It's that time again for a new episode of Chichuki Views, the show where I go hands-on with upcoming games and show them off. Usually it's about an hour or so but I don't want to spoil too much of the game for you. This time I'm checking out Sheba: A New Dawn on Steam.
Sheba: A New Dawn is a Metroidvania game that takes inspiration from Arabian themes. However, it feels like it misses the mark with some of the execution. Let me start with the positives of Sheba. The voice acting in the game is very well done. The game tells the story of Enar when his family, town, and life is burned to the ground. That being said, after this terrible fate, he runs into a Jinn named Mirah, who was dying and had to put her spirit into Enar.
The writing really nails how these two don't like one another and hate being stuck with eachother. The game doesn't do a great job of telling you what Mirah can do in battle or how to use her. It really only tells you how to summon her. You will run into other characters during the game and hear good voice acting along the way. One issue I did have with the voice acting was that the narrator's voice was so much louder than any other voice in the game. I had set it lower but it still didn't fix much.
The game wants you to explore areas but it felt very difficult to actually figure out where you were supposed to go. There were locations that it looked like I should be able to get to but wasn't able to. I checked the map and it looked like an open location but wasn't able to go through. There were platforms that wouldn't work some of the time and then started to work when I went back to them.
One of the major issues I had with the game was that the platforming felt off to me. The lack of a double jump during my playthrough really hurt. There were times where it looked like you should be able to make a jump no problem and then fall short. The lack of being able to duck also kills the action. There are several enemies that you should be able to dodge attacks from but without a duck, you can't. The same could be said without a double jump being able to dodge spikes and ground attacks.
If you get set on fire, there's no way to put yourself out so make sure you have plenty of healing items. Sheba takes a page out of Dark Souls where you can go to things that remind me of bon fires to save and level up. Healing isn't free however so make sure you have money. You can also fast travel to different shrines along the journey too. There were times when button prompts wouldn't show up on screen so I wasn't sure if I could interact with the thing in question.
I try to go into Chichuki Views with an open mind and give each game I play a chance. Sheba: A New Dawn does things that I like but the negatives outweigh the positives. It's not all bad as the voice acting in the game is very well done. Fix the cons and Sheba: A New Dawn will be a game to keep an eye out for.