XBOX REVIEW | Morkull Ragast’s Rage

I have always been a huge fan of side-scrolling platformers, with some of my favourites being Ori and the Blind Forest and Will of the Wisps. When I was given the opportunity to review Morkull Ragast’s Rage, I had to say yes. The first thing that really caught my attention was the hand-drawn visuals, which looked so appealing. Morkull Ragast’s Rage is a Metroidvania 2D platformer with lots of action and exploration. You play as Morkull, the God of Death and Darkness. Morkull is aware that you are controlling him in a video game, and he wants out. He’s also aware that the developers have written code to try and prevent him from escaping. So, it’s all down to you, the player, to help Morkull escape from the Ragast so he can rule the world with his evil plans for humanity.

From the get-go, you will instantly see that Morkull Ragast’s Rage is full of jokes and humour. Morkull himself reminded me a little of the Marvel character Deadpool—full of humour and not caring what others think of him.

As you play, you will need to traverse hazards in the environment and activate levers and switches to open doors to new areas. As you unlock new abilities, you will also gain access to previously unreachable places. Using the main map, you can identify unexplored areas and, when you encounter a dead end, turn around and search elsewhere. At any save point, you can use the ability tree to unlock new skills for Morkull, such as deadly new fighting combos and other abilities like air dashing, double jumping, and more. Each save point also allows you to teleport to other discovered save points scattered across the map.

Things I liked!

• Visuals | I was instantly drawn to the visuals in Morkull Ragast’s Rage. The colours are crystal clear and really shine on your screen as you play. Everything is completely hand-drawn and animated frame by frame. For most of Morkull Ragast’s Rage, especially early on, the setting is particularly dark, which really helps the brighter colours to pop. I was truly impressed by this. Morkull himself and some of the other characters you meet all look fantastic. It’s easy to see that a lot of work has gone into each of the character designs.

• Sound | Morkull Ragast’s Rage features ten different musical tracks that seamlessly blend into the background as you play. It definitely adds to the immersion, from the soft sounds of a harp or organ as you explore the world, to the roaring sound of a drum during a boss encounter. I was impressed with the music. The sound effects, while less impressive, still do a fairly good job. The whirling sound of your attacks, the light whistling as you jump through the air, and the loud thud of creatures attacking you all contribute to the overall experience.

Mixed & disliked!

• Controls | While, for the most part, the basic controls are quite simple—you have a basic attack and a strong attack—I mostly used the basic attack, as I could not really tell much difference. There were some occasions when the game instructed me to use the strong attack. You can also parry attacks, which, after some practice, works well. Additionally, there is a dash button, which is vital. You can use it to pass through enemies to attack them from behind, and also to avoid damage from some objects. However, the lack of polish in Morkull Ragast’s Rage soon proves to be frustrating. At one point, I unlocked an ability called “NOOB CRUSHER.” A prompt appeared on screen, telling me the button combo to perform this ability. After many failed attempts, I discovered that the prompt was displaying the incorrect button combo. Even after finding the correct combo, it only worked some of the time.

• Difficulty | Morkull Ragast’s Rage has some significant difficulty spikes that, for me, proved to be really frustrating, making large parts of the game unenjoyable. While there are many platforming elements early on, which I did enjoy, you will soon need to reach levers and switches in difficult-to-reach places. These areas often require you to avoid boulders, spikes, and various other obstacles and traps. Some hazards will take half your health, while others, such as spikes, will kill you instantly. The good news is that when you reach and activate a lever or switch, it will remain activated even if you die on your way back. However, sometimes, when you activate a switch or lever, the camera pans out to show you a door opening, and other times, it does not, leaving you confused about what the lever or switch actually did. When you die, you will lose half of all the souls you have, with no way to recover them other than by killing more enemies or finding secret stashes of souls. Souls serve as the currency for purchasing new abilities. Additionally, when you die, you often respawn at the last save point, which can sometimes be quite far from where you were. Morkull himself feels like a damage sponge. While most enemies take five or six hits to kill, Morkull can die after taking only a few hits.

• Story | While the introduction of the story is light-hearted and attempts to be funny, as you play and progress through the story, there isn’t much more said about Morkull trying to escape. He has the occasional conversation with other characters, but these all seem largely irrelevant. I would have liked to see the humour from the opening of Morkull Ragast’s Rage continue throughout the game.

• Lack of polish | While playing Morkull Ragast’s Rage, I encountered numerous minor bugs and glitches, including a spelling mistake in the game’s introduction that should surely have been spotted. Sometimes, I would walk into an invisible block that I had to jump over. While this was not a major issue, it happened far too often and was even more frustrating when I was being attacked by enemies on screen.

How long did I play the review before publishing? 12 Hours
How long to beat the story? 6 Hours +
How many Achievements did I earn before publishing? 10/25 OR 225/1000G
How long to achieve 1000G | 25 Hours
You’ll love this game if you like these | Hollow knight and Volgarr the Viking

CONCLUSION

Score: 50/100

The visuals and art style instantly drew me in, and after playing Morkull Ragast’s Rage, I feel it’s a game with lots of great ambitions that sadly fall short in many ways. It lacks the polish that would greatly improve the gameplay experience. There are no accessibility options to speak of, nor are there any difficulty settings—just the default one. While some prompts provide instructions and helpful hints as you play, the fact that one of them gives incorrect information is frustrating. Overall, I found it too challenging and equally frustrating, as I felt the difficulty was unnecessary. Hopefully, Disaster Games Studio is already working on updates to address some of the problems I faced. There is a lot of potential here if they can get the balance right.