Eastern Exorcist

Developer: Wildfire Game (无锡野火数字科技有限公司)

Whilst I’m loath to compare everything to Dark Souls, or label any game with one-on-one combat and souls-as-currency a ‘souls-like’, there is some overlap here. It might be more appropriate to label Eastern Exorcist a souls-lite, but that still spikes the back of my brain. For now, let’s just understand a bit more about the game, and we can find a label later if we need one.

Wildfire Game are a small, China-based developer with just this title to their name, but they’ve certainly come onto the scene swinging. Eastern Exorcist is a 2D side-scrolling action game, set in a fantasy far-east-inspired world. There are two different stories to follow, both very different and with very little overlap. It’s essentially two games in one.

Before we move to that, we have to address the visuals. This is a hand-drawn experience, presenting a beautiful Eastern-inspired style. Environments seamlessly blend fore-, mid-, and background together, moving you between the different planes for a pseudo-3D effect. The cinematics, whilst not wholly animated, are beautiful, painted renderings. The influence of Chinese folklore is everywhere from character design to environments. The audio is also fantastic, from eerie gongs to high-intensity battle music. 

When it comes to gameplay, yes, there are some similar features to Soulsborne games. This isn’t a hack-and-slash - you’re very likely to die quickly if you try to make it one. Combat is built around finding an opening and then pressing the advantage. This largely boils down to timing, either dodging or parrying at the perfect moment to launch a powerful counter, getting a few hits in before moving away to wait for the next one. You can’t be too conservative with bosses because they have shields, and if you take too long launching the next string of attacks it’ll regenerate. You can still kill them this way, but it takes significantly longer.

As the game goes on, you also unlock a suite of magical abilities to help. You can assign four to quick slots so you can switch between them in combat, but I largely found myself only using one at a time because you have to build it up to use, and switching immediately ends the effect. I also found them largely situational, swapping to a specific one to make boss fights easier, and using another for flying enemies. Still, the options are there, and they complement different play styles.

There are also upgrade paths, both for the magical abilities and the character abilities. You purchase them using souls of varying quality - bigger upgrades require the best type of souls. Obviously, these are harder to find, but you’re able to combine lesser souls into the next type. You can also cash these souls in for energy to level up, which comes with inherent upgrades like health. 

As for the previously mentioned two-game aspect, you effectively have two stories set in the same world, but they don’t overlap. In one, you play as Lu Yunchuan, a disgraced exorcist who is trying to return the body of a fallen comrade to his home. In the other, you play as Xiahao Xue, a half-demon seeking out mystical artefacts to save her brother, who accompanies you in ghost form. Both characters play relatively the same - they both exorcise demons, jump, dash, etc. The difference is mostly in speed - Xiahao is faster. She also doesn’t have to fight alone - the first magical ability she has is her brother joining her in combat, which makes things much easier. Having another target that relentlessly attacks and can be resummoned almost feels like cheating at times. 

The stories for both are largely linear, but there are a couple of side quests for each that’ll have you backtracking or going to areas you don’t need to for the story. You don’t have to do them, but they rarely take much more effort, and the fast travel system makes traversal a non-issue. There are a few other modes if you’re interested - new game plus lets you play with all your stuff, changing difficulty if you want to; boss rush pits your chosen character against a series of boss fights; or you can do challenges for extra souls, which could be harder versions of bosses, or mastering a skill. 

There are a couple of issues, which I imagine come as part of the localisation. The translation isn’t always great, and the UI doesn’t seem to be designed to have English as its primary language, running character names a bit close to subtitles. It’s by no means game-breaking, and it shouldn’t ruin the experience. 

Eastern Exorcist is a great first showing for a small studio; they’ve packed more than enough game in. And they’re working on a sequel, which I hope takes some of the learnings to make the next one even better. It’s cheap to label this as a 2D souls-like, or even a souls-lite, just because there are some similar elements. This is essentially folklore told through the medium of games, with the time-honoured tradition of the storyteller adding their flair.