Raji: An Ancient Epic (Xbox One)

Raji: An Ancient Epic is an excellent showcase of Hindu myth and cultural tradition, an action game that devotes an incredible amount of time and resources into realizing that element of the experience. The player will be told ancient stories, find beautiful works of art embodying the religious figures tied to the tale the game is telling, and move through architecture that is just as breath-taking in its meticulous design and commitment to embodying a specific style endemic to the culture it is sharing. It is a game that could easily suck in any player eager to explore this loving tribute to a world culture not often seen in the video game realm… at least until they start to actually play the game.

 

Raji: An Ancient Epic is unfortunately a case of a lot of spectacular aesthetic trappings being placed over a game that’s not only received weak attention in its other aspects, but outright fails oftentimes in trying to build up compelling combat or puzzle solving. Admittedly though the less mechanical side of things has a few failings, the actual story of Raji herself not all that captivating. Raji and her younger brother Golu only have each other and perform at festivals to earn a living, but when the demons in service to Mahabalasura show up and snatch away the children, Golu is among those specifically targeted and taken away. Raji puts her faith in the gods and is rewarded by the goddess Durga in particular with a weapon capable of fighting back against the demons, the young woman setting out to find where Mahabalasura is heading to free her brother. One nice touch of this plot is the consistent narration of Durga and fellow deity Lord Vishnu as they ponder Raji’s capabilities and reflect on the areas she passes through despite her being unable to hear their musings. Unfortunately this divine commentary is not matched by Raji whose plot importance starts and ends with saving Golu and beyond the obvious evolution into a more capable combatant she stays pretty focused on this goal without much more to say about her character. You do find on occasion mandalas you form by rotating rings to form an image of her past with Golu that give you at least some of their history but it doesn’t really flesh out the central figures of this narrative, the player probably having a better idea of Vishnu’s character and personality by the end than the core figure of the story they’re playing. This does culminate in a conclusion that is underwhelming as well to add a small sting to this journey’s shallowness as a plot, but in some ways Raji is likely just to be a way to take your tour through the impressive architecture and chances to hear myths told.

One thing that cannot be taken away from Raji: An Ancient Epic is its commitment to detailed environments even when those spaces may not have a practical purpose. Raji herself might just be walking down a straight path at some points but the world around her will have impressive statuary, lovely artistic designs, or a nice mix of natural life with areas built around the game’s heavy lean into Indian cultural history. The best part of Raji: An Ancient Epic’s progression is just entering a new space which has been intricately designed almost more as a showpiece than a place to explore, this especially true since oftentimes the platforming segments are basic and won’t often interact with the most impressive parts of a location. When they do they can sometimes cause little issues like an impressive statue having fairly poor resolution once you start climbing the scaffolding around it, but most of the time the game’s aesthetic is easy to be swept up into. The often lifeless traversal that only really proves challenging when wall runs aren’t functioning well can be more easily forgotten as your focus instead turns to trying to get a good look at the space you’re exploring because the level of attention it has been given invites wonder and admiration even if Raji herself is not going to be making use of all those impressive sights in her progress. There are rare moments where it does intersect like crossing water in a beautiful garden area that even makes use of one of the game’s better traversal ideas in making lilypads appear with special flower buds you toss to where you want to go, but marveling at the backdrops to your adventure will only go so far in keeping you on board.

 

In that same vein of something great to look at but without much relevance to what you’ll actually be doing as the player are the murals that give you details and stories from Hindu myth. Some of these like establishing who Durga is are a good way of teaching you about a key character, but mostly they will have little connection to Raji’s quest to save her brother or even the monsters and gods who help her along the way. The tale of Garuda for example is an interesting story on its own and worth knowing, but besides a small appearance of Vishnu in it that provides no greater understanding about him, the best you can say is it makes you aware of the concept of Naga before you encounter one later in a stealth section that is really just about waiting for the right time to move rather than doing anything too compelling. These murals can sometimes depict avatars of a deity without really telling you much about them, making them contextless information you’re likely to forget immediately after despite the lovingly drawn art to accompany it. Finding a new set of mythological murals is perhaps the most exciting aspect of the game even if they’re of dubious relevance and might not even do more than list a bunch of important figures without the details needed to remember them, but if Raji: An Ancient Epic was instead almost a museum tour where you got to observe this art in intricate environments, then it would at least be worthy of playing.

However, the gameplay Raji: An Ancient Epic actually focuses on drags the experience down quite a bit. Combat in the game is rough throughout even as you get new weapons and skills to try and tip it more in your favor. Many enemies can hit fairly hard and while they’ll flash before they strike, it’s pretty easy to get Raji locked into a committed animation that means you won’t be able to dodge away in time. This isn’t as easy as just being patient in battle and finding the safe time to strike as one of the committed animations that you can’t cancel once it has started is your dodge roll, its appearance seemingly prioritized over its practical purpose of avoiding damage. The first roll is often quick enough, but in enemy groups you’ll often need to chain together dodges only for Raji to start to do acrobatics that make it hard to determine how safe you are and how to time your next dodge. Attack animations can be a bother too, your bow for example needing some time to draw its energy shot. As a limiter to make sure you use this mostly to pester from afar this idea makes sense, but sometimes the game will spawn in new enemy types who get in close and start striking, Raji not able to immediately switch weapons to something more fitting and thus left with a bow she can’t draw fast enough against relentless speedy demons. Your only weapon with a guard option comes late into the adventure although the very final weapon is a chakram that moves almost with a will of its own at times despite being the best fit for the final fight since the boss otherwise throws out too many attacks to really handle with your slow bow.

