Reknum is not Zelda

[+neogeo1982]

After looking at many screenshots and reading a few comments I picked this one up. There are a few different homebrew Zelda type adventures out there now to pick from. This one looked promising. It is a serviceable adventure, not for $50 though.

Controls - Feel loose and I had to stick with a boomerang most of the game. Any close combat the hit detection and hit hit boxes are not close to accurate and result in you taking damage in close quarters. You can walk diagonally, great for trying to avoid any encounters that are not at a distance. The loose controls and back and forth between overhead/side scrolling immediately felt like Govellius.

Story- There is a town and some folk that push a bare bones ghost and elf story along. Pretty standard. 

Art - The character art is really nice and some townsfolk are memorable. Everything else looks like it needs to bake a little longer in the art department. 

Length- Not so free open world. Key locked areas. Find a key and move on. Like the Souls in the title, you're trying to free the 4 ghost souls in the world. Well I made it through 3 dungeons and bosses on my first time playing. In 3 hours. Procrastinating the final areas since the game was so much plus shipping to start with. Several lives with respawn nearby and many save spots almost make up for loose controls, but that also makes it very easy and shortens the adventure.

    It's not a bad game. It's not a great game either though. And not for $50 plus shipping. 

[+jgkspsx]

You might want to look for an Evercade… this and a lot of other NES homebrews are on the Indie Heroes collections which are $20 for the whole cart.