Raji: An Ancient Epic | Nintendo Switch Review.

Developer- Nodding Heads Games
Publishers - Super.com, Super Dot Com Limited
Nintendo Switch Review

* I was compensated for this game and all opinions are mine and mine alone.

Raji: An Ancient Epic is a beautiful bright and tragic puzzle and platformer game, it has a rich history and story to go with it which sets it apart from other puzzle games I have played through. The game is inspired by Hindu and Balinese mythology, I myself have never really delved into this nor know much about it but this game definitely will inspire people much like me to take the opportunity to learn more about it which in turn will help you grasp the games true meaning a bit more.

We meet a young girl called Raji who has been working as a circus performer to make ends meet for her and her brother, one day he is taken away from her due to the devil Lord Mahabalsura, Raji has no chance saving him and is determined to find him after she wakes up from the attack. Raji loves her brother unconditionally and will do anything to bring him home and keep him safe, even if it meant taking on other worldly beings. After Raji woke from the attack she came to find out the gods have chosen her to take on the demons and she uses this as an opportunity to also save her brother.

Raji has a lot of character, she is both terrified and confident, fast on her feet and head strong when facing demons, her capabilities grow the closer she gets to her brother as did my love for her character, you use her to solve puzzles to the best of your ability (they're pretty easy) whilst exploring your surroundings and collecting upgrade orbs, these are usually tucked away so it's best to have a look around every corner, these orbs are for your advantage, you can use them to upgrade your elemental powers, these are the ones which were given to you by the gods, you use them on your weapons or to replenish your health. Take advantage of being able to explore and find these orbs, the further you progress the harder enemies get so it's best to upgrade your weapons.

The game progressively gets harder, enemies will become more difficult, this is no problem for Raji as she will build up an inventory of different weapons to upgrade, you can switch the weapon you favour most by using the favour of the gods button, I would equip my two favourite weapons and switch between each using the arrows on the gamepad, adding elemental powers which help with battle. It took some practice to get used to using my weapons to my advantage and when was best to strike, I died a lot yes it was frustrating! 

Now comes the part I least liked, the fixed camera, it makes the gameplay so much harder but at the same time I think the developers added it for this reason, on top of this the size of the game in handheld mode makes it difficult to utilize your battle moves and to see what is coming your way, your best bet is to use the dock and play it on a TV, I would have liked to of seen screen option sizes but unfortunately we just have to make do with the use of the dock. Raji fights bosses that are 5x bigger than her and timing your movements/attacks isn't always as easy as it seems, if you have difficulty timing you will be left stuck at a wall as you can't move on to the next part of the game until you defeat the boss, I would try and leave some distance between me and the boss in order to decide which move would work best, you only have limited space to do this in though.

I also experienced a lot of glitches/frame rate issues and the game would often froze, it's been a while since I last played so I'm not sure if these have been fixed yet, I actually wanted to stop playing all together because a glitch had trapped me inside of a pillar whilst I was surrounded by enemies and they were attacking me. I had to restart the game and try again which sorted the issue out for me, but the autosave feature helped save a lot of time and I didn't have to replay much to get back to that point.

Some features that stood out to me were the cut scenes with 2D shadow puppets, they were gorgeous, the intricate details that went into the background of the game was stunning and I would stop and look around just to take it all in, the music and story behind the game was eye grabbing, the developers put a lot of love and time in creating something that stood out that's for sure. Although the game is beautiful I did feel deflated a lot of time and pushed on to see where Raji's story would take me and if she could save her brother. Would I consider this to be an accessible game? No not in the slightest but at the same time the Nintendo Switch has a long way to become an accessible console.