LUCAH is a character-driven top-down dungeon crawler shooter, inspired by titles like Devil May Cry and the Souls series. The combat is based off a deeply customizable system, where the player can equip two of twelve Mantras, special attacks with varying range and power. The player is also accompanied by one of eight Familiars, small orbiting creatures with varying ranged abilities. Virtues can be found through exploration or commerce, and bestow the player with various boons, such as slower enemy attacks, or a full stamina recharge on a successful dodge.
To succeed in LUCAH, the player must experiment with multiple possible Paradigms, slotted loadouts that can be swapped out mid-combat. Rolling and dodging are essential to surviving your battles, as is chaining together light and heavy attacks to break your enemy’s guard or parrying an attack to force them open for massive damage.
Still, the name of the game is desperation, and LUCAH makes this known to the player. A ticking percentage warns of the player’s corruption, increasing with each death. A few hits from a Nightmare is enough to knock the player out. The tragic characters that the player meets along the way are despondent, sometimes even hostile. The world is black, and the jagged level geometry and haunting soundtrack that accompany it paint a picture of hopelessness.
Despite this, there’s a tenderness to the pain that the characters face, and there’s always a way to move forward. LUCAH is an accessible game, with the ability to adjust the difficulty on two fronts, as well as various options such as infinite stamina or unlimited items. In combat, the consumable Rewind item lets you start a fight over from the moment you started it, and the Health Essence fully restores your health; these items can be replenished by resting at one of the game’s many checkpoints.
The world of LUCAH is filled with mystery. Clues to the true nature of the protagonist and their world are found in off-handed dialogue, the structure of the land, the forms of the many Nightmares, and even in the names of the music tracks. With a New Game Plus feature that adds additional content and shakes up your playthrough, multiple endings, and a deeply personal narrative, LUCAH is one of those experiences that never truly ends, and it certainly doesn’t leave you after you’ve beaten it.
If you can stomach the intensity of a bad dream, then I highly recommend it; I’ve sunk thirty hours into it across three playthroughs, and I plan on coming back for more.
VERDICT
Yes if you like top-down dungeon-crawler shooters you can sink your teeth into; Probably Not if those types of games give you anxiety.
Main takeaway: A lovingly handcrafted take on a well-worn genre, with highly tailorable gameplay and difficulty.
