Lucah: Born of a Dream Review

Lucah: Born of a Dream kind of came out of nowhere. I only first heard about it a short while before I got my hands on it. Perhaps there was not much investment into getting the word out there about the game, which is always a shame, but with this case in particular, it really seems that a lot of people are completely unaware of Lucah’s existence, and after playing it, I can safely say that those people are really missing out.

In simple terms, Lucah: Born of a Dream is probably best described as an ARPG, one with quite a bit of exploration involved and with a rather intriguing narrative. However, at first glance, Lucah: Born of a Dream’s art style might be extremely polarizing. This is the first thing that you notice when you first look at the game, not because it is the visual representation of the actual game, but because it is a very striking look. These sorts of things can’t really be forced upon someone, it’s all a matter of personal taste, but what I have to say is that you shouldn’t dismiss Lucah solely because the way it looks might not appeal to you.

The game’s visual style and animations pave the way for an exceptionally methodical combat system, which is the highlight of the game. This combat system manages to remain fresh and introduce new combat styles throughout the entire game. The game allows you to customize two different combat paradigms, which you can switch on the fly during combat, by combining different types of attack with various companion pets. These pets, or familiars as the game calls them, act like drones, hovering around you and firing all sorts of different projectiles at nearby enemies upon your command. Then there are also virtues, which are essentially perks, and you have a limited amount of points that you can allocate to these. 

When you add all these different elements, and you combine that with your typical stamina system, heavy and light and charged attacks, you get a really compelling and engaging combat experience. The whole thing is only made better thanks to different enemy types and their corresponding attack patterns. While at first you might find it rather easy to just hack and slash your way through enemies, soon enough you might see yourself having to rely heavily on your dodge ability, as well as switching between the different combat paradigms in order to make quick work of your opponents. 

By default, the game gets progressively harder and harder, so be warned, because even if you spend most of your time just breezing through hordes of enemies, you might hit a wall. The important thing here is not to lose focus and get frustrated. If you ever reach the point where you’re done trying to beat a certain part, you can just go on the game’s menu and either lower the difficulty or the speed of the game. I find this to be quite thoughtful, as it allows people to warp the game’s difficulty in order to match their skill. This only strengthens the point that the game is clearly trying to tell, what it believes to be, a worthwhile story to the player, and the developer certainly doesn’t want people to hit a roadblock and give up on the game. They want you to see it through.

With that said, as far as the game plot goes, I feel like a lot of it is open to interpretation, mainly because it’s not really that linear, but if there’s one thing that is quite obvious throughout the entire game is the fact that the game deals with organized religion quite a lot. Lucah tries to tell a very specific story in a very unique way, but perhaps this is done too vaguely, and, because of that, it might just be completely missed by a lot of people. With that said, in terms of gameplay, Lucah: Born of a Dream is absolutely stellar.

I feel like it is pointless to dabble into the game’s story, not only because this is probably best experienced if you go into it blind, but also because, for me, the combat is the crown jewel and the biggest reason as to why you should play this. Every swing and blow that you deliver feels crunchy, like it really packs a punch, and the degree of customization that the game has allow you to try out all sorts of different approaches to different enemies and situations. 

If you’re expecting something really groundbreaking, I don’t think you’ll find it here, unless perhaps you find something that really astounds you in the game’s story. Personally, I have to admit that there were a lot of times where I had no idea what was going on or what I was doing. Still, I enjoyed my time with Lucah quite a lot. If you’re looking for a compelling action game, a game with a heavy focus on combat and a unique plot full of twists with a dark, grim, and sinister setting, I don’t really see how you can go wrong with this game.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary PC code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.