Review | The Skylia Prophecy

LifeisXbox’s The Skylia Prophecy Review | The Skylia Prophecy is a side-scrolling action RPG where you take on the character of eighteen-year-old Mirenia on her quest for redemption in a medieval fantasy world. After unleashing a terrible evil three years ago, you have the task of destroying this by venturing through villages and dungeon fortress levels where you will unquestionably be greeted by a variety of monsters and bosses that you must battle against alone. With your trusty Shield Blade at hand, venture and fight your way through all enemies that are set on causing chaos whilst growing yourself with health, mana, and strength throughout. You’ll come across villagers who can provide you with knowledge, purchasable items and quests should you require them. Whether you will succeed in your journey, no one can tell. The Skylia Prophecy has been published by TotalConsole and developed by 7 Raven Studios to bring a challenging experience with danger around every corner to contend against in hope that peace will once again be restored.

VicciVulpix played The Skylia Prophecy for five hours on Xbox One S. This game is also available on Xbox Series S/X, Playstation 4/5, Nintendo Switch, Steam, Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS.

What we liked!

• Mixture of enemies and bosses | There is a range of enemies in The Skylia Prophecy that consist of both monsters and creatures such as spiders, ghosts, and bats for example – plus those that have close combat and ranged abilities. For smaller enemies, your shield will be able to eliminate these when coming into contact but for larger enemies, you will need to attack these numerous times by either using your sword or your special abilities. The bosses I’ve come across so far have different mechanics and will require a more strategic approach to defeat them. It was great to have independent bosses as it meant you had to work out the best way to trounce your foe, using your movement, combat, and surroundings to your advantage.

• Level design | As you travel and battle your way through The Skylia Prophecy, you will find yourself amongst villages, varying outside environments, and dungeons. These levels do each have different layouts meaning you won’t be fighting the same threats or traversing areas, in the same way, each time. Some may require you to follow a somewhat linear path whereas others will require you to gain access to areas by completing boss fights or quests beforehand. Savepoints, which are statues holding a blue flame, can be found through the game and these will fully replenish all of your stats. Obviously, these also allow progression to be saved if you get lost, need to start a section over, or just need to take a break.

• Progression is rewarded | As you make your way through The Skylia Prophecy you will find yourself being granted increases to your overall health, mana, and strength the further you progress. Admittedly, this is not always obvious as I killed, what I would class as a casual enemy, and was given a permanent mana boost. These prove to be incredibly useful against tougher enemies and prove that if you show dedication and continue your journey, you will be given something in return to help you along the way. You can also acquire gold that can be used at the village shop or hospital, depending on what you need in your current circumstances. It’s worth noting that you can only hold one of each item at one given time so use them wisely.

• Visually nostalgic | Now, if I’m being honest, I expected more of the same quality of graphics when I loaded up The Skylia Prophecy and viewed the main menu screen. Much to my surprise, it was the complete opposite but the game was fortunate enough to have the retro graphics work in their favour. Due to the combined style and genre of the game, I can safely say the appearance of The Skylia Prophecy was rather reminiscent of older titles and as much as I would have loved to see more intricate graphics make an appearance, I can’t say I was disappointed in what I was playing from a visual point of view. The game felt alive and the use of contrasting colour was everywhere, from the characters to the scenery, that allowed something that looked incredibly simple to also appear unexpectedly beautiful.

Somewhere between

• Minimal combat options | At the beginning of The Skylia Prophecy, you are given a quick introduction to your weapon, a sword that can be used as a combat weapon or used to create a dangerous shield by not only protecting yourself from enemy projectiles but also damaging any enemies that get too close for comfort. As you make your way through, you are granted special abilities which cost mana to use. Now, this may sound quite good but you are still limited. I think it would have been nice to start with both a sword and perhaps a bow, giving you the choice of both close and ranged combat. You can’t croutch and attack. Mana is consumed every time you cast an ability, including double jump, and can only be replenished with a mana potion, mana upgrade, or at a save point.

• Sound effects and music | The music changes dependant on the area you’re in but this is repeated across the game. For example, the village music is always the same as is the dungeon music so it became a little repetitive but I was more than ok with this as you are always changing regions. It still managed to create different atmospheres based on where you were. The sound effects however did sound a little basic and unimaginative, letting down the audio but I guess this is understandable as The Skylia Prophecy appears to be unpretentious and not necessarily in a bad way. It works well but I do think this aspect could have been looked at in more detail.

• The story lost interest | Perhaps this is just a personal feeling but no matter what type of game I play, most of the time it’s nice to have a story to follow to give the game depth, meaning, and purpose. Now, although The Skylia Prophecy does have a background story, I did find myself losing track as it became progressively less satisfying. I understand the style of game is based far more on gameplay but to keep things fresh and captivating, I would have liked to hear more from the villagers about their circumstances and situations.

What we disliked

• Requires backtracking | As you come across different villages after clearing hostile areas, you can enter three different doors. One is a shop, another is a doctor and lastly one gives you quests to where upon completion you will be rewarded with coin. Strangely enough, not all of these quests are linear as you are forced to go back through previous areas to find what you may be looking for which became tedious. Yes, it’s not needed to complete these to progress further but they do offer you money, allowing you to buy items that could ultimately make the remainder of your journey that much easier. I guess for me, this was something that could have been incorporated better, creating direct objectives to complete along the way.

• Single save file | I have never been a huge believer in games that only provide you with one save file and found myself quite disappointed to see that The Skylia Prophecy has done this. This is mainly because if you should run into any problems during your playthrough, there is no way of reloading any previous progress from a previous save file, allowing you to go back in the hope that this fixes your problem. I feel this should be the standard expectation for the vast majority of games as no one wants to put a significant amount of hours in, only to have a bugged or impassable area, requiring you to restart your game from scratch. 

• Completion not required | This aspect of video games is becoming increasingly more common for my liking. I understand people wanting easy gamerscore but rewarding a 100% completion by only playing around a quarter of the overall game is incredibly insulting to the people who produced the game in my opinion. I was shocked to see I had earned all achievements just after clearing the very first area. I have continued through multiple levels preceding this and it’s obvious to me that the achievements could have easily been spread out amongst levels, bosses, and perhaps upgrades or enemy kills. Safe to say, there was not much imagination or thought put in for these ‘goals’.

How long to complete the story | Approximately 5 Hours How long to achieve 1000 Gamerscore | Approximately 1 Hour
Similar with | Horned Knight, Troupe, Foregone, and Micetopia

CONCLUSION

LifeisXbox.eu is the largest Belgian Xbox centered website, your reading time is greatly appreciated! Please consider sharing this review with your friends on social media, that means a lot for us! If you are Dutch speaking also consider joining our Dutch exclusive Facebook group Xbox Gamers Belgium. Feel free to use quotes for PR purposes.