Emotionally Weightless.
Batora: Lost Haven is the very definition of a mixed bag. On paper, its systems, story, and gameplay might seem functional and engaging, but the execution of the final product left me largely conflicted on whether or not I found any part of it to really stick with me. Batora: Lost Haven is by no means a bad experience, it’s just not a particularly great one.
Developed by Stormind Games, the team behind the horror series, Remothered, Batora: Lost Haven is a huge departure for the studio, allowing them to flex their creative muscle in ways they haven’t shown us before. While I don’t feel the title satisfies in ways to allow its ideas to feel fully realized, it’s nonetheless a solid first step for the studio to show that they are not a one-trick pony.
Batora: Lost Haven centers its story after the complete destruction of Earth, and places you in the young shoes of a girl named Avril whose mission is to return the planet to its former glory. Upon hearing voices within a dream, Avril and her friend Mila are exploring the ruins of a destroyed London as Avril accidentally stumbles upon the source of those voices.
After a brief series of fights that surprisingly don’t offer up any sort of tutorial, Avril is approached by two Gods known as Sun and Moon. After conversing with the young Avril about their plight, they bestow the last of their power to make her the Keeper of Balance. They then explain to her that this power will be needed to restore the planet’s energy by tracking down power cores on other worlds.
The bulk of what Batora offers in story, gameplay, and design, is through a system of duality. The combat system fuels from the dual powers granted to Avril from Sun and Moon, and your path through its story is that of either a Defender or a Conquerer, each leading up to one of a few different endings you can earn. While this does open the title up for some replayability, I can honestly say that Batora didn’t offer me a convincing reason to really see those other choices through.
My biggest issue with Batora is through its story, as regardless of whatever it presented to me, I simply couldn’t find anything to really keep my attention. The entire narrative is built on making important and impactful choices, but nearly every emotional beat of the game feels artificial due to the fact that you are making these huge decisions after meeting most of the characters who are impacted by those choices just minutes prior.
It also doesn’t help that the 'Saturday morning cartoon’ voice acting does nothing to benefit the game’s occasionally emotional tone. While the soundtrack itself does contribute to empowering you at all the right moments, the voice acting here just doesn’t cut it and ends up actually working against what the game is trying to achieve.
Clocking in around 6-8 hours in length, Batora has you visiting several unique worlds that you’ll be tasked with tracking down their core. This sadly doesn’t leave you a lot of time to really get to know its denizens, as the game often feels like it is sprinting towards the finish line and never looking back. In fact, there are a lot of unanswered questions even within the ending I received that made no sense and after checking out the other endings online, I’m not sure any of the game’s conclusions really felt satisfying.
Now, I mentioned that the game demands that you make some pretty tough choices, and while I appreciate the struggle that Avril has to push through, there was one choice that I just found absolutely baffling. At a certain point in the game, you’ll meet a race whose very energy is being used by another to power their armies. Now, you can either attempt to combat this evil force or assist this race in transcending to the next life and subsequently killing both them and their oppressors. If this had been a choice with a collective of characters we got to know over the course of the game, then the decision to perform this act might very well have been an interesting one to make. However, this option is given to you about five minutes after you meet them.
This sort of emotional spontaneity is present in most choices you’ll make. Apart from a single character you meet midway through the game, I never felt I was equipped with enough time to really become invested in a single event or character to make choices that felt like they had emotional stakes. It’s a shame since the worlds and cast of characters presented to me feel ripe for the depth needed to really make me feel emotionally invested with them, but you are rarely given any time to really get attached to nearly anything expected of you. Since this is the crux of the whole game, that’s a huge issue.
When Avril begins her journey, her enthusiasm is peppered with a lot of snarky and comical dialogue, but as she is confronted with choices that often lead to some pretty serious outcomes, the game suffers from a tonal whiplash that it never really recovers from. The majority of the dialogue is not bad by any means, but the inconsistency of the tone present throughout the story is just all over the place, especially with a game so short. While it doesn’t quite land the same way as the controversy surrounding Forspoken’s dialogue, it certainly has that vibe, among several other similarities. Had the adventure been considerably longer, then not only would the emotional beats have the time allowed to flesh them out, but the tone could have been properly paced to feel earned and not out of place.
Avril’s journey to track down the cores will often see her dealing with events on each planet, often resulting in her having to make those choices as she comes to the aid of several races. You’ll often be granted a companion to assist you, but since the story is paced to push you through each planet a bit too quickly, you rarely get the time to really learn anything about them or their culture, albeit for one single character, an orange creature named Youke, who is one of the only characters with really any depth granted to them. There is one choice you’ll make towards his mission fairly late in the game that I actually felt something, largely because the game took the time to make me care about him. Sadly, this was the only time the game offered me that type of connection.
Even when the game attempts to wrap up, there are moments and characters thrown at you that you should really be emotional about, but given that the developer doesn’t really do much at all to make me care about Avril’s connection to these characters, allowed those moments and the ending I received to feel emotional weightless. I think if the game had begun with moments surrounding those characters to cement them as being important to Avril that there could have been something there to latch onto. It’s a shame since the game has all the right components to make a compelling story, but the best use of those components just isn’t there.
