Flame Keeper Review

Flame Keeper, distributed by Untold Tales and produced by Kautki Cave, met with players as early access on March 17, 2023. While we’re at it, let’s also say that they aim to keep this rogue-lite game in early access for about a year. 

Flame Keeper early access review

Can coal be the main character?

The story takes place in a world consisting of sky islands called Orbis. At the very beginning, we witness a dark army attacking this world and stealing the eternal fire that is valuable to foxes. At that moment, a piece of coal that knows how to fight comes from the sky and manages to send this army away with its fighting skills. The coal rekindles the fire that has gone out with its flame energy resembling a ember, but of course this is not enough. He has to travel the biomes and bring back the eternal fire. From now on, the fate of the world of Orbis is in the hands of coal, that is, Igbis.

For an independent game with flashy and cute visuals, it has an average story. I can’t say that its narrative is very intriguing. I can say that the main reason for this is the lack of cinematics between sections.

How is it played?

We need to find lamps from the surroundings to reach the campfire on a sky island surrounded by enemies. In this way, we can complete the section by advancing to the next level. If we go back to finding the lamps, it is not enough to just find them. There is also the charging of them. We can charge them by sacrificing a portion of our own health bar. In this case, it is necessary to increase health in various ways, try not to take damage and establish a balance at a level where health can be sacrificed. Considering that we spend a portion of our health even to remove the lamps, we are faced with a game with a high level of challenge.

I mentioned that we can increase our health by collecting flame energy in various ways. Sometimes we can do this by killing enemies, sometimes by getting a temporary effect from mushrooms, and sometimes by dashing trees and lowering the energy in the branches. Increasing health is not as easy as it seems. Foxes try to grab the flame energy before you and take it to their nests. So we also fight them, but fortunately they are harmless creatures. We can hit their necks and get it back from them. For this, we need to be quite agile.

The thing that drove me crazy the most while playing was the energies falling from the trees. They either fall off a cliff or get into very narrow corners. There seems to be an unnecessary difficulty here. When you dash into trees, sometimes you can cause a spider to spawn there. This is a risk factor that I like, it’s the genre itself. The game actually says that if you want health, you have to take risks, but I have to say again that the energies falling out of reach is more than a risk or a difficulty. 

Land and Desert

There are three sections in each biome in the game. We see that each section is level-based in itself. Just as you cannot move on to the next without finishing one level, due to the structure of the type, if you fail the last level, you have to continue from the first level. However, all your progress is not lost. 

The resources you earn during the level remain in your pocket even if you fail, so you can improve yourself with the resources and try your luck again in the same section. Since the game is in early access, there are two biomes: soil and desert. The other two biomes are closed in early access. This means that six sections are missing. The color palettes of the two biomes that are currently open are very close to each other. I would like to see relatively different colors preferred in the other two biomes that are not open after early access. 

Tower Defense

There are three or four levels, depending on whether there is a boss in the section we choose. The first two levels are based on finding the lamps I just described and placing them in the campfire. The third level is the usual tower defense. There is a cauldron in the middle and we need to protect it against enemy damage from the corridors for five minutes. 

We can place traps in the corridor to slow down the enemies, but again, like in the level where we placed the lamps, in exchange for a portion of our health! I should also say that as time runs out, the enemies start to deal high damage in direct proportion to their size. 

Tower defenses were the levels I enjoyed the most in the game. Being against time and gaining an advantage by sacrificing a certain amount of health, which is the basic dynamic of the game, was a separate pleasure. In fact, it wouldn’t be bad if a “training” section consisting of only tower defenses, independent of the main scenario, was added to the full version. Otherwise, we have to collect lamps in two levels in a row to reach the tower defense. 

Runes and Abilities

I also said that even if we fail the levels and our progress is reset, our resources do not go away. We can use these resources in the buildings in the fox village, which is our main center. The fox village is not only for our development, there are also mini guides in the game. For example, we can see which short-term effects we can reduce from mushrooms, which obstacles are in tower defense. 

