BELOW (Capybara Games – X1, PC – TBA 2018) – As above, and so below, seems to come-and-go yet another iteration of the ages-old roguelike dungeoncrawler videogame model, called Below, by Capybara Games. Initially introduced during Microflop Studios 2013 E3 press event, and then indefinitely delayed by them in mid-2016 (until Capybara stepped in and took over), Below is essentially another facsimile of Nintendo NES’s The Legend of Zelda, from 1987.
You’re a sword-and-shield-wielding warrior who has traveled to a remote island, where you enter a cave, and travel down, down, down, below the surface, only to wind up in a maze full of magic and monsters –- all of this viewed by you in a top-down perspective that happens to be zoomed so far out that your little warrior appears to be nothing much more than a tiny speck on the screen. Good luck with that, if you’re vision isn’t 20/20 are better.
No instructions, rules, or cues are given, and it’s up to you to intuitively guide yourself through this subterranean labyrinth; which really won’t be such a task if you’ve spent even a minimum amount of your free time gaming. Even though we’ve all undoubtedly been here before, Below does offer a compelling musical score by singer-songwriter, Jim Guthrie, who also previously scored Capybara’s Superbrothers: Sword & Sorcery EP.
Again you probably won’t find anything really new here, but if you enjoy a little bit of that old-school video game hack-and-slash attack that largely perfected itself before many of you may’ve even been born, then you might find yourself enjoying a bit of the rough-and-stumble down in the darkness below…
-Jason Bud