Ikenfell

Release: October 2020

Developer: Lunar Ray Games

Publisher: Humble Bundle

Genre: Tactical RPG

Gameplay Stats: 24 hours, 27/27 achievements

LGBTQ+ filled Harry Potter! I would honestly be shocked if this game wasn't created as a response to JK Rowling's recent, public transphobia. Does that mean anything about the game? Nah, not necessarily. Before I jump in I should say that I backed this game on Kickstarter, so I may be biased in my review.

Visuals: The visuals here are pretty well done 16-bit sprite work. I don't think that they kept to actual SNES constraints here, there are some particle effects and I think the details in the background. All of the NPCs that you meet look pretty different and their characters come through in how they are designed. The bosses all look cool and unique. I think some of the attacks have some weird graphics with them that make it a little tough to time your guards, but overall it's pretty well done. There are some re-colors of enemies which I'm never a fan of, but I don't think it was used to the point of being distracting.

Audio: I actually really liked the music here! I heard a couple song with vocals that I thought were too repetitive, but the tracks that didn't have vocals were excellent. It's not that the vocals were bad, but maybe I was too slow in the fights and they looped a few times where they played. I kind of wish they would have alternated the vocal track with the non-vocal tracks so it wasn't looped quite so frequently. But that's my only little quibble with the audio at all in this game. The sound effects were pretty spot on in my opinion and there was no voice acting. I kind of wish there were some noises played when characters were talking, maybe something similar to the indistinct noises from Animal Crossing.

Gameplay: This game plays similar to how the MegaMan Battle Network series play. The fights take place on a long grid where you and your enemies need to move around to target each other and dodge. Controlling the space becomes pretty important as there are more and more characters in the fight. I think the busiest fights had around 9 characters moving around a relatively small field and you need to keep in mind the attack ranges of enemies, avoid grouping up for AOE attacks, and do your best to remember where any and all traps have been set. I haven't played any of the MMBN games, but I really enjoyed the fights in this game. It was new to me, but easy to learn.

Plot: Our main character is essentially the non-magic sibling of the Harry Potter lead. The famous witch doesn't return home for summer break, so we set out to try and find out what has happened to her. You get into all kinds of shenanigans going around the school, meeting characters and learning more about what happens at this magical academy. I really enjoyed the world here a lot and the characters were for the most part well-written. Something that may snag some people though is that (nearly?) all of the characters are LGBTQ+. I saw some people complaining about it when I checked out some reviews, but I didn't find it to be a negative at all, I liked having all the inclusion in a game.

Bonus Rant? It was kind of interesting not having a character in a game that represented me. I am a straight, white male and that demographic is usually overly featured in media. This was the first time that I have experienced this in recent times and I thought it was a little of a weird feeling! I spent some time thinking about it and I suspect this is what many LGBTQ+ individuals feel most of the time when they play video games. I'm glad that this game has a more diverse cast and I really hope that more games take note and do something similar.

Overall I really liked my time with this game. I didn't see much media attention for this game and I think that's kind of a shame. It doesn't seem like this game was over-reaching, I feel that it very well accomplished what they set out to create. I hope that the developer continues making games, I'll definitely give their next one a try. [9/10]