Today we are going to take a look at Chasm. This metroidvania styled action-platformer promises procedurally generated maps, classic hack’n’slash combat in a wonderful world in a pixel art style. Whether it can deliver on these promises is the question we will try to answer today. Chasm is available on Steam for 16 Euros and 79 cents or your regional equivalent.

With this review you have a choice of either reading it here in text form or listening to the video review. They both contain the same content.

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Video Review

Text Review

Metroidvania games are something that I think truly anyone can enjoy. I’ve personally enjoyed last years Hollow Knight so much I think this may be one of my favorite genres now. And Chasm promises a similar idea but in a style which I love – pixel art. But before we start the review itself one thing should be taken into account. Chasm is a game that has been crowdfunded. Back in 2013. Yes, it took the developers 5 years before they got this game out. That’s a really long time and the metroidvania market has changed since the original idea for the game was pitched. But either way, let’s take a look at the game itself.

Gameplay

And as we do always we will start by talking about how the game plays. At it core, it is a very old school metroidvania game. You explore a dungeon, kill monsters using very classical hack’n’slash combat, collect items that will either make your character stronger or give you abilities to progress further and try to solve the mystery of what exactly happened here. Nothing out of the ordinary. Sadly, because there are games that came out while Chasm was in development this makes the game feel a bit dated.

So, let’s first take a look at the combat as I personally think this is the feature of the game that feels probably the most dated. The combat. But first a quick overview of what is actually at your disposal. You get two methods of attacking. Your basic melee attack with whatever weapon you have and then you have "magic" attack with has bit more range to it. But calling this a magic attack seems, not really accurate. It’s just a throwing weapon of your choice, but it’s not magic. It’s not like a fireball or anything like that. You just have a semi-infinite supply of them as long as you have mana.

On the other side of things, you have a few tools at your disposal to defend yourself from enemy attacks. Well, to dodge them to be more precise. You have your dodge, jump and later on in the game, you also get access to a little forward dash. Sadly, the dodge doesn’t use immunity frames as is the standard these days.

And you will be using these tools to kill a huge amount of enemies. What I will say, the variety of the enemy types is quite impressive. But on the other hand, even though there are plenty of enemy types many of them behave pretty much the same exact way just the ones further into the game just have more health and deal more damage but thankfully because of their pretty big variety the feeling of doing the same thing doesn’t really kick in until you are very far into the game and coming close to its end.

And we should also mention the bosses. Those are, inconsistent I’d say. Some are pretty hard and will require you to take many many attempts before you defeat them. But some are fairly easy even if you aren’t really that awesome at this kind of combat. And in a somewhat weird decision, in my opinion, you can just pause the game and heal to full. It’s just about having a healing item. And farming for gold to just buy enough healing items is time-consuming but also really easy. So if you just stock up on enough healing potions you’re gonna be totally fine in any encounter. Wish they added some sort of limit of how many potions you can use or how often you can use them. Would make the game feel much more tense.

Okay, the next thing we need to talk about is the leveling system and the upgrades you get. And it has the same exact problem as the combat. It’s dated. Gear provides only small incremental upgrades to damage, damage resistance and similar things and leveling does only increase your state in a small matter and restore your health when you level up. But again, this isn’t really a bad thing. It still the same thing, it just makes the game feel old.

The only real “gear” you get are items that allow you to progress further into the level by giving you completely new abilities. These range from grappling hooks that allow you to hang to edges and go through a parachute that allows you to float after you jumped and end boots that give you the ability to double jump. These items are cool and significantly alter the gameplay especially your ability to traverse the map. The only thing about them that I don’t like is the fact that the double jump boots are the last piece of gear you get and those alter the gameplay most significantly. They would be really nice to get early and allow for very creative gameplay.

Lastly, we need to talk about how the dungeons are actually structured. And this is sort of weird one as the game uses procedural generation at the start of each game. So… that means if you replay the game it will be slightly different. And this is a definite plus it means that you don’t get the same exact game every time and that does give the game more replayability. But, again, the map's design feels somewhat old. The get anywhere takes a decent chunk of your time and while I greatly appreciate the portal system that allows you to at least get to the part of the dungeon you want to be in, it just doesn’t feel modern. But the thing is, I can’t put my finger on why it doesn’t feel that way.

But how does this all feel when you are actually playing? As I stated previously, dated. Not that it isn’t fun though. It’s just… the market has moved on. There are metroidvania games with combat that just feel much more modern with probably the best example being Hollow Knight. But again, that doesn’t mean the combat in Chasm is bad, just if you’re hoping for something new and exciting you will not get that here.

Graphics

Okay then… moving on from the gameplay to the very best part about Chasm. It’s graphics. Just take a look for yourselves. The pixel art is just gorgeous. The amount of work that had to be put into is just absurd and it totally shows. Seriously, all the animations are totally fluid, enemies look amazing and the dungeon rooms are so obviously hand-crafted. If you are ever going to make a pixel art game and want to have it look amazing, this is totally the way to go.

Story

The story – without going into spoiler territory – is about you being a recruit of an order of knights and you get send onto your first ever mission. And the mission proves to be much more than he expected. The story is fine but doesn’t have anything special. It’s your generic fantasy setting without any surprises or plot twists. This is sort of sad as I saw a few potential ways to improve on this plot.

Music

Now onto the music of Chasm. Which is actually really great. Each part of the dungeon has it’s own music track and all of them are very high quality. Obviously, you will like some better than the others but that is something to be expected. But that shouldn’t lower your … rating … for the music. It’s just pretty awesome in general.

And when we are talking about the sounds of combat and enemies etc. Those are very competent as well. Though I am sad that Chasm didn’t decide to go with a voice-over route for the characters you meet, at least some of them as I think it would take the immersion factor to a completely different level.

Performance

And lastly, the performance. There is really nothing to complain here about. The game runs smoothly, but you would expect that from a 2D game. I encountered one bug during my play-through when my character gut stuck crouching and I couldn’t move, yes it was irritating but I never managed to replicate it again so it was just some random weird fluke. And the game never crashed for me.

Conclusion

So… in conclusion: Chasm is a good metroidvania game. Really, it is. I know that through the review I haven’t been enthusiastic about it and pointed out many flaws. But I did have fun when I played it. And that is always the most important factor that needs to be considered. Yes, there are better and more importantly more modern metroidvania games on the market – like Hollow Knight or Dead Cells and if you are just starting with the genre I would recommend those before you play Chasm. But if you are a seasoned veteran of the genre, you have already played through those multiple times and are looking for something different, then Chams is a great choice. And it’s also a great choice for anyone yearning for a bit of nostalgia when everything was less complicated as that is exactly what Chasm is. It’s a nostalgic trip down the memory lane of metroidvania games.

So, that’s it for today guys. Hope you like the review and if you did, please consider upvoting the review and following my blog. And comment, if you have something you would like to add. See you guys later with more gaming content.

Disclaimer: All the images have been taken directly from the Steam game page