We can upgrade rune and talent buildings with various resources we collect and open runes and talents at the level corresponding to that upgrade. However, there is a difference between them. While we can drop runes ourselves as we progress in the game, we can obtain talents by paying for a certain resource. In addition, we can open totems in the game by using our health or find resources by placing a red diamond in its slot.

My only complaint about runes and abilities is that the resources required to upgrade them are too much. Yes, at one point they wanted to make the game harder and make it play over and over again, but I think this can also bore the player to the same extent. We can also develop the towers, which are a kind of obstacle for the level we protect the cauldron, in the fox village. I upgraded this building one level and left it instead of spending resources on runes and abilities. 

Controls and Mechanics

We control our character Ignis in an isometric perspective with the arrow keys. Since the game contains hack n’ slash elements, it also carries the dash mechanic and thus we can avoid enemies. However, we cannot dash and jump from side to side because we have a stamina. This again requires us to be moderate. I told you, this game requires balance and patience from the player. 

There are also active skills with cooldowns in the game. We can randomly drop these skills from enemies. I can generally say that they are area effect skills. The good thing is that we can take the skill we get to the next level. I didn’t prefer to dash while trying the game because it takes one unit of stamina. Jumping uses less stamina. That’s why it was easier for me to dodge by jumping. 

Random must haves

The maps in the levels, active skills and the effects obtained from mushrooms are also random. Although mushrooms generally provide positive effects such as attack speed and health, they can sometimes be risky. If the “reverse” effect occurs, you may have to play the game with the opposite direction keys for a while. This is very nice because it is not directly punishing. If you determine your direction skillfully for a certain period of time, you can get rid of this effect without any problems. 

There are different types of enemies for each biome. While we encounter spiders in the soil biome, we see scorpions in the desert. The problem I had when killing enemies was that I could not calculate that they would deal area-of-effect damage when they died. That’s why you have to avoid them after you make the final hit, otherwise I can say they will make revenge hits. As you progress, you will encounter more difficult enemies, and they still have some effects such as slowing or poisoning. In short, you need to develop a tactic against each enemy. 

How long does it take?

Each level takes about five to ten minutes. Naturally, a three-level section can exceed twenty minutes. If there is a fourth level, the boss level, this time is even longer.  

Again, one of my criticisms is that I think the level times are a bit long. Okay, you’re a rogue-lite, you’re ruthless, but I played for about half an hour and you bring me a boss whose strategy and range of motion I’m trying to figure out. When you fail, it takes half an hour. At least the sections where the boss is could have been reduced to three levels. Also, while talking about the time, I should say that there is a portal passage in the second biome. In these passages, it can be boring to go back and forth on the same path while bringing and taking lamps. This is also a factor that increases the time.

Although I fell off many cliffs while trying to escape from the enemy at first, I later realized that we can move forward by jumping over the rocks in between. In fact, I was able to easily take down some difficult enemies by doing a hit-and-run over the stone. This situation provides a lot of convenience for a game that is challenging in many ways. Maybe they can add difficulties such as decreasing our health as we stand on the rock in the full version.

Switch ve PC

The game is currently available on two platforms: Nintendo Switch and PC. In this article, we have experienced it on the Nintendo Switch side. We can share with you that it is a very smooth production both as a handheld console and with the dock. It was more enjoyable to play on the handheld console for me. If you are looking for another game suitable for the handheld console, there is a game that has recently been released exclusively for the Nintendo Switch. Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon is one of those we can recommend.

Conclusion

With its neon visual feast and wonderful music, it managed to attract me because I am not unfamiliar with the genre, but I must say again that I hope that the full version will have more appealing arrangements for the player.

If you like the rogue-lite genre and are a person of patience and balance, you can check out the early access version. Via My Nintendo Store On sale for $8. If you ask is it worth the price? It offers an early access worth trying. However, considering that it is priced between 100-150 Turkish lira in our country, I may not recommend it if you are not interested in this genre. Let us also announce here that they announced that the price will be updated after early access.