After hearing about Alabaster Dawn some time ago, I was eagerly awaiting the next release by the developers of CrossCode, Radical Fish Games. To my delighted surprise, Alabaster Dawn came out with a 1–2 hour demo for all to enjoy, showing a bit of what we can expect from the successor to an indie hit.
Seven years on from CrossCode’s release, celebrating their seventh anniversary with what is seemingly their last hotfix to their first title, the public demo for Alabaster Dawn was released just two days ahead of that, on the 19th of September. But can it attain the fame of CrossCode?
Nyx It In The Bud
The story centres around several chosen by the gods to fight back against Nyx’s descent onto the planet Tiran Sol. Releasing what seems like an homage to the seeds of Sin from Final Fantasy X onto the world, Nyx inflicts a curse on the land to desecrate all of the flora and fauna.
With the old chosen having lost their gods’ blessings, in the form of headpieces and, more importantly, their weapons, we skip forward a bit to one of the many sanctuaries and shelters that protect the denizens from the curse. In there, Juno, the Outcast Chosen, awakens to what is lauded as an impossible task: do as one person what twelve people were meant to do.
A World Affected by the Curse
Instead of being set within a video game world, Alabaster Dawn sees you within a living and breathing environment that will see changes based on the curse bestowed onto it by Nyx, as well as what seems to be somewhat simple reconstruction efforts as you cleanse the areas of their curses and help the civilians leave the shelters and rebuild their destroyed villages.
The demo only encompasses around an hour of story, the introduction to the game, its lore, and the mechanics, with minimal insight into the rebuilding efforts of the people. From there, we are flash-forwarded a few hours to the first dungeon, which is very similar to the elemental towers of CrossCode, both in design and gameplay, involving many puzzles and platforming sections that end with a boss fight to reward a new elemental shift.
Replayability and Weapons
For now, there isn’t much replayability, but that is to be expected with a demo. It offers four weapons—a sword and a mace, alongside a crossbow and a chakram. Though if CrossCode is anything to go by, we might see another New Game Plus added to this game, taking down Nyx as a level 99 ahead of her peers.
You Spin Me Right Round
As advertised, Alabaster Dawn builds on the gameplay of CrossCode, improving on its best aspects and making the not-so-great-at-times platforming more enjoyable. Shifting from a 2D pixel game to a 2.5D game, it keeps its action RPG genre staples intact.
Combat and Controls
You run around with the left thumbstick, or WASD, with jumping between platforms being automatic as you reach the edge, with your distance dictated by your speed. You can roll/dodge with the spacebar and make melee attacks with the left mouse button and ranged with the right, combining both for charged ranged attacks. Holding left at different times also allows you to charge melee attacks.
Aside from the normal combat, you also gain access to ultimate moves that can be executed with the shift button. Since holding the spacebar allows you to sprint, the shift button being an ultimate button might cause you to waste your charges, expecting the shift button to be the sprint button, like many other games.
Levelling and Progression
As you defeat foes, you will gain experience for your main level and the weapons you use. Your main level gives general stat boosts and defences, while your weapons can unlock new moves, from holding the buttons or new combos, as well as unlocking new slots for gems that provide more stat boosts—though there weren’t many of those in the demo.
You will also gather materials for what seems to be gem crafting, but that was not available in the demo either, as well as cooking ingredients to provide buffs to your healing charges, which reminded me of the Tales Of series.
Lea! Hi!
With such a short time in the demo, it was hard to get a whole grasp of what to expect from the main game, but the animations are incredibly smooth, and it certainly has upgraded the systems already present in CrossCode. It left me wanting more and eagerly expecting the game’s release, which has yet to be announced.
Visuals and Performance
The graphical style of Alabaster Dawn is gorgeous, something that Radical Fish Games should be proud of. Taking on a midway between pixel and cartoon graphics, and a much-improved particle system that is reminiscent of CrossCode. I couldn’t find any issues with the game’s looks, and was even complimenting the smoothness of the animations when I first loaded it up.
Sound and Difficulty
I wasn’t blown away by the soundtrack for the demo, but then there wasn’t much on offer to listen to during it. The sound effects were all fine, continuing the sort of bit crunchiness of CrossCode with a fantasy influence. I am looking forward to the full OST, but for now, it’s hard to say anything else about it. The game does not feature any voice acting, if that is a sticking point for some.
The difficulty of Alabaster Dawn is somewhere between medium and hard; the combat relies heavily on a lot of ranged combat, as most battles include ranged units that are typically out of reach for melee, and adds in foes that require different weapon types. I didn’t die, but got close with the final boss. Thankfully, the puzzles don’t give you hints until you ask for them, so those will be as hard as you like, but aren’t too annoying; you just need to think outside of the box sometimes.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I am quite excited for the full game of Alabaster Dawn to release. I had a lot of fun with CrossCode, and it was somewhat unique back in 2018, filling the gap of single-player MMO worlds during the boom of isekai game worlds. We can only hope we don’t have to wait long to hear more.
Alabaster Dawn – Demo Playthrough
Read more awesome previews >>here<<.
Game code was provided to us for the express purpose of previewing.
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