The choices you’ll make thankfully avoid simply coming across as good or evil, and instead are often just that of certain perspectives and what side you feel is appropriate. While you can avoid the depth of those choices and opt to pick the Defender or Conqueror simply to continue down their road, the option for how you want to play is there if you want it.
As you perform actions befitting of the Defender or Conqueror path, you’ll earn skill points that allow you to equip special runes that you can purchase from shops you’ll find on each planet. Runes can be purchased with a few different types of currencies, depending on the shop, and the points you earn from your choices will dictate if you can even equip them. Defender runes are based on defense, while Conqueror runes are based on offense. As you progress, you’ll be able to equip up to 21 total runes, which boost certain stats like health, damage, and defense. Some runes can also enhance certain skills, making your attacks more beneficial. And, each version of the game has a special rune that offers a colored costume pertaining to the platform.
The locations you’ll visit range from spacious caverns, to desert towns, and forests, each populated with various characters, shops, and some light exploration. Most levels follow the same generic branching design and function, with off-the-beaten paths providing ways to earn additional currency and refills to your current health. The level design’s biggest win in its pleasant aesthetics, as every location often looks great, albeit with a few bland and noticeably poor textures, but that is thankfully rare and largely isolated to just the first location.
Each planet also offers up its own boss, and honestly, not a single one disappoints. They offer up different phases and attacks, and each share in the same duality as Avril, resulting in dual health bars that need to have their segments depleted within a certain time limit of one another. Failure to do so results in both of those segments replenishing, causing you to stay on the offensive and pay attention to which Nature they are attacking with.
Batora’s combat is where the game often shines and is without question the best part of the whole experience. While I still feel the camera is pulled back a bit too far to really take in the game’s detail and the ability to really read your enemy's attacks, I still was impressed with how fun this game was to play.
Avril is granted two sets of powers, that of the Sun and the Moon. Each power is what is called a Nature. As you encounter the fairly impressive variety of enemy types, some of them also have dual natures themselves, resulting in having a few different attacks instead of just the same few over and over again. As a standard difficulty setting, each Nature can only damage that of its own, but should you desire, you can allow each Nature to provide the same damage across both. This is how the game handles its difficulty.
Each Nature that Avril has access to has its own set of attacks, which use the same buttons depending on what Nature you are currently rocking. You’ll earn additional powers as you play, further enhancing your arsenal. These range from a shield you can set down to block incoming attacks via the Moon Nature, or a large jumping slam with the Sun Nature.
Avril’s dual powers come with having to manage two health bars, one for physical attacks and one for mental attacks. Each health bar has to be watched as you can take damage across both regardless of what form you are in. Should one deplete, it’s game over. You’ll also be granted the ability to heal, and these nodes are replenished as you deal damage to your foes. Avril will also gain a special buff that not only heals her but also increase the damage of your currently equipped Nature.
Avril’s basic attacks are pretty simple with Sun’s powers being more melee focused, while Moon allows Avril to have ranged capability. The right stick can also be used to have Avril swing her Sun’s sword in the desired direction, but its more functional use is in manually aiming Moon’s ranged attacks, something that comes in handy when attempting to aim at certain control mechanisms. It’s also very effective since the game doesn’t feature any sort of lock-on system.
Combat, for the most part, feels fast and chaotic, especially when you have a lot of enemies that have dual health bars of their own. Being able to dodge-roll out of the way and use my dual powers how I saw fit, always kept the battles fresh, especially as I would continue to add more moves to my kit, and the runes that would benefit both myself and them.
Apart from combat, exploration, and the game’s story, Avril will also have to solve a series of puzzle rooms. This was likely my least favorite mechanic present in the game. These range from having to roll a ball alongside platforms, and shooting switches, to swapping back and forth between Nature’s as you navigate certain obstacles. While some of these are rather clever, I never felt like I was really getting any enjoyment out of them.
While Batora launched late last year on other platforms, the Switch version of the game certainly looks less impressive with a fair amount of lower-resolution textures, and several bouts of slow-down, especially during intense encounters. I also had a few moments of the game pausing for a split second whenever I would enter each planet’s village. While the game’s art style certainly still succeeds in creating a decent-looking game, unless you only have a Switch, I would recommend any other version of the game, simply due to its better visuals and improved performance.
Apart from those issues, I had an odd glitch that would constantly show itself. Whenever the game’s cutscenes would kick in, the last bit of dialogue would always remain on screen. This happened after every single cutscene. It’s a shame since everything else about the game ran largely fine, apart from the aforementioned framerate dips.
Batora: Lost Haven has several elements that do make it a fairly engaging experience, but the game’s central pillar of impactful narrative choices simply feels weightless and lacks any sort of emotional payoff. Its combat and art design certainly perform a lot of heavy lifting, but this uneven package of a game just doesn’t feel as satisfying as I had hoped for. While I wasn’t too impressed here, I still have a lot of faith that Stormind Games can bring the goods for a sequel, one that ensures its choices truly matter and that we get to experience them alongside a cast of memorable characters.
Developer - Stormind Games. Publisher - Team17. Released - October 20th, 2022 (Xbox, PS, PC), April 6th, 2023 (Switch). Available On - Xbox One/Series X/S, PS4/PS5, Windows. Rated - (E 10+) Fantasy Violence, Language, Mild Blood, Mild Suggestive Themes. Platform Reviewed - Nintendo Switch. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.