↓↑journey

I’m going to get this out of the way at the start. I’m so glad we’ve gotten to the point where we’re getting Hades-like games, and I am going to be referring to it throughout.

I don’t mean roguelite games, which are obviously much older, but if the developers haven’t played Supergiant’s magnum opus, I’ll be shocked.

And it definitely shows that it’s much harder to make a Hades-quality game than you’d expect.

But this new contender also shows that the subgenre has a lot of capacity for invention, divergence and, crucially, it’s just an inky good time.

I Shouldn’t Be This Good, Right?

My opinion on the game has massively developed over the 12 or so runs I’ve had a go at. After the first run, I was ready to hang up my controller for the simple reason that I had almost beaten it in one go. I’d love to say it’s because of my incredible skill, but while I’m certainly better than I was with Hades in 2020, that would be disingenuous.

Due to the combination of powers I accumulated, the fact that you start on the second-weakest difficulty, rather easy-to-read enemy attacks, and a good bit of luck, I got all the way to the penultimate boss on my first run.

I had a great time and felt like a god, but this isn’t really the point of a roguelite where you’re meant to die, gain a bit of meta-progression, polish your skills, try again and finally win. In fact, at points the game feels more like playthroughs I’ve seen of people playing Diablo.

There are seven difficulties, starting on Sheep Hair Brush going all the way to Dragon Hair Brush. There’s also Fox Hair Brush difficulty, which is easier.

However, I’m afraid that I didn’t notice a massive change between the difficulties – maybe if I went backwards I would (like returning to standard definition after watching HD), but the only thing that actually made the game more difficult was trying a weaker/more complicated combat style.

I Will Escape

There are eight Realms to fight through, each of which has a mid-boss and an end-boss. Each run involves four of the Realms, and the first Realm seems to determine the rest (so two paths, basically). However, I’ve only seen the ‘Tomb of the Ink Gods’ twice as far as I can remember, so the fourth Realm might be available on both paths. There’s also a final boss who, while cool, is too easy.

The Realms could do with some more variety. I love some of the stranger themes such as the sword graveyard, Buddhist temple, and nightmare theatre. But, besides the exploding plants in the evil flower garden Realm, not much changes gameplay-wise.

To Become a God

It’s a good thing then that the gameplay is incredibly fun! It’s an isometric action RPG/hack-and-slash, like Hades, but there are some key differences, mainly in the build-craft systems.

Change Your Skin

First, you have your Form or ‘skin’. This is chosen in the hub between worlds and has a genuine effect on gameplay, changing your weapons from a sword to a hammer to curse-inflicting butterflies and more. And it alters your build preferences, from focusing on critical hits to curses, to status effects to powering up your Ink Pet and beyond.

Within the run itself, you can pick from three different combat upgrades after each Realm Boss (and a few other occasions). These are generally the most powerful upgrades you can get, and help tailor your build.

There is also a skill tree in the hub, though this mainly just ups your stats, and is very easy to complete. There are a couple of cooler powers such as a second life, but it’s not the most interesting part of the game.

I’ll Have You and You

Each room lets you pick what reward/challenge you’ll receive. So Ink Gems, Curios, Elixirs, Money, or two different challenge rooms (one of which has two versions). The challenge rooms have you defeating 30-seconds of enemies, dodging unlimited enemies for 30-seconds, or just having to overcome a particularly difficult room. They also give you a hefty reward.

The Ink Gems are a bit like Hades‘ boons, in that they give you other powers to use. They are split into the five Asian Classical Elements, with multiple subclasses. You can use two at any one time, and can upgrade them from Common to Legendary.

They can be swapped whenever you gain a new gem, and any that you don’t use can be ‘sold’ to get Ink Stones for these upgrades. While this means you can get locked into a gameplay style fairly early on (as you’ll get used to the gameplay, and might’ve upgraded your Gems), it also means that you can change whenever you want. It’s a good system that ensures every Gem progresses your journey in some way.

The Ink Gems also determine the type of Ink Pet you have. This is a creature that supports you in combat. Its standard form is a blob of ink that jumps at enemies, but you can change this with your Ink Gems. For example, two Fire Gems change your Pet into a Fiery Pet, a Water and Wood gem give you a Swampy Pet and so on.

Other power-ups can even give you additional Ink Pets to use. I’m a huge fan of monster collecting/battling, so this was a big plus for me.

At the hub, you can feed your Ink Pet, which both levels it up and, for some reason, makes it bigger. Unfortunately, this increased size is only active at the hub.

Then there are Curios and Elixirs. Curios are my favourite element as they can massively affect your build, and are cumulative. Elixirs are your standard stat upgrades but, again, can exponentially increase your stats, particularly when combined with Curios, Ink Gems, and other powers.

Curios can also be bought at the Transfer Station before each Mid-Realm-Boss and End-of-Realm-Boss. This is where you upgrade your Ink Gems and buy Dishes, which are temporary upgrades and health restorative items.

I’m not sure if having them appear at the same times each run, or having all three shopkeepers appear at once, is the best idea, as it makes it feel less random, which is often part of the challenge in a roguelite.

But once it clicked that this was more of a power-fantasy game than a challenge, it improved a lot.

There are other elements as well, such as Primordial Inks (an ultimate power for each Form), and additional interactions with characters that tend to bring a risk/weakness and reward. So you can be sure that no run will be the same as the last.

Ink Paintings and… Well, It’s a Choice

The art style is gorgeous, inspired by ink paintings and anime. To an extent, I wish I had it on my Switch, rather than the PS5, so that I could see it in more detail (my current PS5 setup generally requires me to sit quite far away!). And it’s not like the PS5 has stopped the lag, which I’ll get onto.

