Savara
May 9, 2025May 9, 2025Jun 19, 2025May 7, 2025
Jul 14, 2025Jul 9, 2025Jun 25, 2025May 18, 2025May 11, 2025May 10, 2025May 9, 2025May 8, 2025May 7, 2025
76561198147345156
Not Recommended2 hrs played (2 hrs at review)
Found the demo interesting so I gave it a shot, but the gameplay did get repetitive in the early game, and the unlocks for weapons and powers were underwhelming. The pros: its an interesting Monster Hunter style roguelike, with unique weapons and combo mechanics. The game is smooth, the combos are weighty enough, and each weapon is fun for different playstyles. The game has a pretty decent UI and animations and artwork are great. While playing i felt that this game was very inspired by really great parts of different roguelikes, and they took a lot of great concepts from those games and incorporated them here.
However, ultimately there were some negatives. a lot of actions are tied to a stamina system including your basic and heavy attacks, which can make it a much more slower game. Swapping weapons triggers an attack while switching weapons, and restores some stamina. This game expects you be kiting the monster, using weapon swaps to restore stamina that is lost when dodging and attacking, but the systems make it just a waiting game to wait for openings before being able to do meaningful damage. This is just very boring unfortunately. Most runs were just me doing a 2 hit combo -> weapon swap attack -> two hit combo... on loop in order to circumvent stamina issues. There are powers and perks that help you reduce stamina costs, but nothing really beats the consistent DPS of the loop. Stack on top the fact that each weapon has a different damage type of 3 (blunt, slashing, etc.) but only 2 weapons can be equipped at a time. If you did not bring the right weapon damage type, a fight can easily drag on. Elites in normal rooms were especially draining to fight. They were absolute damage sponges, and if you were not able to get any good DPS powers in your pool, you will be spending a lot of the early game spending more time than it should to beat normal rooms. I felt like I spent a lot of time in rooms trying to pick off small targets, waiting out attacks, then striking a few times, and repeating waiting. After a few runs, this waiting game doesn't really change even with more damage, its just part of the pace of the game. It creates this odd feeling where you want to die faster in a run to get more upgrade rather than continuing because of how it will take per room. And at that point I realized I was not really enjoying my time in the early game if I was already getting annoyed that rooms took a while.
Granted, as I unlocked more perks, I found opportunities to increase damage, but it felt really bad that early that I felt I had gotten the main combat loop down by my second run. Some weapons have very little incentive to do their heavy attack, even with heavy attack perks. The powers, though not entirely generic, only felt the most impactful when carrying one god's powers alone rather than mixing and matching. They did not feel like powers you could build around, just mild enhancements to your combo. Some had some cool scaling in the late game, but were not a highlight for me. I think it would have been more fun to craft temporary perks for your weapons at different spots in the game.
The windup on some of the boss attacks also feel so delayed. there is a bonus for dodging perfectly, but I would constantly misjudge the timing on attacks. Even more infuriating was attacks that came out instantly after an indicator mixed in with attacks that take literal seconds of windup past the indicator. It felt inconsistent as a warning, and the best strat is just sprint away entirely from bosses rather than try to time dodges. I ended up just using the sword and shield equipped in two slots so I could weapon swap while shielding (invincible) basically giving me two outs to improper dodging.
in terms of gear, the gear comes with a set bonus (usually something that increases based on how much of the armor set you are wearing) and a general equipment bonus, unlocked througb monster parts from killing. it was slightly interesting based on how armor interacted with certain equippables (one that gives bonus damage on low health might synergize with a trinket that drains your health and increases damage based on low health for example), but it was clear the final biome has the best armor and best set bonus. So the idea that the armor could lead to interesting combinations is a bit misleading when one set is just better than the others. The only time I considered mixing was just because I had no other resources to craft a full set. Weapons are similar where you need significant investment before their unique passive unlocks, and then even more upgrades to make that passive useful. If it was possible to smith between worlds, this might actually be a fun way to feel tangible change in strength, but unfortunately you can only smith after you die. So even if you get plenty of materials, you dont feel any meaningful strength outside of powers, so you dont really dynamically change as you continue in your run.
Overall, I really wanted to enjoy this game, and it was a well polished and clean game, but ultimately not for me. Part of the grind of games like this has to keep my interest, but I unfortunately fell off from the stamina mechanics and early game slog. The enemies also repeat throughout biomes, so enemy variety felt a bit off as well. Bosses are essentially just larger versions of a basic monster with multiple attacks from other monsters you've seen throughout the biome. It all ended up being less satisfying than what I got in the demo. If I were to give advice for what I wish the game had, I hope they could tune down the HP on the elites by maybe 10-20% or make it so even if you dont match damage type for a monster you dont deal absolutely pitiful damage. The game is weird at forcing you to want to weapon switch as combos, but also punishing constant weapon swaps with the different damage types being strong on some enemies and weaker on others. It was not even really a matter of the game being difficult, just boring to have to spend so much time on one enemy doing the same loop.Bosses will enrage and basically be uninteractable except for very small windows between attacks, making it even more drawn out.
