Sin Slayers is a dark and brooding type of RPG with some roguelike elements sprinkled on top for fun. With a retro kind of style to the game in terms of its visuals, this also goes for its gameplay. So, in many ways it feels like a throwback to the JRPG’s of old and depending on the type of gamer you are that is either going to make you say wow or meh.
How to Download Sin Slayers
The game can be downloaded from Steam or from GOG. Click on the button below this review.
The Game Review
The story of Sin Slayers actually grabbed my attention right away. The idea of this evil and dark fantasy world full of sin and evil creatures is something I thought was cool. However, the basics of the story are that there are 7 demons (kind of based on the 7 deadly sins) that need to be killed. It never gets too deep and the voice acting is pretty darn comically bad.
The visuals though are awesome. I love and I mean love the varied environments that the game has. Sure, a forest or a place full of bones may not sound groundbreaking, but the retro art style looks great and the fact that the areas are randomly generated does mean that they change each time you play which I think is pretty cool.
What I love about Sin Slayers is the gameplay. Now I will admit that this is not the most in-depth RPG I have ever played, but man I had fun with this. You make your team of warriors from a nice selection of characters. Each character has different abilities that make them special and finding the right combination is really key to getting through the game.
I always like to have one healer, one powerhouse and one more ranged based character and that works for me. The way you level up is rather slow, but each character does learn new (I think there is five max for each character) abilities as you play so that can keep combat interesting. Speaking of combat, it is a major highlight of the game for me.
In terms of the combat, this feels like a 90s JRPG. I say that because it has super fun turn-based combat. It is a little daunting at first and if is this is your first JRPG style game in some time it can take a while to get used to. However, the game has some smart AI that caters to your skill level as you play and this means that the challenge, in theory, should be just right for you.
You can get new weapons and elixirs as you play and you can craft these from items that you collect. I am not a huge fan of crafting in games, but they kept it fairly streamlined and simple here so I liked that. There is also a blacksmith that you can use where you can just buy weapons if you do not want to mess around crafting them.
One thing I have to give a special mention to is the bosses. While I feel the story could be better, a huge reason for that is the bosses are so cool I wanted to know more about them. You will have to be crafty and smart when fighting a boss and more often than not you will fail a few times until you figure out the best lineup of characters and strategy to use.
I can see why Sin Slayers would not be a game for everyone. Still, if you love JRPG’s I highly recommend that you give this a try. I had a lot of fun with it and had the story been just a tad better I think this could have made it onto my top games of the year list! The horror setting is cool as are the games PlayStation era visuals.
