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At a glance, Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth shares much in common with Konami’s classic Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The games are similar, visually and tangibly, which is great if you’re looking to fill the undead-slaying void that Konami left behind once the developer shelved the Castlevania franchise. Wonder Labyrinth features excellent 2D visuals, tight controls, and clever element-swapping mechanics that expands the combat and exploration. The action-RPG is a bit short due to its linear progression, but the $19.99 PC game is a satisfying Castlevania homage that tweaks the gameplay enough to feel fresh.
RPG Legacy
But first, let’s step back a bit. Record of Lodoss War is a franchise with a fascinating history. It started as a transcript of a Dungeons & Dragons session that was rewritten and published in a Japanese magazine as a “replay,” a trendy form of literature in the late 1980s. This series grew in size and popularity, eventually spawning novels, an anime series, manga, and RPG companion books.
The anime, in particular, is one of the series’ most recognizable iterations, breathing visual life to iconic characters like Deedlit the High Elf and Parn, a young knight. Due to the franchise’s tabletop RPG origins, Record of Lodoss War is also the closest thing we’ve ever gotten to a proper Dungeons & Dragons anime.
Wonder Labyrinth is loosely tied to Record of Lodoss War’s events. Characters make references to the past throughout the game, but you can still jump in and play without feeling lost if you’re unfamiliar with the franchise’s history. Wonder Labyrinth is its own self-contained story.
High Fantasy Castlevania
You play as the titular Deedlit, a green-garbed High Elf who awakens in Wonder Labyrinth, an expansive maze littered with traps, haunted by monsters, and warded by familiar faces from her past. Deedlit sets out to find her compatriots and unravel the maze’s mysteries, while piecing together how and why she ended up in Wonder Labyrinth.
Deedlit moves and fights very much like Alucard does in Symphony of the Night, albeit with a slightly different control scheme and with unique gameplay wrinkles. Deedlit moves at a brisk pace, and while there isn’t a faster movement option, she can backdash to avoid damage or slide under hazards. Her backdash even leaves behind a shadow image, once again like Alucard, which is a great touch.
Sprites are massive, detailed, and extremely well animated. Deedlit has several attack variations, each with several frames of animation that give the game a silky look and feel. She can attack directly in front of her, diagonally, or even straight upward, similar to the angled whip attacks in Super Castlevania IV. The game has an excellent control scheme, as it lets you launch an attack from virtually any angle.
Deedlit starts off with a thrusting rapier, but quickly amasses an arsenal of weapons dropped by enemies or purchased from a shop run by a dwarf named Ghim. You can swap weapons at any moment. These weapons include knives, swords, halberds, and clubs.
Deedlit’s attack range and attack speed are determined by the weapon, and she has various weapon-dependent attack animations, including swings, overhead arcs, or thrusts. Each armament has a speed and attack stat, so it is easy to see how they stack up to one another in the menu. There is a decent selection of weapons, so you won’t want for weapon variety.
Spirits and Elements
In Wonder Labyrinth, the elemental system serves as your offensive and defensive boons rather than a shield or useable armor. As Deedlit explores the labyrinth, she discovers two spirits that assist her in combat, the wind-based Sylph and the fire-based Salamander. Only one spirit can be equipped at a time, but you can cycle between them with the press of a button. Deedlit’s active spirit imbues her base attacks with that element’s power, which can be used to exploit enemy weaknesses. The wolves that overrun the ruins, for example, take heavy damage from fire, so attacking with the Salamander spirit equipped drops them in a single hit.
The spirit system also utilizes a dynamic leveling system that fluctuates depending on how many enemies Deedlit has killed, and whether or not she has taken damage. As she defeats foes, the spirit’s level increases, up to a maximum of three. At stage three, Deedlit’s elemental attack buff gets a noticeable boost strength and she receives health regeneration capabilities. Taking damage, however, drops the spirit down a level and removes these boons, discouraging you from taking needless hits.
More importantly, the active spirit also protects Deedlit from attacks of the same element, so wind attacks are nullified when Sylph is active, and fire attacks are nullified when Salamander is active. This becomes an extremely important gameplay aspect, as there are wind and fire hazards that prevent you from advancing and deal heavy damage when touched. Bosses also demand efficient use of this system to avoid some of their trickier patterns. In fact, these sections remind me a bit of Treasure’s Ikaruga, a shmup that utilizes a polarity-switching system to negate shots of opposing colors.