If the devs make some changes to prevent the burnout in the early game, I might pick up again around another sale. If you felt you were concerned by anything the review, I'd say give the demo a shot, and see if you can understand where I am coming from for some of the points I made.
6 votes funny
76561198147345156
Not Recommended2 hrs played (2 hrs at review)
Found the demo interesting so I gave it a shot, but the gameplay did get repetitive in the early game, and the unlocks for weapons and powers were underwhelming. The pros: its an interesting Monster Hunter style roguelike, with unique weapons and combo mechanics. The game is smooth, the combos are weighty enough, and each weapon is fun for different playstyles. The game has a pretty decent UI and animations and artwork are great. While playing i felt that this game was very inspired by really great parts of different roguelikes, and they took a lot of great concepts from those games and incorporated them here.
However, ultimately there were some negatives. a lot of actions are tied to a stamina system including your basic and heavy attacks, which can make it a much more slower game. Swapping weapons triggers an attack while switching weapons, and restores some stamina. This game expects you be kiting the monster, using weapon swaps to restore stamina that is lost when dodging and attacking, but the systems make it just a waiting game to wait for openings before being able to do meaningful damage. This is just very boring unfortunately. Most runs were just me doing a 2 hit combo -> weapon swap attack -> two hit combo... on loop in order to circumvent stamina issues. There are powers and perks that help you reduce stamina costs, but nothing really beats the consistent DPS of the loop. Stack on top the fact that each weapon has a different damage type of 3 (blunt, slashing, etc.) but only 2 weapons can be equipped at a time. If you did not bring the right weapon damage type, a fight can easily drag on. Elites in normal rooms were especially draining to fight. They were absolute damage sponges, and if you were not able to get any good DPS powers in your pool, you will be spending a lot of the early game spending more time than it should to beat normal rooms. I felt like I spent a lot of time in rooms trying to pick off small targets, waiting out attacks, then striking a few times, and repeating waiting. After a few runs, this waiting game doesn't really change even with more damage, its just part of the pace of the game. It creates this odd feeling where you want to die faster in a run to get more upgrade rather than continuing because of how it will take per room. And at that point I realized I was not really enjoying my time in the early game if I was already getting annoyed that rooms took a while.
Granted, as I unlocked more perks, I found opportunities to increase damage, but it felt really bad that early that I felt I had gotten the main combat loop down by my second run. Some weapons have very little incentive to do their heavy attack, even with heavy attack perks. The powers, though not entirely generic, only felt the most impactful when carrying one god's powers alone rather than mixing and matching. They did not feel like powers you could build around, just mild enhancements to your combo. Some had some cool scaling in the late game, but were not a highlight for me. I think it would have been more fun to craft temporary perks for your weapons at different spots in the game.
The windup on some of the boss attacks also feel so delayed. there is a bonus for dodging perfectly, but I would constantly misjudge the timing on attacks. Even more infuriating was attacks that came out instantly after an indicator mixed in with attacks that take literal seconds of windup past the indicator. It felt inconsistent as a warning, and the best strat is just sprint away entirely from bosses rather than try to time dodges. I ended up just using the sword and shield equipped in two slots so I could weapon swap while shielding (invincible) basically giving me two outs to improper dodging.
in terms of gear, the gear comes with a set bonus (usually something that increases based on how much of the armor set you are wearing) and a general equipment bonus, unlocked througb monster parts from killing. it was slightly interesting based on how armor interacted with certain equippables (one that gives bonus damage on low health might synergize with a trinket that drains your health and increases damage based on low health for example), but it was clear the final biome has the best armor and best set bonus. So the idea that the armor could lead to interesting combinations is a bit misleading when one set is just better than the others. The only time I considered mixing was just because I had no other resources to craft a full set. Weapons are similar where you need significant investment before their unique passive unlocks, and then even more upgrades to make that passive useful. If it was possible to smith between worlds, this might actually be a fun way to feel tangible change in strength, but unfortunately you can only smith after you die. So even if you get plenty of materials, you dont feel any meaningful strength outside of powers, so you dont really dynamically change as you continue in your run.
Overall, I really wanted to enjoy this game, and it was a well polished and clean game, but ultimately not for me. Part of the grind of games like this has to keep my interest, but I unfortunately fell off from the stamina mechanics and early game slog. The enemies also repeat throughout biomes, so enemy variety felt a bit off as well. Bosses are essentially just larger versions of a basic monster with multiple attacks from other monsters you've seen throughout the biome. It all ended up being less satisfying than what I got in the demo. If I were to give advice for what I wish the game had, I hope they could tune down the HP on the elites by maybe 10-20% or make it so even if you dont match damage type for a monster you dont deal absolutely pitiful damage. The game is weird at forcing you to want to weapon switch as combos, but also punishing constant weapon swaps with the different damage types being strong on some enemies and weaker on others. It was not even really a matter of the game being difficult, just boring to have to spend so much time on one enemy doing the same loop.Bosses will enrage and basically be uninteractable except for very small windows between attacks, making it even more drawn out.
