There is a tendency among the gamers I run in contact with to bring up challenge in videogames as an object of discussion fairly often. While those who claim it to be entirely missing nowadays get pelted in the face with souls of the dark variety, they may have a valid point with their statement. Having that on my mind and running into a website suggesting I gift the game it’s advertising to someone I hate, alongside messages of many deaths and diabolical traps awaiting me, my curiosity was, naturally, aroused and investigation was required.

Eryi’s Action is clothed in a cutesy anime art style. You play as an innocent fairy whose melon was stolen by another fairy called Farta. While the first glance will probably squeeze a girly squeal from your inner self, as you begin playing, it will be clear that the coating is but a ruse. The cuteness, while visually present throughout the entirety of the game, will be accompanied with a feeling of increasing despair as the game will try to kill you at every step, jump, or world map navigating motion.

How many times have you died, in other games, before leaving your very home to a flurry of pans falling from the roof? Never? Worry not, you’ll get your fair share of that here as it occurs every time you boot the game up. That’s just a glimpse of how insane and unfair the traps can get. Eryi’s Action is quite unpredictable in this respect, and, while the intention might have been to push players into thinking differently, every level ends up being a very fragmented experience, as you will die at most of the obstacles, if not all of them.

The time spent with every typically short stage will be artificially increased because of these deaths, and while the ways in which traps are placed, or level rules are modified in between short portions of said level can be deemed as creative, they will be the cause of much frustration. However, it’s also true that certain times the game managed to kill me again, through some chicken unexpectedly materializing out of the ground in front of me, I found myself laughing.

Mechanics-wise, Eryi’s Action is very much a basic platformer. You can move, using your directional keys, jump and pick up certain objects or enemies in order to help yourself proceed. The presence of save points does help with making the 12 level gauntlet more tolerable. Three of the four boss fights do provide a change of pace from the usual jumping and picking up things through imitation of other genres such as bullet-hell shooters or old-school turn based role-playing games.

There’s not much to talk about when it comes to the story. The game is devoid of voice acting, the entirety of the story delivered in a couple of sentences at the beginning of the game. The soundtrack mostly remains there in the background, having nothing to make it shine. The same can be said about the visuals, which are simplistic. While there’s definitely some change in the level decor, nothing really sticks with you, as the backdrops are plain and what’s in the foreground isn’t particularly detailed or special either.

Eryi’s Action manages to evoke certain nostalgia of the old NES or SNES days. One has to ask, however, if that’s enough to base your game on, nowadays. The obstacles encountered are often unfair to the point where you’re even led to believe them to be unsurmountable and it’s clear by a mile that this is the very point the game revolves around. In that regard, it does get most things right and that’s clear by the fact that as you die, you’ll be both laughing and crying as well as from the fact that most of the times the obvious way of overcoming said obstacles will not work.

The title obviously sets out looking for its particular niche of players. It’s difficult to recommend to any casual gamers or people that aren’t looking for high amounts of challenge. However, if you’re extremely sadistic, or have a desire for wrecking your monitor or TV screen, this is quite possibly the game for you, since, as it turns out, Eryi’s Action is, indeed, proficient at making one want to head-butt his or hers monitor into nonexistence.

MateÈ™ Bogdan Robert, NoobFeed
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