The character designs? Well, some are really cool, particularly the bosses. The Wish Stag, the Dream Master, Quexie (a woman seemingly possessed by her own sword), and Cangmeng (a Kyogre-type monster) are all really interesting.

And the other key characters are all well-designed and easily recognisable – my favourites are the chess/go-playing archivist, the blind fortune teller and the literal doge meme.

But the normal enemies aren’t exactly the most memorable – I’m not sure why, but I struggle to bring any to mind beyond some creepy marionettes.

A quick side note. It’s perhaps just a bit too oversexualised. The game is definitely horny, and I’ve no problem with that, but it goes too far at times. The ‘relationship’ clips are a bit much, seemingly focused on a different, rather fetishised part of the, so far only female, characters. And the snake boss sisters? Well, let’s say that their relationship is certainly a choice.

The extra costumes you can pick for some of the Forms are, well they’re a bit odd. They seem to be mostly based on seasonal events, such as New Year and Christmas, and make it feel more mobile-game-y than it perhaps is. The costumes for the standard Ink Pet are fun though!

Each Ink Gem, Curio, Dish, Elixir and weapon ability has its own piece of artwork as well, which are all gorgeous.

In the Booth

The music is solid, not Hades-level but solid. And the voice acting is fairly good but suffers in two ways. First is a lack of polish and consistency – not every line is voice-acted, some of the lines don’t match the subtitles and, worst of all, sometimes the voice acting will just cut out mid-sentence.

Second is that it’s got the strange non-naturalistic feeling of me being able to imagine the voice actors in the booths. I’m not sure what’s causing this, but maybe it’s mixed wrong or slightly overacted?

Write Your Own Fate

The story is a classic ‘escape your fate’ plot, which does its job but is nothing to write home about.

Most of the character interactions are in the ‘good but not great’ category as well, with some exceptions. For example, the parrot pining for his lost love and the woman who literally wants to skin you to preserve your beauty are great in a bonkers way. And I enjoy the relationship between the materialist, Golda, and his sister, the spiritualist, Grace.

And the Jesus-like Wish Stag has some horrifyingly upsetting lines about being forsaken by the equivalent of God.

However, most of the interesting ideas, and some fairly important facts, are locked in the ‘Ink Realm Anecdote’ page. I’ve no problem with having the story in a codex, but for some reason they’ve put this one in the pause menu (along with your buffs). This makes it feel much more like a game than if it had been in-universe. But, hey, at least it’s not on a separate app or website!

Second Drafts are Okay

The main improvement the game needs is another round or two of polish. There are a fair number of mistakes and bugs, including the ones I’ve already mentioned and:

• Apostrophes misalign the text
• The ellipses are sometimes floating too high which makes them seem like an error
• There’s too much text in the text boxes, forcing them to shrink the font – just make us click through to another box!
  • Some of the item/power descriptions don’t fit on the screen either
• Other text errors such as ‘Eng’ (presumably for ‘English) being left in an item description and text that overlaps/is missing spaces
  • You also can’t stop the explanation boxes from appearing. So you can’t see both Ink Gems at the same time in the stats window, for example, as the explanation boxes cover one of them
• Too much lag – some is okay, as it makes you feel like you’re doing too much damage for the game to handle, but a PS5 game should not lag this much!
• Some random invisible walls – particularly in the hub world
• Inconsistencies in names/localisation – the game can not decide if the game one of the characters plays is Go or Chess – hint: it’s definitely Go, according to the artwork
• Continuity errors – Red will say she’s killed bosses you haven’t, and Miss Yan showed up in the Transfer Stations before I’d been introduced to her
• Footsteps can still be heard when you’re playing as a Form that’s floating
• One actual crash – where I lost a challenge room and the camera locked me into a corner while continually respawning enemies. Thankfully, turning the game off and on, and then losing the room again, fixed it

And strange decisions such as:

• The stats button is locked to L3. It’s the only control you can’t change, and means that I quite often accidentally open it when running around. This pauses the game so it’s not as bad as it could’ve been, but it’s just weird that it’s the only control that can’t be moved/remapped
• There is an overwhelming amount of text for the Ink Gems – but bear with it, and you’ll start to learn what keywords to look for
• You need to have the sound up during the ‘endings’ to hear one of the twists – I don’t particularly mind this as I’m generally the believer that you should always have the sound up, but I know many people don’t play like that
• The clock only counts down during combat, which makes it seem like runs are only about 12 minutes long. But with all the buying, reading and changing your style, it’s much closer to an hour
• The Ink Pets have four levels, depending on the rarity of your Ink Gems. Unfortunately, they only change design between the 1st and 2nd level. This isn’t a problem, per se, but does nothing to remove the idea that the game isn’t finished
• I believe I received the wrong ending first – according to the trophies, the ‘Red’ (the protagonist’s name) ending should be first, and that would certainly make more sense story-wise
• There might be another chapter and boss, which is spoiled by some of the flavour text, but I’ve yet to unlock it, though I have gotten all of the endings

Conclusion

Overall, I had a good time with the Realm of Ink, particularly once I treated it as more similar to Diablo than Hades.

It’s certainly got that ‘one more run’ feeling to it, and the moment-to-moment gameplay is great fun. It just feels like it’s still in early access, even though it’s left that stage, and is slightly too easy.

But, heck, I got a Platinum out of it in about 12 hours, which I’m never against!

8/10

Note: my score might seem generous considering my review, but it really is fun, and if I compare it to Hades (10/10) and Knights vs Giant (6.5-7/10), for example, then it’s an 8.

A PS5 review code was provided by the publisher.

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And that’s all! Have you played Realm of Ink? What’s your favourite build? Do you enjoy a rougelite? Let me know in the comments, and find the other adventures on DownUpJourney here. And be sure to check out my other writing here!