If the devs make some changes to prevent the burnout in the early game, I might pick up again around another sale. If you felt you were concerned by anything the review, I'd say give the demo a shot, and see if you can understand where I am coming from for some of the points I made.
6 votes funny
76561198052017257
Not Recommended9 hrs played (9 hrs at review)
Short review:
It's Temu Hades. Do with that description what you want.Long review:
Honestly, the concept is not bad, but this game doesn't feel like a finished game. It feels like an early access game that got pushed out before enough depth was added.Story:
There is no story, as far as I can tell. Savara wants to be Iop's Champion and that's literally it. You have characters you talk to, but they're caricatures at best. You have "Clumsy Idiot", "Smart Guy who Reads Books", "Rival Who Hates You", and "Mentor". Those are your cast. No, they do not get any other traits. No, they do not have storylines of their own. You get a tiny bit of backstory and then 5 hours in, they have nothing else to say. If there IS more story, it's locked behind the game's Prestige system which you only unlock after defeating the final boss one time. Honestly speaking, the voice acting feels like it was wasted here. That's not to say that the VAs aren't doing their best, but I feel like they could've just not had voice acting with how little the characters ultimately matter. 1/10.Gameplay:
The basic gameplay loop is fine, but some weapons feel incompatible with others because of their movesets, and the Blessings feel like there's not much choice in what you pick. There are about 6-8 types of blessings, and unlike Hades, where you're locked into 3-4 Boon types per run after a certain point, you can see pretty much all of them in Savara. Additionally, every single effect for each boon family is on some kind of a limited-time mechanic where you either have to make as much use of them in a short span of time, they require an enemy to stay inside a specific AoE zone, or you have to constantly reposition or attack rapidly to get any use out of your boons. This would be fine if the enemies were not all more spastic than a Gen Alpha kid who's been deprived of their iPad in a busy restaurant. You honestly spend more time chasing bosses and elites around the arena than you do actually hitting them. Every boss or elite is either constantly dashing, or sitting in their own AoEs. There is so much downtime that none of your Blessings will actually get any use unless the enemy AI decides it's too overstimulated to move. It genuinely does not feel like you are the one making the choices. It feels like you are just constantly reacting to the game's choices as if none of the battle is actually in your control. Additionally, enemy hurtboxes feel incredibly inaccurate, to where you'll get regular moments of saying "That didn't hit me" when a boss clocks you for a third of your health bar. 4/10.Art:
The art style is interesting but not particularly standout. There's probably about 5 pieces of music you'll hear consistently and that's about it. 3/10.Grind:
The grind feels pretty standard for a "Monster Hunter" game, but honestly, it doesn't feel like the weapons or armor have all that much impact on your gameplay. Additionally, some parts are only obtainable from attacking elites in specific spots. This works in Monter Hunter, but not in a Roguelike where you have far less wiggle room to concentrate on specific sections of an enemy's body. Additionally, because of the above problem with enemies having way too much movement, you will constantly be chasing that particular body part just to get to what you want. 3/10.Cost vs. Enjoyment:
For $20-25, it's fine. I was at least enjoying myself at first before all the cracks started to show. If this were any higher though, I would've refunded when I could.Overall:
It feels like this game is clearly inspired from Hades. It tries to mirror a lot of the systems inherent to the game, but rather than actually being like Hades, it feels like a half-baked imitation of it. Progression feels directionless and meaningless, the story is quite literally nonexistent, and the gameplay clashes with itself at a lot of points to where it eventually just blends together and creates a frustrating swamp of barely-adequate systems. If there's more hidden under the surface, it certainly takes way too long to see it. This game should have been in early access, because as it currently stands, that's kind of how it feels. If you want a good Hades-like, just play Hades 2 when it's complete. if you want a Monster Hunter game, just go play Monster Hunter. You're not getting the best of either games here.Final Rating: 4/10.
3 votes funny
76561198003267283
Not Recommended0 hrs played
not sure why this is being compared to hades or no rest for the wicked...the combat flow is nothing like those games at all.
This is more like a top-down monster hunter. You break monster parts to craft weapons/armors, with some meta-progression upgrades along the way.
combat was ok, but there's a lot of animation locking so it didn't feel smooth to me. Due to the slow nature of monster hunter, this game is a lot slower but for an action roguelike, it didn't really work to me because you don't want your runs to take a long time and the fights to feel like theyre slow.
The main reason for my negative review is because it felt like the upgrades in the runs felt super lackluster. Nothing you get felt like you increased your power or changed your playstyle at all so each run didn't really feel fresh and it felt super repetitive after 1-2 runs.
3 votes funny
76561197970807608
Recommended8 hrs played (7 hrs at review)
like Hades? You'll like this.
1 votes funny
76561198105539264
Not Recommended5 hrs played (5 hrs at review)
I wish I could refund this game. It started out as I thought this game was amazing, but the more you play, the more you realise it's so cheaply made, and the game isn't hard at all. The true difficulty is how much you want to suffer from being bored, not getting allowed to deal damage unless you want to wait 20 seconds to attack, 80% of the game is about dodging until your stamina and skills line up with each other. I honestly think the game play feels a little fun at least it's satisfying to attack the enemy and break their armour, but that's partly the only fun thing about this game. 3 out of 10 stars.
