Verdict: 7.3/10 – Play it!

Several years ago in 2013, CHASM caught my eye. I got so pumped seeing all the cool pixel art, teasers and the Kickstarter. I absolutely loved the direction the game was taking both in its gorgeous graphic style (I love pixel art) and what looked to me like solid game play.

The game, to be developed by BITKID was officially funded and the Kickstarter brought in a mere $190k with a release window in 2014 for PC and Playstation 4.

Anyone could have tested it out, the demo was made available but some had access to beta builds as they progressed in their development of the game. It was a very short demo that gave me the impression that the developers were fans of old games like Castlevania: Symphony of The Night. They toted a Metroidvania with Roguelike elements, like procedurally generated areas. Needless to say, they had me on board.

Chasm Launch Trailer:

OVERVIEW:

Chasm is an action-adventure game in which you play a new recruit undertaking your first mission from the Guildean Kingdom. Thrilled to prove your worth, you track strange rumors that a mine vital to the Kingdom has been shut down. What you discover in the mining town is worse than you imagined. The townspeople have disappeared, kidnapped by supernatural creatures emerging from the depths.

Honor-bound to solve the mystery and restore peace to the Kingdom, you embark upon an epic adventure. You’ll encounter deadly battles against cunning monsters, explore ancient catacombs and castles, and find powerful new equipment hidden at every turn.

GAMEPLAY:

Chasm’s game mechanics are solid. As a platformer it plays really well and as you’d expect. Your character is very responsive and agile from the start but it’s obvious that you’re lacking abilities, no big surprises here. As you progress through the different areas of the game you’ll gain access to these abilities like being able to grab hold of ledges, a parachute gliding ability and the double jump; which comes much too late in the game in my opinion.

You’ll also gain experience by killing enemies and bosses. As your experience accumulates you’ll level up. However, leveling up is automatic and there is no stat distribution or purchased abilities. Instead the leveling system only increases your health and magic stats (HP and MP), which at first, was a bummer for me. Personally, I love that added RPG element of being able to level up my character and increase his/her stats as I see fit. But it wouldn’t work well in this game because you’d become overpowered too quickly. Each area’s enemies do not level with you and instead are a static level.

You’ll find out when returning to previously beaten areas that you’ll explore for hidden treasures that you feel an overwhelming sense of power. You can one shot every enemy now! Yeah!

As you progress you’ll pick up new weapons, armors and accessories. These items are what end up becoming your stat boosters. Each item placed on your character (Weapon, Secondary Weapon, Armor, and 2 Accessories) increases the different stats that dictate how much damage you can deal or be dealt each hit. Opening chests will yield these new items or if you’d like to grind a little bit, each and every enemy has a set of item drops including equipment.

The health system (HP) is set up to be challenging but not overly complex. As you level up, your health pool increases. You’ll start with a small amount but can pick up health recovering items along the way like apples, chicken and even veil. The magic system is set up in the exact same way. Later in the game you’ll unlock a friend that will sell you health and mana potions.

You’ll save your progress at checkpoints as you make your way from area to area. Check points are scarce and will add an element of difficulty through out your play through.

BOSSES:

Lots of unique and interesting bosses lay in wait in each area of the game and will prevent you from progressing if you can’t seem to kill them off. They are cool and each has fun animations and move sets.

However, they were not extremely challenging. Actually, early in the game several of the bosses were only semi hard. While in the middle of the game all the bosses seemed really easy. I’d often times encounter bosses, kill them with relative ease and think to myself “the regular enemies are harder than some of these bosses!”

Here lies the flaw of having health items in a game like this one. If I had enough healing potions or items I’d just instantly heal up and hack and slash away at these bosses. I’m sure balance in this game was a challenge while still trying to hold onto that RPG feel. Maybe they wanted the game to not be extremely hard like so many games I’ve tried to become after the Dark Souls wave. But all the best platformers of old were very challenging for me. If they did want it to be a casual experience, they succeeded EXCEPT at the end of the game. I’m not going to spoil anything in this review but I’ll just say that I’ve yet to beat the game. I completed 98% of it and that last 2% is the final boss. UGH!

ENVIRONMENT:

Chasm has beautifully hand drawn pixel graphics. As stated on their website “Though the overall story is the same for all players, your hero’s journey will be unique: each of the rooms has been hand-designed, and behind the scenes Chasm stitches these rooms together into a one-of-a-kind world map that will be your own.”

To be honest I’m a sucker for pixel graphics these days. They are what initially caught my eye and sparked my gaming curiosity with this one. The animations look great, the world looks spectacular, and the characters and enemies are really fun. They aren’t going to blow you away but they’ve done a great job with each area and blending the game together.

I do wish I’d gotten a chance to play more levels outside of the chasm. I wish they’d had more interest in putting effects like the snow storm when you first head into town into more areas of the game. That being said, I had no issues with slow down or frame rate problems playing on my much older gaming machine.

For the sake of being thorough I started a second game to experience the one-of-a-kind stitched together rooms. They do indeed change and I could see this adding a little more life to the game. But I hope the developers didn’t spend a ton of time on this mechanic, though I suspect they did. Understandably they wanted this mechanic to be a staple and a feature that allowed their game to stand out from the crowded indie titles that have no innovating qualities. They didn’t want to do just more of the same and I commend them on their effort here as developers. Developing games is hard work, no doubt in my mind about that! It just didn’t work out. Maybe if there is a Chasm 2 or the developers build another game we’ll see this mechanic fleshed out and working like they’d originally hoped it would.

CONCLUSION:

The difficulty of this game is a problem. Not because it is easy or hard but because it can’t seem to decide which to be. The developers seem as if they initially wanted this game to be a really challenging experience. In the demo and several other pre-release builds of the game was really hard. If memory serves, the initial build had a permadeath system in place where you’d be returned to the surface each time. Glad they scrapped that idea. Seems they also scaled the difficulty way back as well. That or I’m just a better gamer but I don’t think that’s the case.

Difficulty aside Chasm was a really fun Metroidvania experience. I thoroughly enjoyed playing through each unique area, leveling up my character and killing some cool enemies and bosses. However, it does have some glaring issues here in there that prevent it from being placed solidly beside its famous inspirations. Games like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Metroid will forever be held in high regard for good reason. Chasm’s attempt to join their ranks is noble but falls ever so slightly short of being great.

Chasm will sit comfortably in my growing collection of Metroidvanias and isn’t a game I’d overlook when considering jumping back in for another play through (or finally beating my first). It has solid game mechanics and controls, a rewarding progression system and wasn’t so hard that I got frustrated. Well, until that final boss!

RATING:

Game Factor — 6/10
Look Factor — 7/10
Friend Factor — N/A
Jump-In Factor — 9/10
Average — 7.3
Verdict — Add It To The Collection! You’ll enjoy it and probably play it more than once.

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