After twenty or so hours I think No Rest For the Wicked might be the most frustrated I’ve ever felt. As a Cerim, a fighter of myth, you visit a plague-filled land to try and stop the rot that your ancestors did a millennia ago. The game is drop-dead gorgeous, with some of my favorite art styles of all time. Combat attempts to elevate the Action RPG into something smarter, and harder, and succeeds often. The game launched into early access on PC and I’m glad it did because most of the parts around that great gameplay framework can be a dreadful slog.
The Start
No Rest For the Wicked begins upon a ship as you head to a secluded island nation. Your ship is attacked and you barely make it ashore alive. First things first, holy shit is this game beautiful. Moon Studios has upped their games from the fantastical Ori franchise into something like Diablo-Dishonored. It’s dark, murky, dreary, and it looks incredible in motion. Cutscenes show off some of the coolest-looking character designs I’ve ever seen. Voice acting and music are great when they happen, though the music is a bit sparse in this early stage.
Immediately you’ll notice that this is no “turn your brain off and go nuts” ARPG. While not a Soulslike the game wants you to think about every action you and your enemies may take. Utilizing the genre’s tried-and-true ¾ perspective you have a punishing stamina system, an equally punishing poise system, and will need to forage for and cook food to heal. The game has durability, though it’s been made far less burdensome in a recent patch, and when I’m at an equal level with my enemies I adore its combat.
That has rarely happened for me though, as the game’s progression seems completely broken at this early stage of early access. So far I’ve had a handful of major quests, most of which are routinely set in zones 5+ levels above my character. This means that even when I go and grind earlier areas to catch up the moment I finish them the next quest is again 5+ levels above me. Enemies take a dozen hits to kill and I can die in two or three. It has been incredibly frustrating because the short spurts in which I’m equal level have featured brutal but fair combat and rewarding exploration.
The ARPG Of It All
Moon like elevating genres and I think they’re on the right track here. As much as I love the Diablo series it has always been a bit mindless in practice. The fun is building up a set of gear and skills that lets you tear through content you couldn’t before. NRFTW’s approach is a slower, more methodical combat system. You can dodge, block, and parry but every system is limited. Eventually, you’ll be able to gear up to lessen these burdens but the game’s enemies will power up as well. I focused on a sword and board setup that featured an incredibly powerful parry. Parrying requires you to wait until the last second and then actually hit your enemy’s weapon away with your shield by pressing the left trigger.
X is your main attack button while the left and right bumper can access special abilities for your main and off-hands. Those weapons are selected via socketable runes that go into said weapons and it’s an interesting take on the system. I’m not the biggest fan of it so far, preferring to choose a class and have things unlock in a steady path, though as I’ve only seen a small handful of abilities and spells in my nearly two-dozen hours with the title so far.
Healing is another issue as the game has a few “survival” style elements to it. Food is found in the environment and some can be eaten raw. Most require you to cook it via recipes that you’ll procure from vendors, get through bounties, or find in the world. I’m not against it but compared to Diablo IV’s potion drop system it is far too time-consuming and cumbersome. I’ve had to spend upwards of an hour farming up the food and herbs needed to cook the better meals as I attempted to take on bosses and I simply didn’t find it fun.
As you progress you’ll reach a main city which starts massively spread out, though you can slowly build shortcuts into all of it as well as places to further empower your gear. These places seem like they can break and you’ll need to repair them, level them up, and there are ample systems to encourage a lot of grinding. Much like the rest of the game, I see where it can eventually be fun, it’s just not there for me yet at this early stage. You don’t have enough inventory space and have to run back and forth repeatedly as fast travel is pretty shitty.
There are checkpoints you must activate dotting the landscape. They’ll bring you back to the city, and using the city one brings you back to the last one used. It means unlocking new areas and checkpoints don’t mean anything, as you’ll need to run back every time you activate a checkpoint anywhere else. It’s tedious to the point of driving me insane. It may be a system that gets better at some point, but I’m this far in and it still feels like a massive chore to ever go to any quest marker or have to return to town to try and sort through my drops/repair/etc.
Damn its Pretty
While the gear side of things is early and will go through a lot of iteration over time the graphics are out of this world gorgeous. While playing the game from the main perspective most ARPGs can look “good”. The camera is so damned far out though that there’s no reason to go all out with the textures. Diablo IV was the first truly gorgeous ARPG and it has now been outclassed by the art style of No Rest For the Wicked. Moon are wizards with Unity, and going for a more human look for the first time they’ve knocked it out of the park.
Characters have a distinct look, not only in their faces but in their proportions as well. Everyone has long, ape-like arms and sharply defined features. The voice work is mostly damned good with the occasional annoyance of repetition. Running to a boss in the sewers had me hear the same few lines a dozen times as I passed one of his henchmen who had been crucified. The music is OK when it hits, but that isn’t very often. It’s a mostly quiet game right now and runs in stark contrast to everything else. It feels like the most “early access” out of everything so far.
Bug-wise I have seemingly run into a few major ones, all tied to progression. I had a distinct lack of level-appropriate quests after only two hours in. The moment I hit town I was given only two objectives, both of which were level 12 whereas I was only level five. I had to run around the same area I had started the game in, killing enemies for bounties before I finally reached level 9 and could try and progress in one of the only two quests I had. After beating those two quests I was level 15 and then the entire game world jumped to level 22. At this point I have nowhere I can go where I’m not killed in a few hits, and it takes me 10-20 to kill most mobs. It is miserable and outside of starting a new realm for my character, I’m not sure what to do.
Wrapping Things Up
This is a review in progress and I’ll be checking the game out constantly as it progresses through early access. Right now I’m not having nearly as much fun as I was hoping. Gorgeous visuals, occasionally stellar combat, and an intriguing narrative have been held back by progression issues, and far too much busywork in-between runs. I have confidence that Moon Studios will figure things out, though, and that by version 1.0 this game could be an all-timer.
REVIEW IN PROGRESS - No Rest For the Wicked
Played on
PC
PROS
- Gorgeous
- Combat
- Exploration
- Story
CONS
- Progression
- Busy-work
- Lack of level appropriate content
- Needless obfuscation on systems