1 votes funny
76561197974233070
Not Recommended7 hrs played (7 hrs at review)
Good idea, very bad execution.
Artistic direction is amazing.
Gameplay is clunky, there is no action queueing, animations take ages. Staggering enemies is random, enemies are obnoxious. Overall the game is easy but they added way too many cringe patterns who feel very boring to face. There are 5 ENEMIES in the game with small, medium, big and boss versions with the same cring patterns over and over.
I want to like this game but in the end it's a very meh game.
Play Hades 2, it's hundreds times better even if in EA.
1 votes funny
76561198047004300
Not Recommended0 hrs played
Great concept and deliberately designed gameplay with the slower paced MH-like player movement and attack animations with roguelike elements from Hades. However, it is 2025 and for a game that recommends using controllers, I can't believe they haven't implemented PS controller icons. ABXY, RB, RT is stupid, especially when you consider that Nintendo and Microsoft decided they want their buttons in different places.
1 votes funny
76561197970924987
Not Recommended21 hrs played (12 hrs at review)
Mashup of Monster Hunter and Hades is the best way to describe this game. The stages leading up to each act boss are all fun, powerup synergies are well thought out, and lead to some pretty interesting builds. The distinct weapons are fun to master too. The UI is super clean, and I really liked the challenge that stamina management with the weapon swapping presented. I've run through the game enough times now to unlock prestige mode, so I got some enjoyment playing this game. Unfortunately, I would not recommend getting into this game in it's current state
Bosses are an effing mess, and feel incredibly unfair. Enemy bosses do insane amounts of damage, and healing is not only rare to find, but too difficult to use, especially during enrages. Enemy AoEs tend to stick around for an absurdly long time, and bosses tend to sit in their own AoE's when they're not charging around the screen. There's been a few times where bosses kill me as soon as I enter their room with an offscreen attack. Other times where bosses knock me down with one hit, and kill me with the 2nd before I have time to get up. Also, I can't count the number of times that I've gotten hit by offscreen attacks. Bosses just tend to charge around the stage, going offscreen and following up with ranged attacks, and then charging offscreen again when you close in. A single hit from a boss is roughly the same amount of damage as you can heal in one go, even with maxed out healing badges. The Wolf and Dragon bosses are particularly awful in this respect.
Also, weapon and armor upgrades seem lackluster unless you fully max them out, and this takes hours and hours of runs to max even one weapon. I'm one of those people that will replay a game until I unlock all the items and max them out, but I plan on simply uninstalling this game now that I've beaten it a few times. The boss fights are just tedious and no fun. There's a probably a good game here, I really like the more tactical approach to this roguelike, but the way progress and boss difficulty are handled is holding it back from actually being good.
1 votes funny
76561197997658933
Recommended18 hrs played (18 hrs at review)
This game is basically "Early Access Hades". It's polished but it really lacks content, maybe there will be patch in the future? But now it's only straight-forward "hack & slash". The problem is that the fights feel really slow, but the most important part that sometimes your actions does not get registered by the game so you easily get hit. For example: you are in the mid of the combo and you want to stop action or you want to use another skill and game just ignores it and continues your combo and you of course get hit by the enemy.
Game is fun at the start but without any actual story at becomes repetitive and boring - your only source of fun is to obtain achievements from the game that really hard for casual players like me.
I didn't really like soundtrack - it is really basic and monotonous. I had to disable it and use mine instead.
Pros:
+ game is polished, no real bugs seen
+ good art-design
+ ability to customize your character
+ interesting but sometimes hard to beat bosses and mobs
+ your build and your abilities really matter (so every chosen made makes your build better or worse)
Cons:
- too basic soundtrack
- no real story, no real interaction between "champions"
- slow fights without ability to cancel combo
- too easy to unlock all boons (I know I've played 18 hours but I think it's still too easy)
Overall: this game really NEEDS content and soundtrack. For now it's 6.5/10 from me.
1 votes funny
76561198329775081
Recommended16 hrs played (16 hrs at review)
I was addicted to the game since demo, and it is a awesome game. But I feel like the Hades loop doesn't fit that well. Maybe a "Trophy Hunting" style with different small maps and roguelike elements would feel less repetitive and more intetional.
1 votes funny
76561198064437311
Recommended36 hrs played (7 hrs at review)
If Hades and Monster Hunter had a love child, this would be it. Highly recommend!
1 votes funny
76561198079406982
Recommended20 hrs played (2 hrs at review)
A small dev team has put a lot of love and passion into this game, and it shows.
Savara could be described as "Hades meets Monster Hunter" : fight creatures of different sizes, collect their body parts and craft your weapons and armor. Do not expect it to be as fast as Hades, its combat is slower but still very interesting and satisfying.
The game is mostly light-hearted and has a simple but fun story, with some great characters. I also had a lot of fun trying to find some easter eggs and references hidden throughout the game.
In summary, I definitely recommend Savara, it is a great game with a lot of replayability and fun unique features.
