Raji: An Ancient Epic is a curious little game. It’s about four hours long and seems like a cross between the old PS2 style fixed camera God of War games and a piece of religious edutainment software about Hinduism. You play Raji, a circus performer who has lost her younger brother to an unfortunate plague of kidnappings by demons that seems to be sweeping the land. Raji resolves to get him back and sets forth on an adventure that cribs liberally from those of Kratos, the Greek God of War. The game also borrows that series’ fixed camera perspectives, with all the advantages and issues that creates.
The meat of Raji’s gameplay consists of simple traversal and combat in defined and blocked off arenas. Occasionally there are some simple rotation puzzles that must be completed in order to progress, taking the form of either pictures divided into concentric circles that must be rotated into place or large multi faced demon heads that must be rotated into place. At one point you find some lotus petals that you can throw into the water to create lily pads to jump on, but that’s about as creative as the mechanics get in this bare bones game.
During the traversal portions of the game Raji can run, jump, ledge grab, wall run, and climb. This simple moveset is mostly used to walk along very simple paths, sometimes with literally no obstacles at all, but occasionally you are given some scaffolding to ascend and you do some Prince of Persia style wall running and jumping to get up it. None of this is anywhere near as complex as the Prince of Persia 3D series, and you’ll mostly die during these sequences due to frustrating controls. The wall scramble and leap up commands have finnicky timing and if you time it improperly Raji will leap away from the wall (a maneuver that you almost never actually need) and often plummet to her doom. Likewise if you’re jumping from hanging pole to hanging pole a slight misalignment will send Raji into the void. On occasion some of the optional paths to reach upgrade points have slightly tricky platforming but in general there’s not a ton to do in the traversal portions. It’s not boring, just very simple.
Raji’s combat is in some ways more complete. You eventually can fight with four different weapons unlocked during the course of the game, each of which can be invested with one of three magical aspects, which Raji upgrades with orbs she finds in (sometimes) hidden shrines. Enemies are themed on Hindu demons but generally adhere to the God of War archtypes with Hindu versions of cyclops, harpies, and minotaurs standing in for their Greek counterparts. Like Kratos Raji can whittle her opponents’ health down and then execute them, and this mechanic is critical because doing so heals you almost to full. Raji doesn’t have a ton of health and it can’t be upgraded, so later enemies will often kill you in 3 to 4 whacks, and the main rhythm of the combat is using executes to top off your health as you attempt to do crowd management against your foes. Raji can dodge roll but she doesn’t have animation canceling so it’s very easy to get hit, and she can’t block with her first two weapons (though she does eventually get the ability with the third weapon.) Restoring your health is critical to getting through combat.
That being said, while combat is awkward (targeting on the bow is more or less busted and makes that weapon much less useful than it should be) it’s not very difficult because it’s so easy to restore your health. As you collect magic points you will also start stunning your enemies or hitting them with chain lighting as you attack, and that makes everything much easier as well. I didn’t die much in combat, and when I did it was generally because the auto aim failed or an execute I needed didn’t pop for some reason. The combat isn’t awful but it’s nowhere near as responsive or polished as God of War and like the traversal it’s just something to get through as you progress in the game. Boss fights are slightly more interesting and challenging, but once you figure out the patterns it’s just a matter of whittling down the boss’ enormous health pool and they never really change things up. Again these boss encounters aren’t bad per se, but they’re like if someone took a God of War fight and simplified it until it was a little bit too easy to hold your attention.
If Raji’s combat, traversal, and puzzles are ho-hum then at least its presentation is striking. On the Xbox Series X this is an absolutely gorgeous game, with beautiful scenery, good lighting, fine animation, and some truly unique and stunning environments. There’s an enormous divide in quality between the way the game looks and how it plays and you get the sense that the Indian developed title might have been worked on by people who had a lot of experience doing graphics for bigger games (perhaps outsourced to large Western developers) but not as much experience with the game design or mechanics. Again, it doesn’t play terribly, but its mechanically below average and aesthetically far above, at least for a non-AAA game. The soundtrack is also striking just because it’s unusual, using traditional Indian instruments like sitars to create music that matches the visuals well. I didn’t love it, but it’s pleasant enough and very fitting.
Raji also has voice acting. A lot of voice acting. Vishnu and Durga, two Hindu deities, talk throughout the game, much like Zeus and Prometheus in Immortals: Fenyx Rising (though Raji came out first). Unlike Zeus and Promotheus this isn’t humorous bickering but instead fairly sincere discussion of the game’s story, the religious lore that forms the world’s backdrop, and discussion about various Hindu myths and deities. There’s a lot of this material in the game and it’s clear the developers were more interested in providing this background than telling the game’s actual story, which is fine for what it is (despite it’s very abrupt end), but is simple and straightforward. At various points in the game you come across groups of murals painted on the walls and you can go over to icons on the ground to hear narration about what the mural depicts in sequences that can last several minutes if you listen to the whole thing. That’s a lot more time than the story of Raji and her brother get, and while it’s all relatively interesting it feels very strange to have so much of a short game’s run time devoted to summaries of Hindu mythology. It’s as if a museum lecturer has snuck into the game and is taking you on one of those educational lectures where they go through the museum and explain each exhibit briefly, except you signed up to play Hindu God of War not listen to 2 minutes on one of the incarnations of Shiva.
Raji is short enough and pretty enough that it’s not worth warning people away from if they’re interested, especially on Game Pass. It’s not a bad or unpleasant game but it feels incomplete. Both in its lack of meaningful mechanics and gameplay polish and its story, which just ends abruptly with no resolution like the team ran out of money and had to push the thing out the door. There’s also a few missing sequences filled in with shadow puppet animation that seem like they might have been cut because they couldn’t be finished. It all feels kind of like an expanded proof of concept that didn’t quite make it all the way to full game.
It’s cool that this is one of the first mid-tier games to come from an Indian studio and I appreciate their dedication to portraying some of their rich cultural history in a medium that all too often sticks to Western mythologies like Greek, Norse, and Christian. There are clearly talented artists and programmers on the team, and the game design and mechanics are fine for what they are. They’re adequate. I’d love to see what else this team can do, in a sequel or something else, but this game left me a little lukewarm. I was impressed by the visuals, somewhat interested in the story and mythology, and only mildly engaged by the gameplay. It sucks when there’s something that you want to like more than you do, but that’s where I find myself with this one. You might feel differently.
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