5/5 ★ – astrospawn's review of Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth.

A short love letter to Symphony of the Night set in the Lodoss world. A tight experience with beautiful pixel art, and fun gameplay mechanics. I appreciated the Ikaruga mechanic being included. Boss fights felt at times like a mix of metroidvania and shmup combat. The dialogue can be confusing at times and I saw at least one typo. Not sure how much to attribute to the writing versus the translation. But by the end of the game I felt moved by the story it had told. I personally wish the soundtrack was more atmospheric and less arcade influenced. The game in general could have used more dynamics and the music could have helped add that depth with a little more subtlety. The boss fights in the first half of the game were a bit too easy in my opinion. Most of them I beat on my first attempt. By the end of the game the difficulty ramps up significantly to something I found more appropriate. I do wish it had been around that level of difficulty throughout. It also would have had the added benefit of increasing the play length of a very short game. Biggest downside was that the Switch version I played did experience slowdown. Mostly minor but at one point significant. Obviously that shouldn’t really happen, being it is a 2D game. It’s not like the Switch isn’t capable of handling it. Overall a really enjoyable game and one that I happily 100%’d. When the credits started rolling I felt sad that it was over. But I would always rather that feeling than that of playing a game which outstays it’s welcome.