The Relic: First Guardian Review

The Relic: First Guardian has been available on PC and PlayStation for a while. Accordingly, I’ve been waiting patiently to give this a go on Xbox. With Souls-like elements, unusual mechanics, and a rich and dark lore-filled story, this appealed to me. However, there are plenty of performance issues and bugs that hold it back.

Project Cloud Games has developed this action-adventure, Souls-like title. It is a semi-open world game that encourages you to investigate every building, ruin, and cave you encounter. However, you must stay frosty throughout as monsters roam everywhere and danger is around every corner.

This single-player affair focuses on bitty lore, impressive passive abilities, and seamlessly never-ending boss battles. The huge and often hideous bosses test your skills as you dodge, weave, block, and slice your way to victory.

The Relic: First Guardian is a sombre and oppressive tale.

The world has gone to shit, and there is only one person to save it. You play the role of the First Guardian, a hero who absorbs powers and wields shards of the relic. The hero must master each ability as they tackle an abundance of horrendous monsters while bringing light to an otherwise dark world.

The story is told through cinematic moments and plenty of mission-focused lore. As you explore each location, glowing blue orbs highlight snippets of a doomed individual. This normally leads you to a huge monster. As they fall, their story concludes, and one less bruttish thug haunts the world.

It is this storytelling that makes The Relic: First Guardian particularly special. Although there is a core plot to push you forward, I found each sub-element to be fascinating, well-written, and easy to digest.

Unusual mechanics.

If you love modern action-adventure titles or you are obsessed with Souls experiences, you will be familiar with bonfires, respawning monsters, and all the tough moments. The Relic: First Guardian takes a fresh approach with its aggressive game design, lack of character levelling, and interesting equipment system.

You are encouraged to play with different relics to adjust your passive skills. Elemental powers play a big part, and upgrading, mixing, and matching each item makes a huge difference. Alongside this, you can find different armour sets, test weapons, and manage a defence-based stamina system.

The latter took me a while to master. The idea that all-out attack is rewarded was a strange concept, but it was something I enjoyed. This aggressive design demands an eye for detail, though. You cannot simply hack and slash your way through every opponent. Instead, you must watch for patterns and manipulate any weakness.

Overwhelming.

The Relic: First Guardian was often overwhelming, and losing your head in a boss battle was the norm. Thankfully, the respawn mechanics of other Souls titles have been removed, and this was a wise move. I took full advantage of this as I saved every time I found a shrine.

This took the often brutal edge away from the action. Sadly, you will die repeatedly, and this can be frustrating. Failure is part of the game, and respawning to die again is all too familiar. Furthermore, I found the boss battles and monster encounters to be hellishly overwhelming. Blocking 8 monsters at once was almost impossible, and this makes things unnecessarily tough. Consequently, stealth is often the best approach regardless of the all-out aggressive combat mechanics.

The Relic: First Guardian looks great despite its issues.

The Relic: First Guardian offers an amazingly dark and sinister world to explore. There is fire, mist, rain, swamps, caves, and other weird and wonderful locations. Moreover, there is a pleasant array of monsters and the aforementioned bosses to interact with. Despite this, it has some horrible performance issues. There are frame rate drops and bugs that prevent this from excelling. The game crashes, bosses become trapped behind fog walls, and you’ll clip the scenery repeatedly. It’s unfortunate as the world is a joy to explore.

The audio is an in-your-face treat. It is gloomy, aggressive, and never-ending. The combination of exceptional music and deadly sound effects was great to hear. Magical sounds juxtapose the thwack of your axe or sword. Furthermore, each foe grunts and screams as they slash at your face.

Easy to play.

Despite its problems, The Relic: First Guardian is easy to play. The UI is clever and clean, and the game has a gentle learning curve. The toughest challenge is the blocking mechanic. Once you have this timed to perfection, you will not look back.

There are 3 main areas to explore and countless bosses to destroy. Alongside this, there are lore items to find, and other bits to keep you busy. The semi-open world is fun to navigate, and this has plenty of replay value and longevity.

The Relic: First Guardian is good despite its problems.

The Relic: First Guardian could have been an amazing game. Had the bugs and problems been ironed out, this would be spoken about in a completely different tone. Unfortunately, the bugs hold it back as they cause frustration and break the immersive story. However, there are plenty of positives that make this worth your while. Accordingly, I recommend grabbing a copy from the Xbox Store!