‘Sin Slayers’ – PC Review
3 min read
Sin Slayers is a tactical, JRPG action game that utilizes pixel art, based in a realm of dark fantasy featuring the seven deadly sins. Developed by goonswarm and published by Black Tower Entertainment, this game offers everything one might expect from an RPG: crafting, a variety of classes, equipment and weapons , experience and upgrades, but fails to deliver a compelling story.
The unique concept in Sin Slayers is there in the name. Sin, avoid it and slay it. Depending on the location the player visits sets a different rule for the team that will gain sin. The more sin acquired, the tougher the battles and beasts that are encountered. Gaining sin is by no means difficult. The player needs only to do what comes naturally: loot corpses, investigate crypts, eat food to recover HP (Gluttony), or open a chest (Greed). Sin can be partially cleansed at altars, and it helps to keep the Priestess in the party.
Every character offers a unique personality as well as their own sin, which can be found by reading their short profile. For example, the Priestess suffers envy, the Rogue is greedy, and the Protector is full of pride. They offer their own benefits, such as battle encounter bonuses. The dialogue between the characters is entertaining and witty, definitely worth taking the time to read their interactions. As the player adventures, there are more characters to rescue which will offer additional quests and may join the party later on in the story. One of the first is the blacksmith, which is when crafting can begin with all those materials the player will collect. As an example the player may craft potions, tools to disarm traps, and lock picks to open chests. Beware of the dreaded Mimics.
Each location is procedurally generated, meaning the player will never experience the same map twice or fight the same enemies in the same location. That does not stop Sin Slayers from feeling tedious and repetitious. Crafting and collecting materials helps to upgrade abilities, but I felt like I was clicking the same button over and over again and achieving nothing. Without a task or story, there was little reward to be earned for all the hard work. There are quests to accomplish, which may not exactly be done this time around. Expect to go through each area multiple times, for better or worse. The enemies encountered in each area does vary, which is a nice mix up, but their rotation of attacks quickly become bland.
A brief story is presented upon initially loading up Sin Slayers, and a narrator will read the story of how the player arrived at the church. The words of the voice actor and those written were different on multiple occasions. This detail is not game breaking, but annoying. No voice acting was offered outside of the narrator. The music and sound effects made no remarkable difference to the game. Some unique sound effects or interesting combat music might have helped to make the game more immersive.
Overall, Sin Slayers feels like a basic RPG game, with an enjoyable twist. The pixel art fits the style of the game rather well. While Sin Slayers could not offer that extra oomph to keep me addicted, I would turn it on to try and keep leveling to move forward because I wanted to unlock more areas of sin. It was easy to lose interest though, and play a game that was more compelling instead.
