Vessels of Decay Review

The story of Vessels of Decay is set in a post-apocalyptic Scandinavia, where two sisters, Mud and Freja, are trying to track down Gloson. They believe that this mythical boar can lead them to a seidhkonur, a shaman, who they believe can bring their mother back to life.
This once-modern civilisation is nothing but ruins and destruction. The streets are littered with abandoned vehicles, and the only things that remain are creatures from Scandinavian myth and folklore.

You play as both sisters, swapping between them in this action-adventure game that has 10 stages to play through. Each character has a regular and a heavy attack that is stronger but slower to use, along with block and dodge moves to fight foes. As you progress, you will unlock new abilities on a skill tree but will also be running — a lot — to get away from these monsters. There isn't much time to attack when a boar is running at you full speed. If you hesitate at all, you’re dead.

No matter which character you are playing as, they will warn you when they are low on health, which is represented by a red bar. Underneath that is a green gauge that shows how much stamina you have; this slowly replenishes on its own. You will need stamina to dodge incoming enemy attacks and to run from creatures pursuing you. If you totally run out, it will probably mean death, but fortunately, the game saves frequently, so you won’t have to go too far back to try again.

The visuals in Vessels of Decay are a simplistic pixel style, but they work great for the creepy, dystopian world you are travelling through. You see signs saying “Surgical Kits for the Apocalypse” or “Run, the End Is Nigh,” so you know you aren’t in for a fun time! There are moments when you're in an elevated area, and you get a real sense of height based on the visuals in the background and below you. Especially when you are balancing on a single board walking over a gap, your character moves her arms to keep her balance.

This desolate world is especially haunting when it is combined with a soundtrack full of melancholy and dread. Few things are more terrifying than the music that plays while you're being chased by a monster, while you weave through obstacles like rusting vehicles and trees. Don't forget the large gaps in the ground you need to jump over.

Each of the stages you play has a large boss fight at the end, with every beast requiring a different strategy to defeat. This was really cool, but ended up being incredibly challenging because of the numerous bugs I encountered while playing. I experienced issues with the game crashing that either kicked me out of the game or showed a white screen with code that required a hard reset to get out of. There were also problems with the sprint button not working when I was trying to run away from the boar chasing me. I even tried to rebind that action to a different button, but it didn’t help. I also encountered issues like the stage boss walking off the screen, leaving the camera without a clear focus.

Despite encountering a lot of issues, Vessels of Decay is an enjoyable game to play. It is very challenging and will definitely test your reaction time, especially when your adrenaline is pumping as you’re being chased and need to make a large jump or vault between posts to escape. I also appreciate how you have a finishing move to use against the creatures you're fighting. It's satisfying to see your character deal the stabbing death blow. Once defeated, enemies drop pink orbs, which can be spent on the skill tree to acquire new attacks and moves for your characters.

In the pause menu under settings, you can see your total playtime broken down into years, days, hours, minutes, and seconds. Something I found very useful was being able to change my controller’s keybindings. Being able to modify the controls to a setup that I found convenient was incredibly helpful.

I’ve had an enjoyable, yet frustrating, time exploring this post-apocalyptic world. It wasn’t fun having to replay the same area over and over again, hoping that the next attempt wouldn’t be buggy. Right now, it’s hard to recommend, unless you are a sucker for punishment and don’t mind rechallenging sections a few times to successfully complete them. If so, try out Vessels of Decay now. But if you don’t want to deal with those issues, keep an eye on it to see if the developer patches them in the near future.