When I first saw the trailer for Saviorless by Empty Head Games on the PlayStation Store, it immediately captivated my attention with description and game-art. The hand-drawn style of art set in a fantasy world immediately takes on the topic most games are terrified to even approach — religion. While you might shirk at the idea of playing a religious game, Saviorless is pretty meta in its approach, and the narration of the game’s ideas really allow the player to engross themselves within the game’s world and rules. It’s not your typical preachy religious game. It’s done with thought and agency available to the player.
The very first thing you’re going to notice about Saviorless is the outstanding art. Ever since Cuphead took the world by storm with its gorgeous handdrawn artwork, we’ve seen a rise in games choosing to utilize this aesthetic and I do not hate it one bit. I’m not one of those people who hates AI on every level and sticks to a black-and-white worldview. I know our world is made up of different colors and shades of grey. But even with all that said, I will take handdrawn artwork and games over computer-generated art almost any day of the week. I say almost because we have to allow for the instances in which the artist puts in almost no effort and the computer work is vastly superior, but that’s usually the exception to the policy.
Saviorless embraces handdrawn art and utilizes its religious base within the art of the game. Environments are rich with despair and ruin. You can feel the suffering and dysfunction with each passing moment and the gravity of your situation grows with your surroundings and abilities. You are, after all, a God. How you write your story is as much the canvas on which your story is being written as it is about your choices within the game. Empty Head Games deserves all the praise in the world for their narration and artistic direction.
Now on to the bad and I’m not even sure if it is bad or if it was by design. The game is nearly impossible to control. A simple mistimed or misjudged jump will wipe out a decent amount of progress in some cases (I did say this was a Soulslike in the title). The game is meant to be difficult to control and read, not in the literary sense but in the figurative sense. Anticipation of what’s to come can be as important as making the next jump, but Saviorless has an affinity for dumping your assumptions down the same hole as your body.
Even the beginning of the game is difficult. I had to put the game down for a full day and come back to it because the first level was too tough for me. There’s a jump you have to make in the beginning of the game shortly after your first interaction with the Mysterious Writer character. It involves you swinging over a set of spikes. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less, and yet I died about 1,496 times trying to accomplish it. I would short-hop it. I would jump onto to spikes. I would even psych myself out and fall down the hole instead of jumping.
Death is just as unforgiving as anything else in this game. As I previously mentioned, deaths can absolutely wipe out a good amount of progress, taking you back further than you initially think it will until you get used to the idea that dying is decidedly not good for your mental health in this title. You’d think you’d end up near the place you died in the aforementioned spike jump I had troubles completing, but instead you’re taken back a good minute or so of gameplay. In a game that’s under 5 total hours to beat and is already complicated as hell, this is a decent chunk of time.
Saviorless is definitely worth the wait for fans of handdrawn titles and Soulslikes. If you’re looking for a simple but gorgeous platformer you can play and relax with after a day of work, you’ll definitely be playing something other than this game. But if you really enjoy the grind and feel like accomplishment is its own reward, then Saviorless is the perfect title for the go. I personally put mine on my PS Portal and it makes for a wonderful bit of gaming as I’m waiting to see a doctor or spending hours on hold with the disability office. At least I know there’s nothing my doctor could say or do that would be as difficult as that spike jump.
BSO Rating: 7-out-of-10