1 votes funny
Savara
May 9, 2025May 9, 2025Jun 19, 2025May 7, 2025Jul 14, 2025Jul 9, 2025Jun 25, 2025May 18, 2025May 11, 2025May 10, 2025May 9, 2025May 8, 2025May 7, 2025
76561198147345156
Not Recommended2 hrs played (2 hrs at review)
Found the demo interesting so I gave it a shot, but the gameplay did get repetitive in the early game, and the unlocks for weapons and powers were underwhelming. The pros: its an interesting Monster Hunter style roguelike, with unique weapons and combo mechanics. The game is smooth, the combos are weighty enough, and each weapon is fun for different playstyles. The game has a pretty decent UI and animations and artwork are great. While playing i felt that this game was very inspired by really great parts of different roguelikes, and they took a lot of great concepts from those games and incorporated them here.
However, ultimately there were some negatives. a lot of actions are tied to a stamina system including your basic and heavy attacks, which can make it a much more slower game. Swapping weapons triggers an attack while switching weapons, and restores some stamina. This game expects you be kiting the monster, using weapon swaps to restore stamina that is lost when dodging and attacking, but the systems make it just a waiting game to wait for openings before being able to do meaningful damage. This is just very boring unfortunately. Most runs were just me doing a 2 hit combo -> weapon swap attack -> two hit combo... on loop in order to circumvent stamina issues. There are powers and perks that help you reduce stamina costs, but nothing really beats the consistent DPS of the loop. Stack on top the fact that each weapon has a different damage type of 3 (blunt, slashing, etc.) but only 2 weapons can be equipped at a time. If you did not bring the right weapon damage type, a fight can easily drag on. Elites in normal rooms were especially draining to fight. They were absolute damage sponges, and if you were not able to get any good DPS powers in your pool, you will be spending a lot of the early game spending more time than it should to beat normal rooms. I felt like I spent a lot of time in rooms trying to pick off small targets, waiting out attacks, then striking a few times, and repeating waiting. After a few runs, this waiting game doesn't really change even with more damage, its just part of the pace of the game. It creates this odd feeling where you want to die faster in a run to get more upgrade rather than continuing because of how it will take per room. And at that point I realized I was not really enjoying my time in the early game if I was already getting annoyed that rooms took a while.
Granted, as I unlocked more perks, I found opportunities to increase damage, but it felt really bad that early that I felt I had gotten the main combat loop down by my second run. Some weapons have very little incentive to do their heavy attack, even with heavy attack perks. The powers, though not entirely generic, only felt the most impactful when carrying one god's powers alone rather than mixing and matching. They did not feel like powers you could build around, just mild enhancements to your combo. Some had some cool scaling in the late game, but were not a highlight for me. I think it would have been more fun to craft temporary perks for your weapons at different spots in the game.
The windup on some of the boss attacks also feel so delayed. there is a bonus for dodging perfectly, but I would constantly misjudge the timing on attacks. Even more infuriating was attacks that came out instantly after an indicator mixed in with attacks that take literal seconds of windup past the indicator. It felt inconsistent as a warning, and the best strat is just sprint away entirely from bosses rather than try to time dodges. I ended up just using the sword and shield equipped in two slots so I could weapon swap while shielding (invincible) basically giving me two outs to improper dodging.
in terms of gear, the gear comes with a set bonus (usually something that increases based on how much of the armor set you are wearing) and a general equipment bonus, unlocked througb monster parts from killing. it was slightly interesting based on how armor interacted with certain equippables (one that gives bonus damage on low health might synergize with a trinket that drains your health and increases damage based on low health for example), but it was clear the final biome has the best armor and best set bonus. So the idea that the armor could lead to interesting combinations is a bit misleading when one set is just better than the others. The only time I considered mixing was just because I had no other resources to craft a full set. Weapons are similar where you need significant investment before their unique passive unlocks, and then even more upgrades to make that passive useful. If it was possible to smith between worlds, this might actually be a fun way to feel tangible change in strength, but unfortunately you can only smith after you die. So even if you get plenty of materials, you dont feel any meaningful strength outside of powers, so you dont really dynamically change as you continue in your run.
Overall, I really wanted to enjoy this game, and it was a well polished and clean game, but ultimately not for me. Part of the grind of games like this has to keep my interest, but I unfortunately fell off from the stamina mechanics and early game slog. The enemies also repeat throughout biomes, so enemy variety felt a bit off as well. Bosses are essentially just larger versions of a basic monster with multiple attacks from other monsters you've seen throughout the biome. It all ended up being less satisfying than what I got in the demo. If I were to give advice for what I wish the game had, I hope they could tune down the HP on the elites by maybe 10-20% or make it so even if you dont match damage type for a monster you dont deal absolutely pitiful damage. The game is weird at forcing you to want to weapon switch as combos, but also punishing constant weapon swaps with the different damage types being strong on some enemies and weaker on others. It was not even really a matter of the game being difficult, just boring to have to spend so much time on one enemy doing the same loop.Bosses will enrage and basically be uninteractable except for very small windows between attacks, making it even more drawn out.
