This review is for the IGMC 2014 version.

Charon's Sabbath is a single player game, telling the tale of Munica, the spirit of a girl-child who has been tasked by the ailing Soulmother to collect the souls of the lost that are trapped in a cycle of violence and regret and cannot find their way to her and the peace she embodies.


Quest activated.

The game is a little directionless to begin with as you are simply tasked to find the souls and return them with no idea how you are to accomplish that, and the first few souls you find don't seem to respond to you at all, they are just reliving their final moments in an unending and tragic loop. However you will eventually find one you can save and it appear saving that soul will give you the information you need to save another and that one another, not all souls are linked but quite a few are so you need to step logically through the clues provided by their memories to succeed until you track down all 12 of the souls left that can be saved. I do like the fact that not all the souls you can save are human; it gives the game a lovely encompassing feeling,and the occasional literary allusion doesn't hurt either.


It is the east, and Juliet Julia is the sun.

There is quite a bit of traipsing around the countryside so it's a definite plus that the graphics, which are a mix of RTP and custom resources, are used with care and consideration, giving a great feel to the world, whilst also driving home the point that Munica is sundered from the living world in which she travels. It's a fine line but the developer manages to convey the feeling of isolation in amongst all this life with some finesse. One of the ways this is accomplished is the fact that Munica's sprite and face-set is custom which makes even her appearance separate from the rest of the inhabitants.

I make no secret of the fact I'm not a fan of restrictive save, mostly for real world concerns as I don't have large swaths of time to dedicate to games and being able to save and exit to deal with the real world is a plus for me, but in this game the save restriction is an actual issue in relation to game play. The fact is quite a lot of the game is spent playing dodge the enemy and I found myself restarting numerous times from the same point which can get both repetitive and a little disheartening. There is also one puzzle early on where the restriction is particularly vexing. You are required to rescue a soul from the burning house of his memory, but one misstep leads to an insta-death, which is irritating since there is no indication in the map you are traversing that any particular step will lead to that result. All the visual clues to guide you are not available to you, as they are linked to the ruins of the house in the game world. Which, unless you take multiple screen shots to reference out of game, you can't access. There are a number of ways this could have been implemented more successfully; a split vision screen or overlay, a flash between the memory and the game world to allow you to move around the death tiles, or the replacement of the dangerous tiles with a graphic indicating debris or a hole after you've hit it the first time. The last option would still incorporate multiple run-through's as was obviously the developer's design, but would prevent you from hitting the same insta-death multiple times.


Forward or up? One way will kill you, can you tell which?

The developer has after some comments provided a map of the safe path, but you should never need to reference information outside of a game in order to play it. It damages the immersion.

Music and sound is well chosen, the intro theme is haunting and slightly ethereal which perfectly suits the setting. The forest themes are lyrical and airy, whilst the cave has a foreboding air personified by the sound of something breathing in the shadows, but they are muted, somewhat detached, as Munica herself is from the day to day existence of a world she behind left a century earlier. It's a subtle pointer and is executed well for the most part.

Charon's Sabbath has a perfectly reasonable and yet somewhat disconcerting narrative consequence, as your protagonist is themselves a wandering spirit she doesn't have a physical form, or indeed a future so it makes sense she can't wear equipment or wield a weapon, or even level up (though oddly she can step in deer droppings and pick mushrooms). Those restrictions though internally consistent do rob the journey of one of the mainstays of RPG's, the feeling of accomplishment as you progress. But since you don't engage in any battles either, I suppose that feeling of progression isn't justified in a traditional sense. Your progression or sense thereof is linked to the souls you save, but that in itself leads to another problem.

Since the ending is dependent on how many souls you successfully save by the end of the game, the loss of a single soul can be detrimental to your ability to get the good ending. The minimum number of souls you must bring back by nightfall in order to get the good ending is 11, which means at most you can lose one and still succeed, however once you get a few in your pocket you start getting chased relentlessly by broken hungry ghosts who steal the souls you are carrying if they touch you and you can't reclaim them. So it becomes a case of if you are touched go back to your last save and lose all your progress because you can't afford the loss.


I seriously hate the hungry ghosts.

A way to alleviate this would be the ability to deposit the souls with the Soulmother as you go so at least you have some buffer against the hungry ghosts and the cave phantoms who take them. In theory you could be carrying almost all the souls and lose them all in one run through the Cultists cavern as there are multiple phantoms to dodge in a single width corridor dungeon, which itself houses a few of the trapped souls you are looking for so you have no option but to enter and risk all that you've accomplished.

Charon's Sabbath has some issues which are quite a detriment to enjoyable game play, but all of them could be easily fixed with a few tweaks or additional content here and there. The story is told well and the premise is an intriguing one, with perhaps a little too much foreshadowing of the final resolution. It's lovely to look at and listen to, and the reasons those game play elements that don't work are so frustrating is because Munica is a character you can and do care about.

I wish Synonysis luck in the contest.