Review: The Morrigan

The Morrigan

When it comes to virtual reality (VR) titles employing close-quarters combat, there are plenty of decent examples to choose from. These range from the more realistic Blade & Sorcery or Asgard’s Wrath to the more outlandish Gorn. Indie developer The Pixel Mine has entered the dungeon crawling, melee combat genre with low-poly styled The Morrigan which can hold its own in a sword fight but not in other areas.

The Morrigan

The Morrigan offers a classic fantasy adventure where you play a heroic knight tasked with rescuing the queen from an ancient evil. Before she was born her father made a deal to save his kingdom, with payment being his child when they reached a certain age. The Morrigan has now called in that debt, it’s up to you to save her, battling hordes of enemy skeletons in the process.

You start from a quaint little village where you learn the basic gameplay melee mechanics, using a sword and shield or going full blown attack mode with too blades. Right from the outset The Morrigan highlights a feature that sounds obvious but is rarely mentioned – or possibly employed – in sword fighting titles, angle of attack. It’s common sense that when using a sword you want the sharp edge hitting an opponent yet how often is it the case that you pay particular attention to that, especially when flailing big broadswords around.

It’s all part of a very well put together combat system which you might not expect looking at the visual aesthetics. Hitting with the flat of the sword does little damage but a mighty swing to a helmet can easily displace it using the edge. The Morrigan encourages this physical effort in every close combat engagement, parrying attacks before launching your own suitable blow.

The Morrigan

Unlike Gorn or The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners most of the weapons feel fairly weightless, so while they each have varying damage stats, wielding them doesn’t require any change in how you use them. There is one giant axe which goes against this, wobbling all over the place if you don’t use both hands.

While there’s a decent variety of weapons to collect, allowing you to use varying tactics, the enemies themselves aren’t the smartest bunch. Mostly consisting of skeletons either with or without armour, they don’t parry attacks so don’t expect any longwinded battles. It’s more a war of perseverance as you whittle down their health. This may sound a little dull but in sections involving multiple opponents which can also include archers, the battles can get quite intense and become a lot of fun.

You can also use a bow for those moments where thinning down the herd or picking off another archer is required. Unless you really love using bows, the one in The Morrigan should be considered a secondary weapon, it’s not as good as the one in Apex Construct for example. It feels flimsy and at very long range the enemies just don’t react to getting hit. One neat little feature is that if you get hit by an arrow you can pull it out your body and fire the sucker straight back.

The Morrigan

The bow also suffers from an issue relating to a lot of the objects in The Morrigan. The title supports roomscale, however, leaning over a small wall or table pushes you back, making it impossible to grab an item towards the back. This problem isn’t everywhere yet in relation to the bow, there were a number of occasions where stepping around a corner to fire an arrow saw it ricochet off an invisible wall, even with clear line of sight to the enemy.

What’s weird is that other areas are so well thought out and designed. Left-handed players are well catered for with a right-hand movement option, there’s some beautiful music used to great effect throughout and the stylish low-poly design makes The Morrigan a pleasure to look at over its 4+ hour campaign.

The Pixel Mine has also ensured that there’s still stuff to do after completing the story. Each level has a completion ranking based on time, damage taken and secrets found. Collected cash can be spent in the town on useful items such as an unbreakable shield, or buffs to health and strength. And then there’s the Arena if you just want to fight, unlocking weapons for the campaign in the process.

The dungeon crawling experience isn’t without its bugs with a little finesse needed here and there. The sword mechanics, story and visuals are all notable highlights while the bow and enemy AI could be improved. Even so, The Morrigan is one of those indie titles with bags of character, a plucky adventure which makes good use of VR’s features and sometimes maybe that’s enough.     

Preview: The Morrigan – A Stylish Dungeon Crawler Needing Finesse

Fantasy dungeon crawling experiences can offer some of the most immersive virtual reality (VR) gaming, sword and shield in hand, exploring ancient ruins and vanquishing evil foes. Titles like The Mage’s Tale, Left-Hand Path, and The Witching Tower all offer their own unique takes on the genre and now The Pixel Mine has entered the playing field with The Morrigan.

