‘Netherworld Covenant’ is a top-down, souls-like/rogue-like game brought to you by the team over at MadGoat Game Studio. Without heavily leaning into either category, we are placed right between the punishment of a combat and parrying mechanics and the repetition of a rogue, I am happy to report, though not as punishing as either one would usually suggest.

Risen from the dead is how this game starts; dark overtones of blood red and black fill your screen. After dying on the battlefield, you arise in the Netherworld as a lantern bearer come to avenge fallen comrades, only to find them twisted, tortured, and corrupt. Defeating them in battle, though, doesn’t ensure them peace. No, they become bound to you, granting you powers and abilities that can change every run. From the very beginning, the game lets you know you are going to suffer; rinse and repeat. The story is pretty random, a unique experience for sure.

This dark fantasy game offers you a top-down perspective with an array of movements, combat, and ghost powers to fight your way through each round. Repetition is the fun that fuels part of the game; levelling up my character with resources I bring back to the central hub after every run is a core function, with each run I do feeding into the next, gathering money, Blackstones, and Legion relics.

All of which will eventually help unlock more abilities, armour, and weapons, making the next run better. The currency you gather, Blackstones, is earned via killing enemies, bosses, and looting chests. Money and relics are rarer to get, but can be earned each round from more powerful foes.

The fast-paced combat doesn’t fall into the typical trap of an RPG rogue. Given a choice of style at the central hub, you can pick between a few classes to flesh out a build: a warrior, a mage, a bow enthusiast, a berserker and a few more that need to be unlocked, but with every class, a strategic approach is needed to not fail a run.

With your lantern on your hip acting like a secondary weapon, you are given ‘Ghost’ powers, summoning a ghost companion during a fight to shoot arrows, throw swords, and hammers, which makes you feel you are not alone in this fight!

Each summon leaves behind a node where it is cast. This node gives us the power to do what’s called a Ghost Step, where, for a short duration after using a Ghost power, you can recall to that point.

Ghost Step is something you would like to master to not be crushed later in some harder fights. As you progress, you can collect relics and auras that buff you, giving you such things as chain lightning, burn, applying buffs and debuffs, increased crit damage, and health.

As you start each run, you go through room after room, each one consisting of a few fights of monsters. At the end of each level, you are given a choice of two doors to pass through. Now, these doors can greatly affect your run; each one offers different rewards to help boost you.

Choosing the right door for where you are in your run is important. Now, besides these doors, there are doors for health potions and doors for the merchant; they offer more buffs, debuffs, and health to help aid you on your run. Finally, the last non-boss door you should find in each level is a Soul door, where you fight a corrupted soul of a fallen comrade. These fights can be tough if you go in unprepared, but upon victory, this will unlock more Ghost powers for you to use.

Visually inspired by decay and ruin, Netherworld Covenant offers a dark setting of creepy gothic-style rooms and dungeons mixed with a feeling of ever-present danger.

Clean Character design mixed in with clean animations makes the flow of battle easy to track without losing pace. Each room gives off its own unique minuscule, intricate style that fits with the current enemy you are facing, from ghoulish monsters in a ruined castle to swamp monsters in a harbour-type room.

A very important part of culminating a game like this together is the sound. Dark and moody music covers most of the game, even though quiet, it does set the mood. What helps most is what comes from the weapons, a clear indication of hits and misses. An exploding ghoul in your fight? You are going to know about it! Hits, misses, blocks, and dodges have a clear sound to let you know what’s happening.

We definitely need a clear indication to help time our moves and nail down patterns. Enemy noises help here, not overbearing on the ear, but clear and understandable. On the same note, some boss fights offer dialogue, while it is nice to hear, I feel it wasn’t really necessary to have someone speak in a game like this, and it adds nothing to the fight.

Overall, I found myself wanting to play more of this game, and with a little more polishing would be a game I would return to often.

Written by: Matiyus