with a barrage of enemies waiting for you or spikes and other traps that are very difficult to avoid, or a combination of both. This one aspect of the game that I find rather unnecessarily frustrating, as they could take away the fun and I think most of them are there to pad out the play time of the game. I wish they made the level design better instead of relying on such tomfoolery. Anyway, back to the gold, you can bank your earnings in the town so that you won’t have to lose them when you die. Upgrades are expensive, so you better save up to make your gear top notch, which of course will grant you a better chance of not dying.
Aside from gold, you will also get to collect charms that you can equip. These are the abilities that you can obtain in this game, but unlike other metroidvanias, you can only equip 3 at a time, one from each type, which is combat, movement, and magic. To equip charms, you will have to find an altar. Certain area puzzles and platforming sections will require specific types of moves and skills to solve or traverse, so you will be required to switch between charms every so often. Don’t worry about being not able to collect certain kinds of charms, as you won’t be able to progress further into the game from where you are unless you get to find the chard that you will need, and they are not hidden, but you do have to go through some tough platforming sections to collect them.
The world of this game is quite vast, not unlike other metroidvanias, but for a game that tries to emulate an 8-bit game, there is quite a surprising amount of content to experience. The different areas in this game has different biomes, each with different enemies and sets of challenges to overcome. You have the overworld areas and the dungeons, and of course, it is always fun to find shortcuts and paths connecting different areas. You are given little info about where you have to go next, so it is possible for you to explore an area only to be met with a dead end because you don’t have the necessary ability to pass yet. It’s a good thing that the game incorporates a fast travel system using portals that are strategically located in areas you explore. This makes backtracking to previously visited areas and returning to towns to refill hearts or buy new upgrades a breeze. There are also many collectibles in this game, some of which can only be accessed after getting certain weapons or abilities, so you will find yourself backtracking quite a few times. The map system in this game excellent; it shows all the available sections that you can explore, marking those that you have already visited. Using the map, you can also search for hidden areas in the game, where treasures or maybe a powerful enemy or two await you.
Speaking of powerful enemies, the boss fights in this game are quite fun. Each of the bosses are tough to beat, but their attacks are well-telegraphed which will allow you to anticipate which attack or move will come out next. Even if that is the case, these bosses will mix up their attack patterns, making the battles quite hard and will require a few tries, but eventually, you will prevail. Fully upgrading your gear will of course help and is very much encouraged, so you really have to prepare before engaging them. You will get new upgrades upon beating them, plus the orbs that will unlock the last area.
Overall. Cathedral is one surprisingly good game. At first glance, it will seem like your run-of-the-mill metroidvania game, and in most aspects, it is, but it somehow manages to stand out from the crowd. It does not try to be more than what it is, and yet it really makes good use of the clichés and usual tropes that make a metroidvania game good, and then some. Sure, there lots of other metroidvania games on the eShop that are better than this game, but I recommend this game to fans of the genre. There may be some parts of the game where I almost pulled my hair out, but they are far in between and I enjoyed most of my time playing the game. And maybe you would, too. So give this game a chance and may your inner knight prevail.
REPALY VALUE: High
PROS
- The retro-inspired aesthetics and music really makes the game seem like a legit game from the 8-bit era
- Excellent map and level design, though some enemy and obstacle placements seem a bit unfair as they are very hard to avoid at times, resulting to cheap deaths
- Exploration is fun and finding hidden areas feels very satisfying
- Good enemy variety
- Has a good amount of challenge to keep you on your toes
- Ideal for playing in handheld
CONS
- Some platforming sections are very frustrating due to them being very unnecessarily difficult and tedious, like on one section, you have to traverse a dark room while having to light torches that make the room bright, but the fire goes out after some time and you will have to memorize the placement of platform, while having to deal with annoying ghosts and spikes; challenges like this come more as an attempt to pad out the play time of the game
- Sudden spikes in difficulty, especially in the early parts of the game; most boss battles will force you to grind hard for you to earn coins to buy all of the available upgrades up to that point as these bosses really hit hard; the early difficulty spike might discourage players, especially those that are new to the genre, from playing the game further
- Cutscenes, although short, cannot be skipped
- Some save points are far from one another, making it a pain in the butt when you die and respawn on a save point that is far from where you die; redoing frustrating platforming sections is no fun
RATING: 4/5 8-bit knights and monsters
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