The Morrigan

Currently, in Steam Early Access, The Morrigan tells the tale of an ancient Celtic Queen (The Morrigan) who makes a deal with a desperate king, sacrificing his (unborn) daughter’s freedom. Years pass and the girl ascends the throne, only for The Morrigan to call in her debt. And now it’s up to you to fight through the evil queen’s castle and save the innocent queen.

With such a classic good vs evil story, you need some classic gameplay and The Morrigan certainly has that. At its hear The Morrigan is a hack and slash adventure, allowing you to wield a sword and shield, or dual wield two swords if an attacking strategy is preferred over defensive. Or for those who like to keep their distance a bow is also on offer with unlimited arrows so there’s no need to worry about wasting shots.

Primarily, most players will likely go for the melee approach, with the currently available level mix of tight compact hallways and wide open crumbling room’s ideal for swords, axes and other close quarter’s weaponry. Unfortunately, melee combat can be haphazard at points. Parrying works beautifully, being able to block attacks easily with the added advantage of putting opponents on the back foot occasionally. The problem comes when attacking, as The Morrigan won’t stand for short rubbish swipes with the sword. Instead, swings need to be big and robust, putting in plenty of power, and when contact is made a little red number appears indicating the damage done. However, enemies don’t always register contact with a weapon – when a sword strikes their head for example – meaning some battles can almost be pot luck, quickly changing from epic adventure to impossible chore.

The MorriganThe bow is far better at the moment, with VRFocus primarily using it to the six levels available. It doesn’t have the polish of In Death but it’s more dependable than the melee weapons which is a shame.

As for the rest of The Morrigan, it’s a fairly decent dungeon crawler. The Pixel Mine has created a wonderful art style that makes certain scenes and locations look rather epic, even though it has a simple polygon design. As well as the fighting there are several puzzles dotted around to mix up the gameplay. These really aren’t overly complicated, generally involving lighting torches or finding keys.

One important factor The Morrigan ­has got right is movement. Supporting both smooth location motion and teleportation, both can be used at the same time – particular areas still require teleportation to traverse – allowing for a comfortable experience that can be further tweaked in the settings. One little grievance, when walking backwards to put space between you and an enemy movement is really slow.

The Pixel Mine has a promising title on its hands with The Morrigan. Positives include visual design, movement and comfort. On the improvement side, the weak link is definitely the melee combat. Once this has been fine-tuned and more content has been added, The Morrigan could well be added to the list of must play VR dungeon crawlers.

The Morrigan Offers Simple But Enjoyable VR Dungeon Crawling

The Morrigan VR Dungeon Crawler

We’ve been here a fair few times now. The dingy confines of dungeon hallways have become a second home to VR fanatics. Their hidden keys are our lost TV remotes, dislodged stones are neglected renovation projects. The dungeon crawler is VR doing what comes naturally to it; sword-swinging, arrow flinging action, with a good bit of inventory shuffling and pretend food eating in the mix for good measure.

That seems to be The Morrigan in a nutshell.

This is the VR debut from The Pixel Mine, a UK-based indie developer that includes Framestore VR developer, Micheal Cable. Cable is working on the game in his spare time. It is, for all intents and purposes, Vanishing Realms with a slightly fresher coat of paint. You get the same core thrills here that you did in 2016; locking blades with skeleton warriors, lighting up corridors with a torch in-hand and trading arrows with archers. That spark of authentic adventuring is still there, though The Morrigan does show threatening signs of a genre turning stale.

“VR is really hard to do well and I wanted to fully immerse myself in the problems and look at solutions,” Cable tells me over email. “I wanted to challenge myself and explore more of the VR space in terms of interaction and gameplay than I had in the past.”

Levels come in snackable sizes, usually revolving around a featured setpiece or hook. Cable tells me he wanted to capture the spirit of films like Indiana Jones and the swashbuckling sword combat of Errol Flynn battles. One mission had me navigating a maze-like garden with sharp corners hiding lumbering skeletons that give you a fright. Another channels its inner Lord of the Rings with a fight sequence across an enormous bridge. It’s a slideshow of different design tropes, a greatest hits of fantasy cinema and gaming stuffed into a VR headset. There’s the leap of the heart when a set of spikes suddenly springs up in front of you, the undeniable satisfaction of a successful parry and the unbeatable immersion of nocking an arrow onto your bow.