If the devs make some changes to prevent the burnout in the early game, I might pick up again around another sale. If you felt you were concerned by anything the review, I'd say give the demo a shot, and see if you can understand where I am coming from for some of the points I made.
6 votes funny
76561198147345156
Not Recommended2 hrs played (2 hrs at review)
Found the demo interesting so I gave it a shot, but the gameplay did get repetitive in the early game, and the unlocks for weapons and powers were underwhelming. The pros: its an interesting Monster Hunter style roguelike, with unique weapons and combo mechanics. The game is smooth, the combos are weighty enough, and each weapon is fun for different playstyles. The game has a pretty decent UI and animations and artwork are great. While playing i felt that this game was very inspired by really great parts of different roguelikes, and they took a lot of great concepts from those games and incorporated them here.
However, ultimately there were some negatives. a lot of actions are tied to a stamina system including your basic and heavy attacks, which can make it a much more slower game. Swapping weapons triggers an attack while switching weapons, and restores some stamina. This game expects you be kiting the monster, using weapon swaps to restore stamina that is lost when dodging and attacking, but the systems make it just a waiting game to wait for openings before being able to do meaningful damage. This is just very boring unfortunately. Most runs were just me doing a 2 hit combo -> weapon swap attack -> two hit combo... on loop in order to circumvent stamina issues. There are powers and perks that help you reduce stamina costs, but nothing really beats the consistent DPS of the loop. Stack on top the fact that each weapon has a different damage type of 3 (blunt, slashing, etc.) but only 2 weapons can be equipped at a time. If you did not bring the right weapon damage type, a fight can easily drag on. Elites in normal rooms were especially draining to fight. They were absolute damage sponges, and if you were not able to get any good DPS powers in your pool, you will be spending a lot of the early game spending more time than it should to beat normal rooms. I felt like I spent a lot of time in rooms trying to pick off small targets, waiting out attacks, then striking a few times, and repeating waiting. After a few runs, this waiting game doesn't really change even with more damage, its just part of the pace of the game. It creates this odd feeling where you want to die faster in a run to get more upgrade rather than continuing because of how it will take per room. And at that point I realized I was not really enjoying my time in the early game if I was already getting annoyed that rooms took a while.
Granted, as I unlocked more perks, I found opportunities to increase damage, but it felt really bad that early that I felt I had gotten the main combat loop down by my second run. Some weapons have very little incentive to do their heavy attack, even with heavy attack perks. The powers, though not entirely generic, only felt the most impactful when carrying one god's powers alone rather than mixing and matching. They did not feel like powers you could build around, just mild enhancements to your combo. Some had some cool scaling in the late game, but were not a highlight for me. I think it would have been more fun to craft temporary perks for your weapons at different spots in the game.
The windup on some of the boss attacks also feel so delayed. there is a bonus for dodging perfectly, but I would constantly misjudge the timing on attacks. Even more infuriating was attacks that came out instantly after an indicator mixed in with attacks that take literal seconds of windup past the indicator. It felt inconsistent as a warning, and the best strat is just sprint away entirely from bosses rather than try to time dodges. I ended up just using the sword and shield equipped in two slots so I could weapon swap while shielding (invincible) basically giving me two outs to improper dodging.
in terms of gear, the gear comes with a set bonus (usually something that increases based on how much of the armor set you are wearing) and a general equipment bonus, unlocked througb monster parts from killing. it was slightly interesting based on how armor interacted with certain equippables (one that gives bonus damage on low health might synergize with a trinket that drains your health and increases damage based on low health for example), but it was clear the final biome has the best armor and best set bonus. So the idea that the armor could lead to interesting combinations is a bit misleading when one set is just better than the others. The only time I considered mixing was just because I had no other resources to craft a full set. Weapons are similar where you need significant investment before their unique passive unlocks, and then even more upgrades to make that passive useful. If it was possible to smith between worlds, this might actually be a fun way to feel tangible change in strength, but unfortunately you can only smith after you die. So even if you get plenty of materials, you dont feel any meaningful strength outside of powers, so you dont really dynamically change as you continue in your run.
Overall, I really wanted to enjoy this game, and it was a well polished and clean game, but ultimately not for me. Part of the grind of games like this has to keep my interest, but I unfortunately fell off from the stamina mechanics and early game slog. The enemies also repeat throughout biomes, so enemy variety felt a bit off as well. Bosses are essentially just larger versions of a basic monster with multiple attacks from other monsters you've seen throughout the biome. It all ended up being less satisfying than what I got in the demo. If I were to give advice for what I wish the game had, I hope they could tune down the HP on the elites by maybe 10-20% or make it so even if you dont match damage type for a monster you dont deal absolutely pitiful damage. The game is weird at forcing you to want to weapon switch as combos, but also punishing constant weapon swaps with the different damage types being strong on some enemies and weaker on others. It was not even really a matter of the game being difficult, just boring to have to spend so much time on one enemy doing the same loop.Bosses will enrage and basically be uninteractable except for very small windows between attacks, making it even more drawn out.
