Xel [Review]
Xel is a Zelda-like game taking inspiration from the classic top-down Legend Of Zelda games or the more recent Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. Starting Xel, your character Character crash lands somewhere and remembers nothing, not her name, why she crashed, or where she is. This is very cliché. Shortly after, the main character meets a companion robot named Chap, which serves as the Navi for this game. Starting the game is very boring. You’re just walking down a largely linear path and moving a couple boxes left and right mindlessly until you are able to get your weapon. Once you have a weapon enemies start attacking you for no reason. This makes me feel like they had no idea how they wanted to start the game.
The main character of this game talks. I will say this destroyed much of the game for me. The senseless bickering drove me mad. The character had something to say about every little thing in the game and the voice acting was not good. Just because you were able to have a voice actor doesn’t mean you should always have the voice actor talk. The game series that this game took inspiration from happens to be a game with a character that is silent. The character in this game is constantly bickering to herself and most times it seems unnecessary and actually can come off as annoying.
Graphically, during gameplay, the game looks pretty good. During cutscenes, not so much. Upon turning the game on, the main menu seems like it is at a very low resolution and blurry, it seemed like I was playing the game from a streaming service. Also, I assume the cut scenes are pre-rendered so that they can run on PC, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch without any slowdown and can be viewed in parody. But at times the gameplay on the Xbox series X it’s still jittery and stutters.
Some sound effects in this game were off-putting. Games using similar sound effects to Breath of the Wild are starting to get on my nerves. This game, Palworld, and others really need to have sound designers that have a little more creativity than "Hey! I like what this game did with its audio let me just do the same thing." It’s uninspiring and feels like a half-assed shortcut. There's no way to have your game stand out and audio is the one thing that ties everybody’s memories to something very specific. In video games, people think fondly of older games and remember them very well mainly because of the music. The music and sound effects of a game trigger memories, and those are the things that make people go back and pick that game up again. People remember a game that had good audio design and memorable music more than a game that doesn’t. So, if I remember the little chimes and sound effects from a door opening or a chest opening in this game I’m not gonna remember that I played this game 5-10 years from now I’m gonna think of Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom.
As the game progresses you learn that XEL is a safe haven or small village of survivors. And not the name of the main character. The main character although she did not know who she was or what her name was was very quick to throw out a name and was very sure of herself, it was a face-palm moment for me. Since this game is a Zelda-like clone. Playing it was fine. The gameplay was fun and what you would expect from a Legend of Zelda Clone. Although, it plays like Legend of Zelda doesn't mean it is Legend of Zelda. The charm isn't there and the game is still unpolished. Unfortunately, I was unable to finish the game. During gameplay, Xel crashed. When I went to load my save again it was gone. So, about 25ish hours are just poofed out of existence. This game should have had more time in the oven.
