I’ll be honest: the art style for Saviorless got me interested. The hand-drawn art style reminded me a lot of Hollow Knight, and that weird kind of art style makes me believe that the story will be interesting. However, my assumptions were clearly wrong.
Saviorless has a story that is bewildering. I get that the developers of this game are Cuban, and that the original language was translated from Cuban, but after completing the game, I kind of understand what the premise is. My best guess would be something along the lines of what would happen if the hero of a story goes down the path of being a villain.
Unfortunately, Saviorless does not have a clear narrative. No, that’s not saying that it is one of those games with many interpretations; it really does not make sense. Fortunately, the gameplay is a little bit better than the story, but not by much.
Saviorless is a 2D platformer where there are two main characters to play as based on where you are in the story. Most of the time, you control a human girl, who gets one-shot very easily. Her gameplay is your basic move, jump, avoid enemies and traps to get to the next area. The other main character is a deity (i.e., in this game, a “savior”) with hit points and can fight her enemies. The deity’s main gameplay is a mix of fighting enemies and platforming.
It is a shame that most of the story focuses on the human, because controlling her is very grueling. You don’t get to play as the deity until more than halfway through the story. Albeit, Saviorless is a very short game; I just wish the focus was more on fighting enemies with the stalwart deity than avoiding them with the very frail girl.
Saviorless is a game that, for me, really missed the mark. It captivates you with the hand-drawn art style, but that’s really its only selling point. The story is really confusing. The gameplay is fun, but the focus is misdirected to the boring aspects and not the fun ones.
This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.