One appreciated touch is the ability to pick up enemy’s weapons once they’ve been defeated. Your arsenal will quickly fill up with an assortment of swords, shields and even a hammer or two. At its very foundation, simply existing in The Morrigan’s world, holding a torch up high to light the way and keeping your sword at the ready, feels great.

All of that is well and good, but it’s been seen before and, in some areas, surpassed. The Morrgian’s combat system is a familiar face at a time when others are breaking new ground. It works soundly on paper; you need to align the sharp end of your blade with your foe and then take a proper swing (not just a wrist-waggle) to do damage. Enemies generously telegraph their sword swings, giving you time to parry before swiping at exposed body parts. It works well if you show patience and stick to the rules. There’s a play time joy to holding your blade out to defend an incoming attack and then retaliating.

But, like most other VR melee systems, it runs into awkward spots. There’s lots of unintentional contact that gives way to chaos and you can also simply avoid most attacks by taking a step backward. Games like Blade and Sorcery are unearthing new, more tangible melee systems for VR and The Morrigan’s offering feels somewhat dated in comparison. It doesn’t help that enemy AI is a little spotty. They simply march toward you regardless of what stands between you. At one point one threw itself off of a stairwell to fight me. I simply climbed over some vines to avoid him, knowing it couldn’t get back up.

I’d also like to see some more complex level design in the later missions. While some of the game’s setpieces are thrilling, there are also a handful of levels that go by without much to say.

The Morrigan’s Early Access release will consist of about an hour of story-driven content. There’s also a wave-based arena mode. Cable and team will add more levels and arenas over the course of pre-release. He also says he wants to try new weapon mechanics.

“One of the benefits of not [going for] realism is it gives you freedom to add what is fun, rather than what is historically accurate,” he says. “I’m doing some tests with magic, but it has to feel as good as the swordplay before I commit to moving in that direction. There are some great VR magic titles out there already so I don’t need to add to the pile unless it really adds to the game.”

For now,  what’s here is enough. An hour trekking through The Morrigan’s stone-walled labyrinth left me satisfied. Whether or not the full version can raise the bar beyond that remains to be seen.

Cable says the game may be in Early Access for around six months. That said, he won’t fully release it until it’s ready. It’s coming to the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive for now, but PSVR and Quest are possibilities for the future.

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Impressive Looking VR Dungeon Crawler The Morrigan is coming to Steam Early Access in March

Virtual reality (VR) dungeon crawlers like The Mage’s Tale, The Witching Tower, Gates of Nowhere and In Death offer some of the best, and most immersive experiences, transporting players to majestic fantasy worlds they just want to get lost in. If you are a fan of these types of videogames then you may want to keep an eye on Steam Early Access next month, as indie developer The Pixel Mine will be releasing its debut title, The Morrigan.

The Morrigan

Sounding like some ancient beastie – the Celtic Queen of the dead as it happens – The Morrigan looks to be more of a playful action-adventure instead of some gruesome journey into the bowls of hell. The role-playing game (RPG) is all about raiding the dungeon of the Morrigan, defeating her legions of the dead using trusty weapons like the sword and shield for when they get too close and a bow for those distance kills.

Looking at the early access trailer The Pixel Mine has released plenty of the gameplay will be physics-based melee combat, with players having to learn the classic basics of block, parry and counters – which most VR gamers should already be well versed in. There will be just over 20 weapons to choose from to perfect your combat moves, and when you’re not fighting there will be puzzles to solve and traps to avoid.

It also seems that the studio has catered for all movement eventualities – which is always welcome – with both smooth locomotion and teleportation options available.

The Morrigan

On top of all this The Morrigan does look rather good, doesn’t it? With a cartoon style, cel-shaded aesthetic, the design flits between the rather haunting to the ‘ah doesn’t that skeleton look adorable’.

The Morrigan is scheduled to arrive in March via Steam Early Access, supporting both HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. There’s no specific release date just yet, with the studio expecting early access to take around six months. The initial release will feature six levels of the dungeon, with the final version adding more. When The Pixel Mine release further details, VRFocus will keep you up to date on the latest announcements.