We’ve had plenty of PSVR games involving archery, it’s just something that works so well in VR when done right. So when Sacralith: The Archer’s Tale came out of nowhere, I was excited to check it out. So, is Sacralith: The Archer’s Tale any good?
Sacralith: The Archer’s Tale is a PSVR archery game that has you fighting alongside your brothers to stop the bad guy from getting a magic stone called Sacralith. It’s a generic plot, and doesn’t really add anything to the game.
The gameplay consists of teleporting from point to point shooting enemies to protect your brothers. You can’t take damage, but your brothers can, and if they die you’ll have to restart from the last checkpoint. Your brothers use up close melee weapons, while you use your bow along with a handful of spells. You as a player can shoot your bow, move to specific points in the map, and open an arrow wheel that lets you grab one of many special arrows. The wheel has a cooldown though, so you can’t spam special arrows.
There are several different enemy types, and a new one is introduced in each level. Every once in a while when you kill an enemy a power-up will drop. These power-ups can be temporary or permanent. The temporary power-ups are abilities such as slowing down time, and increasing arrow damage. There is only one permanent power-up, which is an upgrade. When you pick up the upgrade you’ll be brought to a skill tree where you can purchase or upgrade one new spell. There are a wide variety in spells, some assist your brothers, some slow down the enemy, and many more. I thought this was a great addition to the game, and kept the arrow combat from feeling the same throughout my play through.
One aspect I will mention is the quality in the textures in this game. Each of the models, environments, and items look fantastic, and I was surprised by the level of detail. Though some parts of the game look blurry.
My one issue with Sacralith is that the entire game is archery. There aren’t any puzzles or exploration to break up the combat, you’ll be shooting arrows non-stop from level 1 to the final level. This made the archery tedious at times, and also made my arms tired frequently. This game is best played in small amounts at a time. Another possible issue for some players is the forced click turning, there aren’t any settings to adjust the turning amount, or change to smooth turning, so hopefully the developers will patch that soon.
So overall, Sacralith: The Archer’s Tale is fun. The archery works well, the graphics look great, there’s several epic moments, and a sense of progression because of the upgrades. There are a few glitches and tracking issues here and there, but for the most part it worked well. The game will take you somewhere around 2 hours to beat, and in my opinion that’s a great length for this type of game. If you’re into archery in VR, this is worth trying out.
