Even though born into a world filled with magic and monsters, blue haired bounty hunter Hariku is inexplicably startled by the discovery of a talking owl, found locked in a cage deep inside a forgotten shrine. Quickly forming a bond, Hariku and the owl – now christened Owly – set about travelling to a distant mage tower in order to reunite them with their former owner. A noble pursuit, but one laden with danger – especially when Hariku gives no thought as to why Owly was locked away in the first place. They may be brave, but also a little naïve.
Wings of Endless combines elements from the Metroidvania and action RPG genres, presented with tidy pixel art visuals evocative of the Super Nintendo. While travelling across thorny grasslands, dusty deserts and icy plains patrolled by penguins, the hammer welding Hariku is eventually joined by two other characters. The first, Diana, joins the team a couple of hours in and is able to attack enemies from afar using stiletto knifes and bombs. Then towards the midway point we’re introduced to Makoto, a mage in training who’s able to harness ice and fire to assist in puzzle solving. All three have their independent health bars and can be swapped between via LB/RB, although due to their double-jump and dash ability it’s Hariku that gains the most screentime. He is the protagonist, after all.
The RPG elements relate to each character also having their own stats, along with a small assortment of weapons and armour to either discover or purchase. There are optional quests too, acquired from noticeboards, and these can be tracked from the menu screen. However, the main quest isn’t tracked, meaning not only is it vital to pay attention to important dialogue – with conversations using cartoony speech bubbles – but to also liberally exploit the hint system, with Owly able to provide a brief description of the current objective when frequenting a save point.
Each location on the map has a small village to explore, featuring item vendors and usually governed by a quest-giving leader, which then lead into Metroidvania-esque platforming areas. These are complex from the get-go, requiring use of the map to locate exits. Most bare unique ideas too, such as the need to direct flamethrower turrets when navigating the ice world, while the mage tower has a puzzle involving flicking switches in three intertwined rooms.
Bosses feature periodically and are initially well judged in terms of difficulty. They’ll likely give you trouble on the first encounter, before you eventually emerge victorious after learning their attack patterns. Later bosses raise the stakes by upping the amount of damage required to defeat them, with some literally requiring hundreds of hits – and infuriatingly, there’s no health bar to indicate how the battle is going. The ability to both purchase and craft health potions mitigates most of the minor difficulty spikes, though, and both save points and health fountains are sensibly placed.
Most enemies drop resources when defeated, used here to craft new potions. Said brews can be selected by cycling through on the d-pad, or by holding ‘Y’ to bring up an inventory. It’s a bit fiddly during heated moments, and it also doesn’t help that potion use has a cooldown timer. So if you’re ever poisoned while low on health, you’ll have to make a call whether to use an antidote or a health potion first. Should any of the three characters fall, they can be revived by holding down on the ‘d-pad’ for a few seconds – although this does draw enemies to your location. Not a problem initially, but later areas have enemies (such as poison spewing scorpions) that can kill in one hit.
Every enemy, no matter how small, also takes multiple hits to defeat. The idea was to presumably make Wings of Endless more melee combat focused, as evidenced by each character having a few different attacks and a skill tree, but the need to pummel enemies several times does make encounters feel a bit drawn out.
Once every area on the map is discovered the storyline shifts to location jumping, revisiting key characters and even returning home. Fast travel is possible via hot air balloon, with a small fee to pay upfront. The desert location is an exception, with a small platforming section to backtrack through to reach the village. With Mokoto now in the party, a few secret areas come to light, using the mage’s ability to create ice blocks. It was also around this point that I started to focus on maxing out stats, finding one location with enemies that bestow a lot of XP. Helpfully, areas of interest on the map can be marked. It also pays to make a mental note of where the best item vendors are, as they all have different stock.
Coming from a solo developer, Wings of Endless is surprisingly accomplished, boasting a reasonably long playtime, detailed artwork, a wide world to explore, and a gradually increasing difficulty curve. It focuses a bit heavily on its potion brewing aspect (expect to chug hundreds of health potions before the ending credits roll), and I was also disappointed by the inability to swap between characters mid combo to create custom attacks. You could also argue that the dialogue is rather twee, but this does suit the personalities given to each of the three main characters. If a patch is ever released, making enemies quicker to defeat would do wonders for the general pacing.
Wailing on Wings of Endless any further wouldn’t be entirely fair, as it still feels like the developer was able to achieve their goals here, creating something that’s fun and familiar, and with a sprinkling of depth and innovation too. It may prove a bit tricky for younger gamers, but if you were weened on the likes of Wonder Boy in Monster Land, Zelda II, and ActRaiser you’ll likely enjoy its heady mixture of role playing, platforming, and repeatedly pummelling enemies.
Isoca Games’ Wings of Endless is out now on all formats. Published by JanduSoft.