If the devs make some changes to prevent the burnout in the early game, I might pick up again around another sale. If you felt you were concerned by anything the review, I'd say give the demo a shot, and see if you can understand where I am coming from for some of the points I made.
6 votes funny
76561198052017257
Not Recommended9 hrs played (9 hrs at review)
Short review:
It's Temu Hades. Do with that description what you want.Long review:
Honestly, the concept is not bad, but this game doesn't feel like a finished game. It feels like an early access game that got pushed out before enough depth was added.Story:
There is no story, as far as I can tell. Savara wants to be Iop's Champion and that's literally it. You have characters you talk to, but they're caricatures at best. You have "Clumsy Idiot", "Smart Guy who Reads Books", "Rival Who Hates You", and "Mentor". Those are your cast. No, they do not get any other traits. No, they do not have storylines of their own. You get a tiny bit of backstory and then 5 hours in, they have nothing else to say. If there IS more story, it's locked behind the game's Prestige system which you only unlock after defeating the final boss one time. Honestly speaking, the voice acting feels like it was wasted here. That's not to say that the VAs aren't doing their best, but I feel like they could've just not had voice acting with how little the characters ultimately matter. 1/10.Gameplay:
The basic gameplay loop is fine, but some weapons feel incompatible with others because of their movesets, and the Blessings feel like there's not much choice in what you pick. There are about 6-8 types of blessings, and unlike Hades, where you're locked into 3-4 Boon types per run after a certain point, you can see pretty much all of them in Savara. Additionally, every single effect for each boon family is on some kind of a limited-time mechanic where you either have to make as much use of them in a short span of time, they require an enemy to stay inside a specific AoE zone, or you have to constantly reposition or attack rapidly to get any use out of your boons. This would be fine if the enemies were not all more spastic than a Gen Alpha kid who's been deprived of their iPad in a busy restaurant. You honestly spend more time chasing bosses and elites around the arena than you do actually hitting them. Every boss or elite is either constantly dashing, or sitting in their own AoEs. There is so much downtime that none of your Blessings will actually get any use unless the enemy AI decides it's too overstimulated to move. It genuinely does not feel like you are the one making the choices. It feels like you are just constantly reacting to the game's choices as if none of the battle is actually in your control. Additionally, enemy hurtboxes feel incredibly inaccurate, to where you'll get regular moments of saying "That didn't hit me" when a boss clocks you for a third of your health bar. 4/10.Art:
The art style is interesting but not particularly standout. There's probably about 5 pieces of music you'll hear consistently and that's about it. 3/10.Grind:
The grind feels pretty standard for a "Monster Hunter" game, but honestly, it doesn't feel like the weapons or armor have all that much impact on your gameplay. Additionally, some parts are only obtainable from attacking elites in specific spots. This works in Monter Hunter, but not in a Roguelike where you have far less wiggle room to concentrate on specific sections of an enemy's body. Additionally, because of the above problem with enemies having way too much movement, you will constantly be chasing that particular body part just to get to what you want. 3/10.Cost vs. Enjoyment:
For $20-25, it's fine. I was at least enjoying myself at first before all the cracks started to show. If this were any higher though, I would've refunded when I could.Overall:
It feels like this game is clearly inspired from Hades. It tries to mirror a lot of the systems inherent to the game, but rather than actually being like Hades, it feels like a half-baked imitation of it. Progression feels directionless and meaningless, the story is quite literally nonexistent, and the gameplay clashes with itself at a lot of points to where it eventually just blends together and creates a frustrating swamp of barely-adequate systems. If there's more hidden under the surface, it certainly takes way too long to see it. This game should have been in early access, because as it currently stands, that's kind of how it feels. If you want a good Hades-like, just play Hades 2 when it's complete. if you want a Monster Hunter game, just go play Monster Hunter. You're not getting the best of either games here.Final Rating: 4/10.
3 votes funny
76561198003267283
Not Recommended0 hrs played
not sure why this is being compared to hades or no rest for the wicked...the combat flow is nothing like those games at all.
This is more like a top-down monster hunter. You break monster parts to craft weapons/armors, with some meta-progression upgrades along the way.
combat was ok, but there's a lot of animation locking so it didn't feel smooth to me. Due to the slow nature of monster hunter, this game is a lot slower but for an action roguelike, it didn't really work to me because you don't want your runs to take a long time and the fights to feel like theyre slow.
The main reason for my negative review is because it felt like the upgrades in the runs felt super lackluster. Nothing you get felt like you increased your power or changed your playstyle at all so each run didn't really feel fresh and it felt super repetitive after 1-2 runs.
3 votes funny
76561197970807608
Recommended8 hrs played (7 hrs at review)
like Hades? You'll like this.
1 votes funny
76561198105539264
Not Recommended5 hrs played (5 hrs at review)
I wish I could refund this game. It started out as I thought this game was amazing, but the more you play, the more you realise it's so cheaply made, and the game isn't hard at all. The true difficulty is how much you want to suffer from being bored, not getting allowed to deal damage unless you want to wait 20 seconds to attack, 80% of the game is about dodging until your stamina and skills line up with each other. I honestly think the game play feels a little fun at least it's satisfying to attack the enemy and break their armour, but that's partly the only fun thing about this game. 3 out of 10 stars.
