Krut: The Mythic Wings Switch Review – Fly Like an Eagle
Action platformers are a pretty common genre in the indie game world, and Krut: The Mythic Wings is another one for the long list. This is a relatively short gaming experience, but thankfully it is set at a solid price. Levels are challenging, especially the bosses, so this has the potential to be a fun outing for those looking for a wild romp with mythical creatures.
So does Krut: The Mythic Wings provide an experience unlike others in its genre? Or are these bipedal animal races bound to disappoint with their ramblings of war and peace? Let’s find out!
The story of Krut: The Mythic Wings is a bit of a convoluted one, but it is worth it. For hundreds of years, apparently, the Krut (a society of red-feathered garuda) and the Rakshasa (a culture of rock ogres) have been at war and are causing lots of strife on the main continent. Eventually, the Krut’s capitol was overtaken, and many of the Krut’s people were destroyed by the Rakshasa. Thankfully, one Krut general survives the attack, and they vow to one day take back the capitol that is rightfully the Krut’s.
The Rakshasa eventually obtain the coveted Mythic Wings, a legendary artifact with magic powers, but the Krut eventually regained strength and took back their home and returned peace to the land. Well, many years passed, and the Krut completely forgot about the great war only to find out that the Rakshasa have returned and began taking out small towns en route to claiming the capitol once more. As the Krut army falls apart, Veera (That’s you!) realizes that he must take out the new Rakshasa leader to end this war once and for all and bring peace once again to his home. Veera is unfortunately crushed by the new leader and left for dead, only to be rescued by a shaman of sorts who helps Veera on his journey to recovery.
Veera must then obtain six holy spirits across the land to give him the strength to defeat the Rakshasa army, and this is where the game starts. This is a decent story, but I found that Krut: The Mythic Wings spends a whole lot more time in its lore and storytelling than it does on anything else. This is a great thing for the story side of the game, but unfortunately this means that other areas suffer.
As far as gameplay goes, this is a pretty standard action platformer with some RPG elements. Krut: The Mythic Wings starts off with a pretty standard tutorial to go over basic controls, and surprisingly, the game has an awesome control scheme that immediately includes actions like dodge rolling, double jumping, air dashing, light attacks, and heavy/special attacks. Veera does feel formidable right out of the gate, but this is also when things get weird.
Enemies are way overpowered, and even small ones can deal tremendous damage that immediately makes Veera feel weak, despite seemingly being formidable. Mini-bosses and bosses are when things get even worse, because slight mistakes during these moments can result in major damage and even death. One thing Krut: The Mythic Wings does not communicate at all is that the game has lives, and despite the fact that there are checkpoints in the stages (Ones you have to purchase, mind you), losing all of your lives will result in restarting the stage despite the fact that you previously hit checkpoints.
Stages are set up pretty well despite this, as the rhythm is some stage, checkpoint, mini-boss, more stage, checkpoint, boss, so even if you do die and have to reset, it is not too terrible but it is inconvenient nonetheless. Bosses are some good fun and provide solid challenges, but as is the case for these action platformers, learning their rhythms takes a little trial-and-error to figure out, which makes the sting of lives and restarting stages a bit more painful.
Krut: The Mythic Wings also has a currency of sorts that can only be obtained by defeating enemies and bosses, and this currency can be used to purchase checkpoints and minor upgrades. I think this is a weird system, as the currency should only apply to upgrades and not the checkpoints themselves. Making the player pay for a checkpoint feels rather stupid and is definitely a poor design choice, especially when lives matter. On top of that, if you want to continue your game, you have to be careful, as the first option in the menu is New Game instead of Continue.
As far as major issues go, I found the game to load incredibly slow upon start up and at boss checkpoints. For a relatively small indie game, this kind of wait time hurts, but unfortunately, it doesn’t end there. I experienced several crashes at random points throughout the entire game, and I honestly cannot pinpoint where exactly the crashes occurred. One time it was just jumping onto a platform while another time I was just doing a combo on an enemy. Crashes are never a good time, and since these were consistent, it definitely sours things overall.
Krut: The Mythic Wings does have a beautiful art style, though, and I particularly like the 3D elements and how some parts of stages wrap around in a unique way. This allows for enemies in the background to attack as well, adding a new sense of danger to the otherwise plainly designed stages. The soundtrack is pretty good, too, and definitely adds to the experience, but that’s about it.
Krut: The Mythic Wings is a tough mixed bag for me, because it does some things really well while doing other things really bad. The story and lore are solid, and I appreciate all the effort put into that. The art style and music are also noteworthy. But the extreme difficulty, even on Easy, can be off-putting to casual players, and the fact that lives and game overs are part of the experience makes things a bit more complicated.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a decent game overall, but there are too many points that are just not fun. The fact that it is a hard game and crashes frequently is not a great combo, so hopefully those crashes will get patched out over time to help make Krut: The Mythic Wings a better title in the future. As it stands now, though, this is one you need to purchase cautiously or wait until it goes on sale to eliminate the bad taste in your mouth.
Krut: The Mythic Wings Switch Review provided by Nintendo Link
Publisher: Blowfish Studios
Developer: RSU Horizon, Pixel Perfex, & Good Job Multimedia
Release Date: July 12th, 2022
Price: $9.99, £5.99, €7,99
Game Size: 1.2 GB
Solid story, good characters and lore
Lovely art style
Affordable price
Archaic game methods like lives and stage restarting
Purchasing checkpoints. What's up with that?
Game crashes and slow loading times
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