Skautfold: Shrouded in Sanity (Nintendo Switch) Review

Skautfold: Shrouded in Sanity starts with a tutorial that acts as an introduction to the mechanics. You'll die in the tutorial. It's likely that you'll die more than once… and it won't be entirely your fault. The controls and the mechanics on offer are in need for some polishing, but that's not the main issue. The tutorial is somewhat bad at its job. Once you complete it you'll still have to spend an hour or so experimenting on your own to find out what does what, when you should do this or that, and so on and forth. That's bad design 101, and it's twice as annoying when the game at hand is actually a challenging soulslike, with death always a few hacks and slashes away.

The Bloodborne, Castlevania and maybe even OG Resident Evil influences are obvious from the very beginning, with the its dark, gothic-smelling setting being that of an alternative 19th century England mansion filled with violent humans maddened by eldritch knowledge, while nastier things hide in the corners, and a mysterious fog threatens to engulf the land. Intriguing as all these are, story-telling isn't Skautfold's strength. Is it its atmosphere? Kind of, yet it looks and feels like a watered down version of the classics that inspired it, with its pixel art being nice and all, but the art direction being subpar, making everything kind of blend together because of the use of samey colours.

Gameplay-wise this is a pure Dark Souls, with a somewhat non-linear world to explore and bits of lore to discover, along some environmental storytelling spicing things up, but most of all, this is all about fighting enemies that can bring you down very fast, gathering their essence to power-up the protagonist so that she can delve deeper into the mansion, kill four bosses, and then defeat the big bad cheese. The available moveset is very typical of the genre, with dodges, parries, weak and strong attacks, plus a limited supply of health replenishing items. Oh, there's also a handgun which is actually used to "stun" enemies for a second or two, so that the heroine can get closer and deliver a very lethal hit.

Sadly, there are a couple of issues. Firstly, there's a severe lack in variety, with very few enemy types to battle against, and not exactly many different combat scenarios to experience. As mentioned earlier, the combat mechanics aren't really that good either. It's hard to explain why. Pushing the buttons does what it supposed to happen, but it's all a bit… floaty. It doesn't feel good, if that makes any sense. The enemies themselves, while not that challenging, are a bit hard to read, and there are a few annoyingly bad hitboxes that are kind of unfair, especially when it comes to magic attacks. Oh, the whole thing is also surprisingly short. Not really a big problem, but something that should be taken into consideration before a purchase.