Skul: The Little Bone that Could (Game Review)
Hollom icha fek ozh.
Are you sure about that?
Why do I hear boss music?
What’s up everybody, Uncle Keit here
This time I’m going to do a review on
Skull…
Skool?
Why is the ‘u’ purple?
Okay, “Sir-Cull” : The Hero Slayer
So..
It is a roguelite action platformer
where you play as Skul
AKA
Little bone
Now, this little guy I’m playing has the same energy as
the knight in Hollow Knight
is smol and kawaii
Looked down by nearly everyone
Uses a stick as his main weapon
and most importantly
they commit
G̶̮͜͝E̶̼̿N̷̺̎Õ̶͙͋C̷̜̝̋Ḯ̴̜Ḓ̵̉̃E̴̖͇̋
Mmm, YES, my little war machine
Well then, lets find out what makes him so special
Soo0oo0o0oooOoo0ooOoO00ooOOoo0oO00
The main concept or attraction of this game
is that this little skele-ton here
has the ability to transform into
the original owner of the skull
by simply wearing…
its boney head
and there are more than 30
cranium composed of mostly calcium that forms the head of a
vertebrate and as a protective cavity for the brain that is
responsible for the rational thinking such as the reason why
are you pausing to read this, maybe you should reconsider
your life choices
to try
the best part is that pretty much each and everyone
of them has their own unique concept or gimmick
Okay, so the catch here is that
you can only hold 2 skulls at once
and swap to one another with a short cooldown
The game even made swapping as a focused mechanic
with items, buffs and swap skills included in it
Its like tag team but…
with one person…
or skeleton…
a personal tag team? I guess
It has pretty much the same charm and annoyance
One would face in a roguelite game
ESPECIALLY in the late game
that is…
wondering what the hell is going on as the screen
is bombarded with projectiles and effects
SEE
Seeing the entire screen
filled with numbers as you lay waste is…
VERY SATISFYING
but
BUT
not knowing
how your hp went missing
is equally annoying as well
Thankfully,
This game provides clear signals on
many incoming attacks
from highlighted floors to a battle stance
CONVERSELY,
the amount of effects that is going on
might just block the view
For a game that has limited healing
and a strong demand on
recognising enemy movement patterns
I can see why this “may”
BOTHER SOMEONE
The boss fights on the other hand
is pretty well made for each of them
because it has distinctive patterns
and a great and cool design to be honest
and feels like a dance at times
it can be approach in various ways
though some are obviously more advantagous
which leads me to my next point
Okay
so what I like the most about this game
is how they treat the normies
the ‘common’
the commoners
the common skulls and items
Be honest with yourself
You get orange bling bling
The other becomes a fling thing
This is not the case in Skul
As ALL skulls except for your starting…
Little bone
and the one with dead cell reference
can be upgraded to legendary status
and unlock its full potential
that fit their playstyles
a common skull like the Carleon recruit
went from being a buddy summoner
into an army summoner
As for the items,
legendaries usually are better
than the commons at their job
Now
the catch here is that
each items there have their own 2 categories
If you get items with the similar categories
that buff will grow EXPONENTIALLY
That means…
any common item can be as worth or deadly as
the final upgrade of that category
the most prevalent being the
FAIRYTALE
and is also my favourite
and most people’s favourite
because this is how it looked
Swoosh*
and this is how it felt
SUMMONING INTENSIFIES*
YOU
ARE
F*CKED
OBERON!!
OBLITERATE!!
Skadoosh
Shadow realm noises*
On the downside,
the builds itself may have questionable balancing
As some felt really…
UNDERWHELMING
or too situational.
That includes the skulls by the way.
Finally, there is one more thing that I felt is
pretty subpar for a game of this genre
That’s right
this game is of the roguelite genre
and this genre usually shines when
it comes to replayability
Don’t get me wrong,
I don’t hate on it
Skul does have replayability
but compared to other big titles like…
Bindings of Isaa
Darkest Dungeon
Crypt of Necrodancer
it falls behind
Before completing your first run,
they did it pretty well because
it gives you a sense of progression
by saving these boyos here
That’ll make your future run slightly easier
But after completing for the first time,
that’s where it starts to fall off
I’ve completed more than 20 runs
when I write this review
and the only reason…
I’m still eager to continue playing
is because I want to see what all
the 30+ skulls has in store for me
when I fully upgraded it or
simply want to try some new builds
Every map in this game comes from a pool
with fixed layout and enemies
All the bosses are story related
and therefore
is static and the same
The only progression after the first completed run
is the castle renovation
which is purely cosmetic
the game can get repetitive relatively fast
but for a game that cost RM39
I think the price is still pretty much worth it
So, that’s pretty much all I have
for this potentially great game
I’ll be giving it a good
not a masterpiece, but not too shabby either
This game came out of beta not long ago,
I believe is around January
I do have some hopes for the
future updates or DLC contents
that fix the problems I mentioned
I even made a Reddit post about it
Thank you for watching
do Liek n Subskrib
and have a nice day <3
