I recently had the opportunity demo Wings of Endless, a new 2D pixel art side-scrolling action RPG launching May 8th across Switch, PlayStation, Xbox and PC.
Honestly I wasn't sure what to expect, since there are so many mediocre pixel-art games out there, but Wings of Endless honestly (and happily) surprised me.
The game starts with Hariku, the first character you will control, who is a "brash bounty hunter" who claims he is the best at what he does (I thought that was Logan, but what do I know?) He eventually meets an owl who just happens to be magical and can talk (who he names "Owly", much to the owl's dismay) and they set off on an epic quest (is there any other kind of quest in a video game?)
The action in Wings of Endless is much like any other side-scrolling platformer / metroidvania, and overall that's a good thing. There are familiar mechanics so you can pick-up and play it easily, but it also introduces some unique twists that keep it interesting.
The writing in the game is also quite good. I found myself laughing at a good deal of the dialogue between Hariku and Owly. The story isn't that special in itself, but the way the dialogue is written makes up for it.
The gameplay in the demo seems quite tight and well calibrated, which is something a lot of modern indie pixel-art games seem to lack. The enemies follow set patterns for the most part, but like you would expect from an old school adventure game; certainly nothing that takes away from the experience. If anything, the way the gameplay has been crafted just reinforces the retro feeling of the game, in a good way.
Like a lot of modern retro-styled games, Wings of Endless also has a few retro screen filters you can implement. Generally I do like to use filters when they are good. From what I could see, one of the filters was a little less intense and seemed to look good, and the other was a bit much for my taste.
I'm looking forward to Wings of Endless when it releases tomorrow, and you may want to keep an eye out for it. Seems like a good one.
If you would like to see my gameplay of the demo, you can watch the video below (although I wholly encourage you to just play the demo for yourself on Steam):