No Rest for the Wickedbeing in an early access state makes it intrinsically difficult to critique on any fundamental level because the irony of the situation is that the final product probably won’t look a lot like the work in progress it is now. Of course, the purpose ofNo Rest for the Wickedbeing in early access is partially to glean feedback and make changes wherever necessary, as Moon already has with recent hotfixes.
Many more are likely to follow as the precision action-RPG is molded further in early access clay, but unfortunately one feature pillar may be too vital in its base design to change as much as it might need to. For better or for worse,No Rest for the Wickedis an amalgamation of fantasy action-RPGs that came before it and, no matter how unique Moon’s signature art design is, it has the trappings of action-RPGs that aren’t all favorable. One feature in particular is its inventory load and the restrictions it casts, making exploration beyond the hub town of Sacrament potentially futile a lot of the time.
No Rest for the Wicked Encumbers Players in Every Way Imaginable
Not only is stamina and health remarkably stifled and fleeting, but inventory space is also laughably truncated—a truth players discover after they begin their meandering inNo Rest for the Wicked’s Mariner’s Keep, Orban Glades, and elsewhere. The incentive may be for more frequent visits to Sacrament to turn in the number of resources players have collected, but when so little can be held onto and such a vast landscape is ripe for exploration and looting it seems egregious not to let players have endless inventories.
This wouldn’t necessarily be an issue if there wasn’t an abundance of gear, resources, and upgrade materials to collect, but with several different inventories to manage it’s clear that players will be looting a lot in their travels. Players also can’t always turn in items or resources, especially in the early access’ early game when certain features haven’t been discovered or unlocked yet, leaving inventories packed to the brim.No Rest for the Wickedis by no means the first action-RPG to restrict players’ inventoriesand yet the feature seems particularly deflating in Moon’s early on.
No Rest for the Wickedbeing in early accessand transparent about how player feedback may shape the game going forward suggests that many systems could drastically change, including inventory management.
Inventory load is different from players’ equip loads, which can fortunately be increased in a number of ways. Equip load is far more interesting, too, because it explicitly determines what style of roll players will perform, not unlikeDark Souls’ equip-load-based somersaults and fat rolls.
No Rest for the Wicked Has the Exploration of a Soulslike without Any of the Freedom to Loot
Such exploration would grow tiresome ifDark Soulsdidn’t let players continue picking items up endlessly andNo Rest for the Wickedis arguably already afflicted by that exhaustion. The Whisper system is another proponent of this that prevents inventory management from being more convenient or satisfying.
Players can’t fast travel to any Whisper they’d like, only to the last Whisper they visited or to the Whisper in Sacrament, which is meant to encourage them to explore regions again so they can experience what’s emergently changed since the last time they were there.
But if inventories are full, sweeping through these regions is fruitless because players won’t be able to collect anything new that’s spawned there anyhow. Players can always warp back to Sacrament, but getting to a remote destination is an investment of a journey that can be arduous if it’s for a single buried or mined resource—that’s if players even have available slots for anything in their multiple inventories, at least in the early game.
Many chests provide rewards for each inventory category as well, and more often than not players will need to leave something valuable behind if they haven’t been able toupgrade inventory slots by turning Plague Ichor into the Rookery’s Watcher in Sacrament. This entire gripe probably won’t be a pressing matter many hours into the game, but it presently puts a damper on the early, formative hours ofNo Rest for the Wickedwhile knowledge of every mechanic and vendor is still sparse.
No Rest for the Wicked
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From Moon Studios, the award-winning developers of Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps comes No Rest for the Wicked, a visceral, precision Action RPG set to reinvent the genre.The year is 841 – King Harol is dead. As word of his death echoes throughout the kingdom, the crown passes to his arrogant, yet untested son Magnus.Even worse, the Pestilence, an unholy plague not seen for a thousand years, has returned. It sweeps across the land, corrupting everything and everyone it touches. Madrigal Seline, a ruthlessly ambitious figure in the church, sees the Pestilence as a chance to prove herself in the eyes of her god.These forces converge on the backwater Isola Sacra, where rebel groups and the provincial government fight for control amid the isle’s crumbling ruins.You are a Cerim – a member of a group of mystical holy warriors imbued with remarkable powers and sworn to defeat the Pestilence at any cost. But the task will prove increasingly challenging as you become entangled in the people’s plight and the vast political struggle of this downtrodden land. Chaos will pull you in every direction as you seek to cleanse the land of wickedness and shape the kingdom’s fate.
