While isekai anime is this thing that people think is just bad because there’s so much of it, Overlord happens to be one that I think is a pretty good example of the genre. It does have some of the normal points some of the really bad ones have, namely that the protagonist is overly powerful, but it handles the world itself and the goal of that main character very differently, and is overall really fun.

This game is based on the light novel/anime, but it’s something of a non-canon entry. I was curious about the metroidvania aspect of it, and the kinda-weird character choice.

Let’s see if it’s good!

Developer: ENGINES Inc.
Publisher: KADOKAWA
Release date: June 15, 2022
Platforms: Switch, PC (Switch version reviewed)
Genre: Side-scrolling platformer with minor metroidvania elements

Review

This game has you playing as Clementine, the fan-favorite… villain?… that Ainz Ooal Gown (the main character) kills by squeezing real hard. This game takes place after that (in fact the first thing you see is the “squeeze”), where Clementine is somehow alive again and wakes up with her memories gone in the depths of the Great Tomb of Nazarick. Being called a lab rat by Ainz and his minions, she is tasked with trying to escape Nazarick, fighting some of the other characters from the show. Why is she alive? How? What is the experiment? The game doesn’t quite tell you. You do get a bit of detail if you get the true ending (which I wouldn’t really recommend doing), but it seems pretty… pointless. Makes sense that it wouldn’t be particularly meaningful. I mean, spoilers I guess, but if you watched the show and know how strong Ainz’ Pleiades and Floor Guardians are, you’ll understand right from the start that Clementine is only fighting weak clones of these characters, so you can kinda guess what happens when she does escape. Not a great plot.

I played the Switch version, and the performance was ass. For the level of graphics and animation and such… this should be smooth on basically any gaming platform. But the framerate and frame pacing is just bad in the Switch version. It feels like crap to play a lot of the time. The game looks fine overall (though it does this weird thing where it randomly zooms in and out from Clementine for no reason at all), the areas and sprites look fine, but keeping a level of detail that’s a bit lower to have a pixelated look. I feel this looks like something that would’ve been on the Sega Saturn or something, based on the graphic style. Also the game crashed several times for me.

So gameplay… It’s “technically” a Metroidvania, but in actuality it’s a linear platformer with some side-paths for collectible. Clementine starts with very few abilities, basically just jumping, running and attacking.  Her first weapon is one of her trademark stilettos, which isn’t very good. She gets access to a flail later, which also sucks, and a large variety of side-weapons, which is what you’ll actually use. The goal of every area is to just get to the boss room, fight the boss and go to the next area.

Combat ends up not being something you really do much of. Most normal enemies go down in a hit or two and most of them don’t really… do anything. Bigger, stronger enemies are easily beaten by just standing there and mashing your best weapon at them. Most bosses are so weak you won’t need to put any effort into beating them. There’s actually a few bosses I beat without even moving. It just wasn’t needed. You do have several types of subweapons that swing differently, but generally you’ll want to use whichever one you have that doesn’t have a slow swing and has the most attack (slow swing is REALLY slow, so the extra power is useless). You do have the option of ranged attacks… which is not something you’ll generally want to do since the damage will always suck compared to going in close. You get 3 elemental magic spells that are identical in functionality, and using these actually auto-equips you with the stilettos so you’ll have to remember to switch weapons once the magic runs out.

So most of the gameplay is pretty simple platforming, since combat is pretty uninvolved. The platforming itself is fairly simple. You get ledge grabs. The flail, while useless is combat, is used for some of the platforming, as it can attach to wooden spots on walls and platforms to allow you to latch on to walls and swing to places. There’s a few upgrades you get as you progress to your movement, such as the flail, but also a roll, and an improved run that lets you slide and jump further. Oh and the spells… while they’re useless in combat, there’s some platforming segment that require them. Sometimes the environment has obstacles you need to use the spells to remove, or there’s these fire/ice/electricity turrets. If you have a spell equipped, that element can’t damage you, so there’s parts where you have to switch between elements to get through. Oh, and fuck the, like, 2 parts where you need to use the slow-motion power (though it IS useful to make the already-ridiculously-easy boss even easier).

And other than that, exploring the tomb doesn’t have… much. You do have a metroidvania-style map here, so there’s side paths from time to time, which allows you to find mana (which is mostly useless), subweapons and memories. Memories give you the true ending if you find all 100 (they do nothing otherwise, they just give you random screen grabs from the episodes of the show involving Clementine).  You have no good way of knowing if a path you’re taking is a side path or a main path, so just… go where you can until you get to the boss. You’ll find mana, both just laying around and from killing monsters. Mana is used at certain furnace-like things, which you light up for 100 mana, and then you get a limited amount of uses to power up your weapons for an extra mana cost. I spent most of the game thinking the limited amount of uses was per upgrade spot, but you can just reactivate it. Each weapon can be upgraded 4 times, some of the upgrades give more attack power than others. Just focus on the “average” or “fast” speed weapon you have that has the best attack power, pretty much. Oh, and mana is used to activate these crystal things that upgrade Clementine (mostly HP and defense, but a few are improved movement/combat skills). And that’s about it. By the end of the game I had 25000 just laying around with nothing to use it on (maxing an end-game weapon costs probably less than 2000). Oh, there’s teleporters here and there if you want to go back to older areas (which you should probably wait once you’re further into the game anyways, since you’ll want to have all the abilities before you do that so you only have to backtrack once), those cost 300 mana to activate.

Overall

I wasn’t a big fan of this one, unfortunately. The story is pretty much senseless (even if you spend the time to get the “true ending”… I just watched that on youtube), the gameplay feels a bit empty, the metroidvania aspect is pretty much nothing since the actual game is basically just linear. It has some good ideas, but overall it feels like they designed half a game so all the elements are a bit weak. Unfortunate.

This gets a “not recommended” from me.