4.5/5 ★ – DanteHR's review of Ravenlok.

After a big fail from "Xbox" with their incredible and incomparable AAA game "Redfall", we all thought that their upcoming games would fail. But the "Game pass" brought us a little pleasant surprise. "Ravenlok" a free indie game on "Xbox Game pass" made and published by "Cococomber". For an indie with so little attention around him, the game really does fulfills all tasks, a real "hidden-gem". "Ravenlok" starts very simply, you choose a name and then you enter directly into the gameplay. At the beginning , the game will not attract you so much, but as you progress more and more and you do certain tasks, the game will show you what it's really capable of. Without advanced graphics settings or next-gen graphics, the game delivers good combat with a good story and a system of traveling super satisfying. In terms of gameplay, "Ravenlok" gives us a lot but at the same time very little. The Combat in the game is only melee, but that doesn't mean it's bad, on the contrary , the combat is damn satisfying, it's not at the level of "Elden Ring", but it's still better than the one in "Forspoken" or "Redfail". At first, the game tends to manipulate your mind into thinking it's an RPG game, but in itself it has very few RPG elements and those are the quests. In the game you only have a sword and a shield, you will unlock both in the first 30 minutes of the game. After.., along the way you unlock 4 abilities for the sword, each ability gives more DMG than the previous ability. Along the way in the playtrough, you will reach a certain area where you can buy HP potions and upgrade the character, similar to an evolution. You can buy all of them with the in-game currency. The dash and the parry work equally well, you can use the dash indefinitely without any cooldown, and the parry has a mechanism similar to the "Heat system" from "Sekiro". The variety of enemies is decent, enough enemies for 5 hours of MAXIMUM gameplay. The bosses in the game are also decent, I found only about 3 more interesting bosses, the rest are either too easy, or their attack pattern is boring. Also, finally in this category, I didn't encounter any bugs in my entire 5-hour playthrough. The game ran smoothly and I had not even a problem with certain parts of the game. Graphically, "Ravenlok" is not something very spectacular, a simple indie game with fewer effects and details. The art style, on the other hand, is a very interesting one, wannabe "Alice in Wonderlands" style. It is very pleasing to the eye and is recommended for any type of age. The sounds of the game were super good and satisfying in every way. The sounds were perfect for the game, those from combat, those from dash and all environmental sounds. I could say that the music is equally praised. The music is just right, it was chosen perfectly for the game. It's one that doesn't make you turn off the music. The story of "Ravenlok" is a simple one with little twists, the game shows us a little girl recently moved to a house in the country with her parents, while she helps the parents, her father gives her the keys to the barn to look for certain things that the girl might be interested in. Later, the girl finds a mirror and immediately after she cleans the mirror, she is transported to a magical world beyond her realm. Later she finds out that she is "chosen" to save all the citizens of the world from the communism peace in the world. A simple story that any 13-year-old child can do in 2 working hours, but the way the story is presented and all the random quests of the "queen" and all the quests from random characters in the world , makes the game 10 times better. "Ravenlok" is really a "hidden gem" among all these super huge games that appear month after month these days. It's a breath of fresh air. Having a very short story , but a good combat with a super interesting "world building", I would say that "Ravenlok" is a must-play if you have gamepass, even without gamepass I could recommend this game for hours on end. 9/10 by DanteHR