There’s no shortage of scary things buried deep underground, but in Ancient Weapon Holly you become the worst of them all. This roguelike from Acquire, one of the studios behind the Octopath Traveler series, puts you in control of a powerful robot that wants revenge on the humans who buried it for thousands of years. However, getting to the surface and killing all the humans will take a little longer than you expected.
At first glance, Ancient Weapon Holly is a useful, fun, action-packed roguelite. The game consists of ten levels to play, each increasing in difficulty. Holly starts with a basic ranged attack and the ability to open pits in the floor for enemies to fall into. These can be closed to kill most enemies instantly, especially after you upgrade your attack power through the game’s version of the spherical mesh. It’s an interesting mechanic and the combat is chaotic enough to keep you interested for a few hours, but the game’s lack of depth makes it repetitive long before Holly reaches the surface.
To clear each floor, Holly must find and destroy the enemy Door while protecting her Altar from the approaching Assassins sent to stop her. Destroy all the Doors and Assassins and she will advance to the next floor. If they manage to kill her or destroy her Altar, she returns to the previous floor. Since this is a roguelite, any upgrades you’ve purchased will remain, but you’ll lose any resources you’ve collected and not spent.
The fact that you only go down one floor when you die makes the game a lot easier, but it also makes it feel like this is all one run in Holly’s relentless pursuit of the surface. It also means you don’t have to waste time on easier floors after you upgrade your abilities, which is a nice thing.
The problem is that most floors seem too similar to each other. While there are a handful of new monsters introduced al ong the way, the same basic enemies are present throughout – they just take more hits to kill on higher floors. The layout of each level is also too similar, meaning there isn’t a good visual marker for your progress. An additional environmental hazard or a new mechanic to consider in later floors would do wonders for the overall gameplay of Ancient Weapon Holly.
While the concept is fun and interesting, the plot definitely takes a backseat to the actual gameplay here. There are no big cuts or shocking revelations as you progress towards the surface. The game tasks you with collecting all of Holly’s memories that were locked away in treasure chests on each floor, but even that doesn’t offer any new insight into her motivations or the world around her. The only thing it does is slightly upgrade your abilities each time. Useful, but nothing that isn’t accomplished by the in-game skill tree.
Each of Holly’s stats can be upgraded by using items dropped by enemies as you progress through the levels. Some new abilities are unlocked, like being able to quickly float through dungeons or receiving alerts when Assassins approach your altar, but the basic strategy of the game never really changes. You will rely heavily on your basic attacks for most enemies and your burying ability for Assassins. There’s a bit of a balance issue here – we finished upgrading every sphere on the skill tree before we got halfway to the top, which made the latter half of the game less interesting.
All in all, Ancient Weapon Holly would probably be considered a bit easy compared to most roguelikes/lites, which can be both a mark against it and in its favor. The assassins moved slow enough that they never threatened our Altar no matter how long we were away from it, and once we upgraded our attack powers, the basic enemies never gave us too much trouble. Since all the materials you need to upgrade your abilities can be found on each floor, you can quickly become overpowered by spending a little time grinding on the lower levels where the enemies pose less of a threat.
All this is not to say that Ancient Weapon Holly is a bad game. If you just want a simple roguelite that focuses on action and combat, you’ll probably get 10 to 15 hours of enjoyment here. However, there’s nothing here to make the game stand out from the plethora of other examples on Switch. It’s too safe and predictable. We are left wanting a little more.
During our time with Ancient Weapon Holly we encountered only one bug. When we moved the Switch from handheld mode to docked mode, we ran into serious frame rate issues. This was bad enough that it made the game almost unplayable until we closed the software and reloaded it. This solved the problem that was making him more of an inconvenience than anything else.
Ancient Weapon Holly can best be described as serviceable – it’s not bad by any means and we found ourselves enjoying it most of the time we played it. However, it plays its formula too straight and doesn’t do enough with either its protagonist or its setting to stand out among the other more ambitious games on the Switch. A touch of humor or a sense of tension is needed. Something that gives it more character and personality. We enjoyed the combat and gameplay, but found Ancient Weapon Holly frustratingly forgettable.
Conclusion
Roguelite fans will likely be divided on Ancient Weapon Holly. Its combat is fun and provides a good challenge for a while, though it lacks the depth or personality to make it a truly excellent entry into the genre. Everything just seems too safe and predictable for our taste. It just needed something – a narrative hook or a more unique mechanic to make us want to see humanity disappear.