Later bosses quickly shuffle between elemental attacks, keeping you on your toes as you swap spirits to avoid damage or regenerate health between openings. Unfortunately, bosses can become quite chaotic with so many projectiles and effects flying around the screen, and all too often I would take damage simply because I could no longer keep track of my character. It is a challenge to scan the top of the screen for your telltale elemental color, while also avoiding a stream of whirling magical missiles and boss attacks. A prominent aura around my character that reflects their elemental alignment whenever an elemental hazard is on screen would alleviate some of the confusion.
Magic Over Melee
In addition to melee combat, Deedlit gains access to several bows, each of which has distinct stats. Bows are a decent way to deal damage from a distance, but Wonder Labyrinth has a much more pertinent use for them: puzzle solving. Strewn across the maze are various locked metal gates, hoisted by ropes or by chain-bound gears. Shooting through a rope or nailing gears opens the gates and lets you pass through. Of course, none of the gates, save for the first one, are easy to open. As you venture deeper into the labyrinth, gated rooms become geometrically complex and filled with metallic surfaces for you to ricochet arrows. You need to line up tight trick shots by bouncing arrows off several walls to get at hidden treasure or to clear a path to the next room. These sections are a nice change of pace from the platforming and monster slashing.
There are also discoverable spells that deal good damage. For example, Will of the Wisp fires a homing wave of magical missiles at the nearest enemy, while Undine summons a magic orb cascade to shower enemies. Both bows and magic use the same resource: they draw from a magic point (MP) gauge next to Deedlit’s health. This gauge fills steadily over time, letting you cast spells or fire arrows with regularity. The spells make for a better alternative to Deedlit’s bow in most cases, so I eventually relegated archery almost exclusively to puzzle solving. That’s not to say that arrow damage is bad, but whenever I was presented with a situation where ranged offense was a better option, blasting away with a spell was more effective than pelting foes with arrows.
Of Secrets and Ruins
Many bows, weapons, and magic spells are tucked away in obscure corners of the map, behind cracked walls or in areas accessible only with late-game abilities. Unfortunately, beyond the backtracking required for these, Wonder Labyrinth’s exploration is limited and linear. There are no viable branching paths or sequence-breaking special techniques like in Metroid games. There’s only one correct way to progress.
Zones feel small as a result, despite appearing expansive on the map. To make matters worse, far too many areas lack personality, particularly in the game’s second half. Early zones combine gothic architecture with open forests, caves, and monuments to create interesting-looking, easily identifiable areas. As you make progress, however, the inspiration runs thin, and you will find yourself in repetitive ruined rooms that look disappointingly generic compared to what came before them.
The handful of secret items are a treat to find, to be sure. But after you’ve undertaken the challenge of finding them all, there is no real reason to replay the game afterwards. There are no challenge modes, no boss rush, no secret character, bonus costumes, or even a New Game + feature to entice you back into the world. Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth is great for what it offers, but post-game bonuses would have gone a long way towards adding longevity to the experience.
Can Your PC Run Record of Lodoss War?
The game isn’t at all demanding, and runs perfectly on my gaming desktop that features an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU and Nvidia GeForce GTX 2080 GPU. In fact, it ran at a super-smooth 60 frames per second. Wonder Labyrinth’s Steam page states that your PC needs at least a Windows operating system (2000 or newer), an Intel Core2 Duo CPU, and an OpenGL-compliant graphics card to run the game.
In terms of visual customization, you can select various screen resolutions, from the diminutive 360p to 720p. There are also full screen and VSync options. If you prefer controllers to keyboards, you’ll be happy to know that Record of Lodoss War supports gamepads. Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth features Steam Cloud, but it lacks Steam Achievements and Steam Trading Cards.
A Magical Throwback
Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth captures the spirit of 1990s-era, side-scrolling action, while tweaking the formula just enough to feel unique. The game’s linearity and map design is a bit disappointing, as is the lack of unlockable content, but Wonder Labyrinth has solid gameplay and gorgeous visuals that are well worth checking out if you’re a genre fan.
For more Steam game reviews and previews, check out PCMag’s Steam Curator page.
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