 

The final boss fight is at least more of a challenge than some bosses like the demon queen Rangda whose attack pattern drags on with its main variation being it goes on longer as you deal more damage in small windows. At least the bosses aren’t as relentless as standard enemies who are often thrown together with little consideration for how their attack methods will gel together. A few cycloptic discs with an impressively detailed death animation are sometimes positioned in interesting ways, but otherwise you’ll get a handful of demons with different tactics but no allowances for how the other demons in the fight might be attacking. It’s not uncommon for a set of three foes to trigger their attacks in a succession that means your dodge can’t avoid it all unless you were already positioned properly before you even knew the enemies were about to attack, and with fight areas enclosed by barriers it can even make tight spots easy to fall into as the game piles in more foes without thinking on where you can go once attacks like large laser blasts, detonating little demons, and homing red silhouettes all enter the picture at once. Raji: An Ancient Epic does allow you to adjust difficulty as you please which mostly just seems to impact the amount of enemies that appear in specific fights, but you won’t fully escape them either.

 

You do have a mix of attack types that can lead to combos with different types of utility like attacks that stretch far beyond a weapon’s default range or techniques that can hit everything around you if you lead into the combo properly, but again you will leave yourself open if you commit to these attack chains and with how dodgy some demons are or how certain attacks seem to struggle to make contact with foes it’s hard to just chalk it up to a lack of patience in a battle system that doesn’t really let you stand still. You do start to get different elements to enhance your weapon attacks so you can do things like freeze a foe in place or spread electricity in a group to deal more damage at once, but it doesn’t completely reduce the troublesome parts of the action’s design nor does having a super attack you can whip out for heavy damage on nearby foes. Luckily, once most standard enemies have been reduced to almost no health, a B button prompt appears where you can do a kill move on them where you’re completely invincible while performing it and get a mild heal once it has finished. The healing feels more like a band-aid over a bad battle system though, an excuse not to tighten up enemy timing or your ability to exit animations since you can slog through the fight by taking those healing opportunities or just accepting the respawn after death that won’t set you far back. The difference between winning and losing a fight is often not that perceptible in Raji: An Ancient Epic, and perhaps the worst part about this combat system is that this review is based on the Enhanced Edition update that was meant to address issues with these mechanics and yet it still stands in the way of enjoying a delightful tour of Hindu legends.

THE VERDICT: Raji: An Ancient Epic deserves high commendations for the incredible artistry on show in its game world, and were it just a tour of Hindu myth by way of its tepid platforming and limited puzzle ideas then it would at least be worth checking out just for the opportunity to immerse yourself in this loving adaptation of the developer’s culture. Nodding Heads Games makes just trying to experience the art not worth the trouble though thanks to combat with little regard for battle flow or the player’s time, some boss fights dragging without much variation while even standard enemy battles will have groups of enemies unleash strings of attacks all at once you’re not equipped to handle. Fights are frantic affairs where you hope things work out in your favor and are too frequent to ignore even on the easiest difficulty when the problems with animations and timing are still present, so you can’t even just come for the sights without having to push through an awful battle system.

 

And so, I give Raji: An Ancient Epic for Xbox One…

A TERRIBLE rating, and one that pains me to give the more I reflect back on the moments where it showed such promise. Raji: An Ancient Epic will put an incredible amount of detail even into the designs of the demons you fight despite being at too far a camera angle to really appreciate them, but that’s because Nodding Heads Games made its artistic elements such a priority that even little moments can have impressive sights that you are only meant to look at and move on from. If combat was outright removed from the game it would certainly be a hollow experience in many ways but also a better one as you would just focus on appreciating the surprisingly amount of effort put into realizing intricate and often beautiful environments, and while the platforming and small set of recycled puzzle concepts like the mandalas don’t do much to test you save when they come up short somehow, they’d at least be an easier to stomach method of getting from mural to mural to enjoy the better parts of this poorly planned epic. A rare flicker of inspiration like the lily blossoms can’t compete with the constant bothersome presence of battles that never really manage to be satisfying even if you try to dig deeper into your expansive range of tricks, mainly because doing special combos or neat maneuvers tends to endanger you more than it provides some edge in a fight. The red glimmer to show an enemy is about to strike is a good form of universal telegraphing for when you should dodge, but the game doesn’t make dodging consistent enough that you can even respond in time. I had to go play a demanding game like Cuphead to confirm that my reflexes hadn’t inexplicably dulled, but it really does seem like a mix of bad animations and enemy timing combine here to undermine this poorly devised form of fighting. Even the bosses that often shift towards waiting out attacks and then striking during the right window lean too hard into that concept and lead to long periods of repetitive dodging or windows where you can’t do much damage, thus making them drag out longer. With the secrets off the main path often being the incredibly helpful orbs used to upgrade your elements it also becomes frustrating to realize you missed one because any advantage could conceptually spare you more time spent immersed in the game’s rickety combat system.

 

Raji: An Ancient Epic should be loved as an expression of a developer’s culture and the moments where it’s portraying beautiful environmental design or sharing fascinating legends would work wonderfully in some other game. Unfortunately that artistry’s goodwill is undermined by awful combat that couldn’t even be improved in the second go around with the Enhanced Edition, making it seem more like this terrible fighting style is intentionally designed this way only to the game’s detriment. It’s certainly not the first game to completely flub the interactive side of an experience despite all the care put into the presentation, but beyond walking past some interesting environments, you’re not often directly interacting with the mythical elements or gorgeous architecture. If you do desire a deep dive into Hindu myth and culture you can actually just spend a little time on a site like Myth Encyclopedia clicking on what fascinates you, and while that removes the interactive element and immersive potential of a video game, those are the issues with Raji: An Ancient Epic and thus you are at least avoiding having to take a bitter pill alongside your cultural curiosity.