The Last Oricru Review: A Pale Imitation

I’ll always have a special place in my heart for games that fall into the “Euro Jank” category. Studios like Spiders and Piranha Bytes, whilst lacking in polish, have always made up for the jank by putting out RPGs with complex systems, flexibility in playstyles, and a level of ambition that most AAA studios don’t even come close to reaching.

With that in mind, I was greatly excited to get stuck into The Last Oricru. A Soulslike action RPG from Prague-based development studio, GoldKnights Studio. The trailers and pre-release material looked to tick all the Euro Jank boxes that I value so much. However, having spent considerable time with The Last Oricru, it’s with a heavy heart that I say my excitement was short-lived, with terrible writing, an abundance of tonal issues, and lackluster combat turning this into one of the worst action RPGs I’ve played in some time.

Is This A Parody?

It should be fairly telling, that one of the first questions I asked myself within minutes of booting up The Last Oricru was, “is there some sort of meta joke at play here that I’m simply not understanding?”.

The narrative set-up itself is fine, if somewhat uninspired. You take control of a human, referred to simply as Silver. As is made clear by the opening cinematic, Silver was part of a crew aboard a spaceship that meets an untimely end at the hands of an alien race who murder the crew while they sleep in their pods. Silver also meets his maker, however, through a piece of technology wrapped around his waist, he is able to come back to life and finds himself resurrected in the company of the Naboru, one of the races native to the planet of Wardenia where Silver has become stranded. Strangely, Silver has no recollection of the events that led him to where he is now, knowing only that he has stepped into a war between the Naboru and the Ratkin, with both factions keen to use Silver’s ability to resurrect for their own benefit in a bid to change the course of the war.

In an interesting touch, and perhaps in what turns out to be The Last Oricru’s greatest strength, the narrative can be entirely shaped by the player at certain points of the story. Conversations with NPCs present Silver with branching paths, with not only the narrative changing course depending on what you choose but also your standing with the various factions in the world, with the ability to progress certain questlines locking or opening depending on who you choose to side with. While branching narratives aren’t anything new to RPGs, they are relatively unheard of with regard to Soulslikes, so I definitely appreciated the developers attempting to add a bit of depth and player agency to the development of the world, something that is typically missing from the genre.

I say “attempting to add”, as I’m of the view that branching narratives are only of any importance where the writing is of a high enough quality to keep the player engaged. Unfortunately, The Last Oricru’s writing is nothing short of awful, to the extent that, as I’ve mentioned, I wasn’t sure if I was missing some sort of joke or meta-commentary.  The main issue comes via the way in which the main protagonist has been written. Whereas the majority of the cast throughout is written with a large degree of seriousness, reflective of the war-torn world that surrounds them, Silver is nothing short of obnoxious, and feels as though he was pulled from another game entirely.

Poorly written comedy and ill-timed sarcasm are hugely irritating throughout, with Silver’s writing belittling the gravity of the world and its narrative at every turn. One early game conversation has Silver receiving instructions on how to find the Naboru queen from one of her lieutenants, with Silver responding by noting how often he has been using the word “sire” while conversing with this individual, which he then follows by repeating the word sire, over and over in an effort to irritate the lieutenant. These moments are frequent and progressively get more stupid and baffling, to the point where I had no option but to skip certain conversations, so bad was the immersion-breaking nature of the writing.

Awkward Combat

With Soulslikes, I’m usually willing to forgive a lot of a title’s shortcomings if the combat is up to scratch. The Surge, Mortal Shell, and Code Vein are all examples of Soulslikes that struggled in some departments but were able to overcome the odds due to a compelling combat system. And, while The Last Oricru’s combat isn’t quite the unmitigated disaster that the writing is, it still falls some way short of being something that I have any desire to return to any time soon.

Combat follows a similar rhythm to the competition. Triggers and shoulder buttons take care of standard attacks and special weapon-specific moves, with dodging and item use mapped to the face buttons. Variety comes through the different weapons that Silver will stumble across on his journey, with each weapon possessing standard attacks, and then a special move, such as an elemental buff, which can be triggered provided you have sufficient mana. While there are a lot of weapons, and I genuinely appreciated the fact that a lot of these are found off the beaten path in an effort to incentivize exploration, the issue is that they all feel pretty terrible to use.

Attacks feel weightless, with very little in the way of audio or visual feedback to help add any semblance of physicality to the combat encounters. Aggravating further is the woeful hit detection, with attacks that look like they have missed by a country mile often dealing crippling damage to both the player and the enemy. Boss encounters are particularly frustrating, as the information regarding boss attacks that is available on screen, is often useless in helping you dodge damage, given that attack animations are rarely an accurate indicator as to whether you are out of harm’s way. And, god forbid you ever try to take on an enemy who is positioned above you on a staircase, or on any kind of elevation different from your own.

Combat in the best Soulslikes is a careful, methodical affair typically, where the player needs to be able to rely on reliable hit detection and readable attack patterns in order to progress and take on a game’s toughest challenges. Remove that reliability, and the Soulslike formula becomes inherently flawed. You lose the valuable lessons taught by each death, as it’s never quite clear whether it was the player or the broken combat mechanics at fault.

Saving Graces?

It’s probably clear that my impressions of The Last Oricru aren’t great, but a couple of positives stop it from being a total write-off.

For starters, the level design is surprisingly robust. The areas you’ll visit are varied in design, often possessing mazelike layouts that encourage exploration. It’s the one element of the genre that the developers truly seem to have understood, with each level stuffed with secrets, hidden weapons, armor, and plenty of shortcuts that make the inevitable runs to the boss of a level less painful once unlocked. I genuinely enjoyed exploring the world, with the mix of high fantasy and sci-fi art direction also providing plenty of unique sights and vistas to soak in on my travels.

The game has also launched with co-op, with both local and online co-op featured and working well. As with most games, the fun is multiplied when playing with a friend, and The Last Oricru is no exception. At times, this enjoyment can be for the wrong reasons, as you and your co-op partner will likely find yourselves both rolling in hysterics at the laughably bad dialogue or random deaths that will inevitably occur at the hands of the hit detection. However, it does genuinely help the experience in other ways. The world, as I mentioned, is ripe for exploring, and it was always rewarding to have someone to share those eureka moments with when stumbling across a stash of weapons or a new shortcut. The combat also benefits from another body, with the erratic nature of the hit detection somewhat mitigated by having someone else present to take the heat from an enemy so that the other can back off and heal.

Is It Enough?

Having said all that, despite the fun that co-op brings, it isn’t enough to turn The Last Oricru into a recommendation, unfortunately. The amateur-hour writing and uneven combat are just too difficult to overlook especially considering just how stuffed the genre is with competing titles that do just about everything The Last Oricru does, only better. Sure there is fun to be hand in exploring Wanderia and its intricate level design, but every “wow” moment is typically followed by a facepalm, as Silver says something that is tonally deaf, or falls to yet another attack that should have had no business hitting him. If you’re after another slice of Soulslike action in 2022, then your $40 can absolutely be spent better elsewhere, with The Last Oricru serving as little more than a pale imitation that struggles to even nail the Soulslike fundamentals.

Final Verdict: 2/5

Available On: Xbox Series S/X, PS5, PC; Publisher: Prime Matter; Developer: GoldKnights Studio; Released: October 13, 2022; Players: 1-2; MSRP: $39.99: ESRB: Mature 17+