The Last Oricru certainly falls firmly into the Soulslike category of gaming. Developed by Goldknights and published by Prime Matter, The Last Oricru is a story-driven action RPG that starts off abysmally and then meanders somewhere in between decent and mediocre for the rest of the game.
In The Last Oricru players will take on the role of an adventurer named “Silver” by the “Keepers” of an unknown monastery. You and three others are the survivors of a spaceship crash and are seemingly immortal thanks to the belts you wear. The Last Oricru prides itself upon its branching pathways in its gameplay and “impactful decisions”. We’ll get to this shortly but first, let’s talk a bit about its gameplay.
Soulslike
Gameplay in The Last Oricru is incredibly similar to most Soulslike games out there. You’ll need to hit, dodge, run and rinse and repeat if you plan to survive. This is fairly standard fare as there’s a light attack, a heavy attack, block and dodge actions to use. You’ll need to string together combos against enemies while avoiding their attacks as much as possible. The Last Oricru also incorporates ranged magic attacks into the mix but this doesn’t feel as good in action as simply melee attacking your foes and rolling away when they are about to retaliate.
The Last Oricru has a gear system too and players will be able to absorb “Essence” from enemies in order to increase their attributes back at “Beacons”. This is fairly straightforward and a staple of Soulslike titles. So too is the replenishment of healing vials and the respawning of enemies in the environment.
The Last Oricru, being a Soulslike at its core does however do something rather useful for gamers who lack patience or who get frustrated at the thought of being decimated by enemies over and over. Players can simply swap over to “Story” difficulty and fight foes if they are having a bad time. “Story” difficulty slows down enemy animations by a lot and this honestly makes them a lot easier to deal with. There are some moments in the game where you will be faced with large groups of enemies and swapping over to “Story” difficulty can help alleviate a lot of frustration caused by dying repeatedly. Just don’t get hit because the damage output remains the same.
Wardenia
The story of The Last Oricru ventures into the somewhat political with various factions in the world of Wardenia fighting with each other. Even your own surviving crewmates seem to have their own objectives and cannot be trusted. This brings a lot of doubt into your decision-making in the game and there are no clear-cut answers or predictable outcomes. The story of The Last Oricru also features a lot of extremely inconsistent writing. A lot of the interactions with your own character “Silver” comes across as unnecessarily snarky and the topics of conversation in the game aren’t handled with care at all. There’s a distinct layer of jank here and it shows through right from the get-go. So much so that you’ll end up losing any interest in the characters of Wardenia and their petty squabbles despite the serious nature of what’s at stake for them in the story.
Graphically, The Last Oricru is a mixed bag. Certain areas of the game look good while other aspects of it look as if they were lifted from a previous generation of video gaming. There’s also the very little direction in the game and you can often get lost or not know where you’re supposed to be headed. The character models and animations also seem to not match up properly and once you notice it, it’s hard to not see how janky it is. The camera control and positioning are also quite problematic in certain areas of the game since it obscures your vision and you can easily end up dying to enemies because of this.
The Last Oricru on PC also runs rather poorly with frame rate issues, stuttering and numerous bugs including crashing on PC. It’s almost as if the game needed a couple more months’ worth of development work just to iron out all the kinks because it not only looks rather dated but plays and feels dated too. This is disappointing given the game’s premise of branching story pathways and Soulslike gameplay in combination with each other. It’s functional but it could have been so much more.
The soundtrack of The Last Oricru features orchestral tracks which are enjoyable and the attack sound effects are fine. Where the game drops the ball entirely with regards to sound lies is the abysmal inconsistent writing and the voice acting that accompanies it. It sounds so out of place in the medieval sci-fi setting here.
The Last Oricru also features online co-op and playing the game with someone else would probably be a lot more fun than slogging through the 15-hour campaign alone. You’ll then also get to laugh at the dialogue together which would be a plus.
Final Verdict
Overall The Last Oricru is an indie title that reeks of strange decision-making. The voice acting, inconsistent writing, visuals that look extremely dated and the sheer lack of polish all around firmly put this into the “Buy on Sale” category. Given the game’s rather high price on Steam too and the fact that there are far more rewarding Soulslike games out there such as Elex 2 or The Surge 2, it’s quite hard to recommend The Last Oricru unless it gets given some significant patches to fix its numerous problems. There was so much potential here and it seems like it was squandered.
Reviewed on PC and Xbox Series X/S
Developer: GoldKnights
Engine: Unreal Engine 4
Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Xbox Series X and Series S, PlayStation 5
Publishers: Prime Matter, Plaion
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