3000TH DUEL / DEVELOPER & PUBLISHER: NEOPOPCORN / PLATFORM: PC, SWITCH / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
3000th Duel is a Soulslike Metroidvania from new developer Neopopcorn. As a first attempt from a brand new company, the results are really quite striking indeed.
Playing as a nameless adventurer who has lost their memory, you’ll travel through some nicely hand-painted environments on a journey to discover who you are and how and why you ended up wherever you are. The story is filled in by collectable memory fragments, leaving players to concentrate on navigating the world rather than getting caught up in overly-long exposition.
Combining the mechanics of Dark Souls with a Metroidvania structure has proven to be quite successful in the past, and 3000th Duel throws its hat into the ring with a fairly restricted take on the Soulslike formula. Resting / saving resets all enemies apart from bosses, levelling up is done by spending souls earned from defeating enemies, and any souls lost upon death can be reclaimed if you can get back to the scene of your failure before dying again. There are less stats to consider than Souls players might be used to, making 3000th Duel a little more accessible than the games it was inspired by.
There are lots of weapons to find, all categorised into lances, swords and broadswords. Spending points in your skill tree powers up each category as a whole, rather than individual weapons. It’s a nice idea, but a side effect of this is that all weapons in each category largely feel the same as each other (aside from later / stronger weapons dealing more damage), so it kind of feels like you only get three weapons through the entire game. There are also magic powers to find, known as Occults, which add a bit of extra firepower and can also be upgraded through various means.
The game world can be a tad confusing at times, occasionally leaving the player with no clue as to where they should go next. A little more prompting to direct the action might help the game to flow a little easier, and would eliminate the need for wandering around aimlessly in the hope that you might come across the path that the game wants you to take next. Navigation issues aside, this is a strong attempt at combining two popular genres and a great first attempt from the folks at Neopopcorn. Keep an eye out to see what they come up with next!
