The Skylia Prophecy – PS4 Review

The Skylia Prophecy – PS4 Review

Genre: Action-adventure RPG
Developer: ERMedia
Publisher: Plug In Digital
Release Date: November 20th 2020
Edited by AlexKnight2005

Action platformers are a genre with many hard hitters. From plumbers to hedgehogs and everything in between. In the Skylia Prophecy, you are running through areas and solving puzzles in an NES art style. I played this game on the PS4, and my thoughts will be on that version of the game. Gameplay is simple. Run from one end of the stage to the other, killing enemies you encounter on the way. Areas are pretty similar in terms of gameplay but different in terms of visual style. You unlock new abilities after a dungeon level and fighting the boss, these abilities allow you to attack in different ways. You start with the tutorial and two basic attacks. A slash attack on the square button and a shield on the R2 button. The other ability you get as you play unlocks on the triangle button. Enemies have different patterns, and memorizing them can be the key to victory. Some enemies are only affected by certain types of attacks, while others can be taken down as you see fit. Combat ends up feeling pretty repetitive except for the boss encounters. The bosses are usually pretty varied and have unique patterns or ways of taking them down. You also have health and mana potions to heal yourself. The buttons for the health potions are tied to L1, while mana potions are on R2. When you are in towns between areas, people will sometimes give them to you to help you stay alive. The towns are pretty barren, and there are only a few people are standing around to talk to, but little else to see or do. There are a few NPCs in town that will sell you items after the first dungeon. They consist of health and mana potions, as well as other items like revival elixirs. The towns are pretty much gateways between areas and a way to give you potions. It would have been nice to have the people walking around or a few shops and buildings to go in. There are also hidden enemies at certain points that beat them to unlock trophies. As you play, you can also find health and mana upgrades. These allow you to stay alive longer and use your abilities more before having to pop a mana potion. Another thing to bring up is how the game handles saving. Throughout the areas of the game, there are various save points. If you die before hitting the first save point, it’s game over and starts from the beginning again. There’s currently only one overall zone in the game. Hopefully, they eventually expand as the game implies with the title area 1 that there will be more areas to come. Either way, it’s a fun start to what could be an interesting game.

Graphics are NES-style pixel art. The visuals are distinct and give each area has its own unique vibe. As it’s a 2D game, animations and such play a role. I will say enemies felt stagnant. Their sprites sometimes seemed to slide across the screen instead of moving. People in the town also stand in one place. In terms of visuals could be worked on at a later date. Adding the NPCs just moving around or being in different places after different levels could add a layer to the visuals to help immersion. The music is a decent orchestral score. Not the 8 or 16-bit tones you’d expect. Each area has music to match it, but it can get repetitive as not all the tracks are long. The games options menu is a little lacking though. There are options for music on or off, sound on or off, as well as, vibration and language settings. I’m not expecting a console game to have the full expansive settings menu of a pc game, but options for brightness, as well as remappable controls, would have been a nice addition.

Trophies are a big thing on PlayStation games as well. Trophies vary from beating an area, Killing yourself by triggering an explosive and various other things. Some are easy to obtain just by playing, while some take some thought on how to get them to pop. Either way, your trophy hunters got a good time ahead, if not short, as the overall number of trophies is small compared to other titles out there.

Overall The Skylia Prophecy is a fun action platformer beat ’em up the title. I enjoyed the different areas despite the flaws. The combat is good, if not repetitive sometimes, while the areas can be unique in visual style if not bland in gameplay. Overall it’s definitely worth the $6.99 at the time of this writing on the PlayStation Store.

Pros:

  • Retro art style
  • Fun gameplay
  • Good trophy list

Cons:

  • Repetitive level design
  • No remappable controls

Blindpcguy Gives The Skylia Prophecy a Drastik Measure of 8.0 out of 10.0 (80)