1 votes funny
76561197974233070
Not Recommended7 hrs played (7 hrs at review)
Good idea, very bad execution.
Artistic direction is amazing.
Gameplay is clunky, there is no action queueing, animations take ages. Staggering enemies is random, enemies are obnoxious. Overall the game is easy but they added way too many cringe patterns who feel very boring to face. There are 5 ENEMIES in the game with small, medium, big and boss versions with the same cring patterns over and over.
I want to like this game but in the end it's a very meh game.
Play Hades 2, it's hundreds times better even if in EA.
1 votes funny
76561198047004300
Not Recommended0 hrs played
Great concept and deliberately designed gameplay with the slower paced MH-like player movement and attack animations with roguelike elements from Hades. However, it is 2025 and for a game that recommends using controllers, I can't believe they haven't implemented PS controller icons. ABXY, RB, RT is stupid, especially when you consider that Nintendo and Microsoft decided they want their buttons in different places.
1 votes funny
76561197970924987
Not Recommended21 hrs played (12 hrs at review)
Mashup of Monster Hunter and Hades is the best way to describe this game. The stages leading up to each act boss are all fun, powerup synergies are well thought out, and lead to some pretty interesting builds. The distinct weapons are fun to master too. The UI is super clean, and I really liked the challenge that stamina management with the weapon swapping presented. I've run through the game enough times now to unlock prestige mode, so I got some enjoyment playing this game. Unfortunately, I would not recommend getting into this game in it's current state
Bosses are an effing mess, and feel incredibly unfair. Enemy bosses do insane amounts of damage, and healing is not only rare to find, but too difficult to use, especially during enrages. Enemy AoEs tend to stick around for an absurdly long time, and bosses tend to sit in their own AoE's when they're not charging around the screen. There's been a few times where bosses kill me as soon as I enter their room with an offscreen attack. Other times where bosses knock me down with one hit, and kill me with the 2nd before I have time to get up. Also, I can't count the number of times that I've gotten hit by offscreen attacks. Bosses just tend to charge around the stage, going offscreen and following up with ranged attacks, and then charging offscreen again when you close in. A single hit from a boss is roughly the same amount of damage as you can heal in one go, even with maxed out healing badges. The Wolf and Dragon bosses are particularly awful in this respect.
Also, weapon and armor upgrades seem lackluster unless you fully max them out, and this takes hours and hours of runs to max even one weapon. I'm one of those people that will replay a game until I unlock all the items and max them out, but I plan on simply uninstalling this game now that I've beaten it a few times. The boss fights are just tedious and no fun. There's a probably a good game here, I really like the more tactical approach to this roguelike, but the way progress and boss difficulty are handled is holding it back from actually being good.
1 votes funny
76561197997658933
Recommended18 hrs played (18 hrs at review)
This game is basically "Early Access Hades". It's polished but it really lacks content, maybe there will be patch in the future? But now it's only straight-forward "hack & slash". The problem is that the fights feel really slow, but the most important part that sometimes your actions does not get registered by the game so you easily get hit. For example: you are in the mid of the combo and you want to stop action or you want to use another skill and game just ignores it and continues your combo and you of course get hit by the enemy.
Game is fun at the start but without any actual story at becomes repetitive and boring - your only source of fun is to obtain achievements from the game that really hard for casual players like me.
I didn't really like soundtrack - it is really basic and monotonous. I had to disable it and use mine instead.
Pros:
+ game is polished, no real bugs seen
+ good art-design
+ ability to customize your character
+ interesting but sometimes hard to beat bosses and mobs
+ your build and your abilities really matter (so every chosen made makes your build better or worse)
Cons:
- too basic soundtrack
- no real story, no real interaction between "champions"
- slow fights without ability to cancel combo
- too easy to unlock all boons (I know I've played 18 hours but I think it's still too easy)
Overall: this game really NEEDS content and soundtrack. For now it's 6.5/10 from me.
1 votes funny
76561198329775081
Recommended16 hrs played (16 hrs at review)
I was addicted to the game since demo, and it is a awesome game. But I feel like the Hades loop doesn't fit that well. Maybe a "Trophy Hunting" style with different small maps and roguelike elements would feel less repetitive and more intetional.
1 votes funny
76561198064437311
Recommended36 hrs played (7 hrs at review)
If Hades and Monster Hunter had a love child, this would be it. Highly recommend!
1 votes funny
76561198079406982
Recommended20 hrs played (2 hrs at review)
A small dev team has put a lot of love and passion into this game, and it shows.
Savara could be described as "Hades meets Monster Hunter" : fight creatures of different sizes, collect their body parts and craft your weapons and armor. Do not expect it to be as fast as Hades, its combat is slower but still very interesting and satisfying.
The game is mostly light-hearted and has a simple but fun story, with some great characters. I also had a lot of fun trying to find some easter eggs and references hidden throughout the game.
In summary, I definitely recommend Savara, it is a great game with a lot of replayability and fun unique features.
1 votes funny
