Score: 68%

In Short: If you can get this game for $5, it’s worth it.

In More Detail:

Larva Mortus is a horror action game developed by Rake In Grass. It’s basically a top-down game (old timers, think “Into the Eagle’s Nest“) but set up more like a gothic Alien Syndrome with no co-op. It does have many endearing qualities, and I would have loved to give it a higher score, but ultimately it just doesn’t deserve it.

You play some sort of cowboy priest, on a mission to retrieve an ancient artifact. The story unfolds via flash-style cut scenes that are actually pretty interesting. There is a large world map, and various side quests and story quests will pop up on it. The side quests are randomly generated from a pool of a few different quest types. None of them vary too wildly from each other, and the only type that you really have to watch yourself on is the one in which you have to rescue “lost souls”, aka civilians. You can kill them accidentally, and if you do this too many times you will lose the mission.

The levels themselves load instantly, and are also randomly generated. The problem is that every “room” is simply that- a rectalinear room. Even when you are in the woods, it looks like you are in a room with tree wallpaper. If they were able to introduce rooms with a more organic appearance it would have helped immensely. The levels start out small, but as your character gains experience and levels up, the levels will get considerably larger. While exploring, you’ll run into a few very common annoyances: the rooms are randomly populated with crates, chests, or coffins that may or may not contain “loot”. Some of these items perfectly blend in with the background, so it can be frustrating when you are trying to run from monsters and keep bumping into crates. Likewise, the game contains a single environmental hazard, crushing block walls. Nine times out of ten, if a room has crushing blocks in it, they will kill all the monsters before you even see any. Thank you?

I played the entire game on the normal difficulty level. For probably the first 2/3 of the game, there is little to challenge you. Then, all of a sudden, the bottom drops out and you will find yourself starting to die more frequently. Sometimes this felt legitimate, and other times… not so much. You can enter a new room, only to have 4 monsters spawn on top of you and kill you before you know what’s going on. There are also ghosts that are barely visible. You can be standing on one and might not notice until it’s too late. Missions are an all-or-nothing affair; it does not matter if you are in the last of 21 rooms. If you die, it’s time to start over. Yes, that happened to me, and yes, I turned the game off for the night. I also encountered a bug that would prevent me from being able to clear a room, forcing me to re-enter it and do it all over again. Whenever this happened, it was in rooms populated with bats. I think they literally flew out of the walls, into space where I could not see or touch them. I still heard them, but they were unwilling or unable to come back in.

Sadly, there is only one character to choose from. He has several statistics, and each time you level up, you get a point to assign to one of those statistics. My suggestion is that once you hit level 12 or so, start pouring points into constitution. A high melee score is also quite helpful, since some enemies are slow enough that you can easily dispatch them with your sword, saving ammunition in your other 7 weapons. Overall the skill progression, as well as finding new weapons, works very well.

The graphics are okay, but as I mentioned, the rooms are all very similar and bland. The resolution is fixed as well. The music is fantastic, and really helps add to the environment. There is one little thing the designers did that never ceased to unsettle me, even after having it happen dozens of times over the course of the roughly 6 hour campaign: sometimes while playing, some sort of vision will appear over the top of the screen, obscuring your vision. This can often happen at inopportune times, but it serves to heighten the tension instead of anger you. I never died as a result of it. Usually the vision is a giant demon head, some glowing eyes, or a colony of bats flying overhead.

Make Me a Sequel, Just Not Like This

I liked this game, and I hope the designers do well enough financially to make a sequel, because there is a TON of room for improvement. For example… You can’t map your keys. The English in some of the text is not overly great, but that’s a minor annoyance. As mentioned earlier, the rooms need a more organic feel, especially in the forest. They also need more environmental hazards; the crushing blocks aren’t doing it for me. Melee is really too powerful. In fact, upgradeable weapons and ammunition would go a long way to helping the game. Having some sort of currency and the means to buy weapons and ammunition would be cool as well. Adding co-op and a few different characters is also a no-brainer. Finally, amp up the action… see Alien Shooter.

Check it out here. Too lazy? I liked it, but there is a lot of room for improvement. I picked it up in the Meridian 4 complete pack sale on Steam a couple of weeks ago, and as such, I don’t regret my decision at all. If you can get it for $5 or less, do it.