Deed-lightful.
Team Ladybug has something of a reputation of turning famous licensed properties into compelling Metroidvanias. After the opening PC-exclusive freebie Shin Megami Tensei: Synchronicity Prologue starring series mascot Jack Frost came Touhou Luna Nights, another ‘exploration action’ title featuring the endlessly popular Gensokyo gang. The team’s follow-up to that is the lovely-looking Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth. Based on the novels/anime/manga/audio dramas/games of the same name. Helpfully for a game based on something that was mildly popular in the West 30 years ago, prior knowledge of titular heroine Deedlit’s high fantasy adventures isn’t required to enjoy the story here, with her generally learning things alongside the player and everything else either revealed with time or easily summed up as ‘someone/thing she used to know’.
More immediately recognisable than Deedlit’s past acquaintances are Wonder Labyrinth’s gaming influences. The spectacularly animated and cloaked 2D protagonist — sword in hand, double-jumping over gaps and smacking suspicious walls until they crumble — makes the game feel more Castlevania: Symphony of the Night than some of that trendsetting game’s own sequels. Unlike many other pretenders to Alucard’s crown, Team Ladybug’s latest effort is happy to see Konami’s classic as a springboard for its own ideas rather than something to be slavishly copied, and so for every expected feature (enemies dropping equippable weapons, warp rooms, and so on) there’ll be a major new mechanic to balance it out.
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