Codex Lost

I want to like this game so badly, but it's awful. I love the premise of playing a soulslike dedicated to magic, and am really interested in the spellcrafting progression system. You don't need to find the one person or chest that has the spell you're interested in, you find the components naturally as you play. The variety also looks great. The game just feels bad to play. Like truly awful. It's very very common to be caught on small level geometry. The animations of hitting enemies and being hit don't feel impactful, they feel muddy. You cannot buffer dodges or blocks in hitstun, meaning to block attack strings you have to mash the input to make sure you don't immediately die to a blender. I took a break from the game after being caught in the middle of an open room by a small spider, "cornered" by a small standing torch and an ankle-high portion of a ramp, unable to roll past their small body nor stunlock them with a quick string of melee ranged spells. This had been the last jank straw that broke me. Today I came back to give it another try, and started making some attempts at a stone soldier boss fight in an open room. The fight felt muddy and awkward, and after failing an …

Two Hours Was More Than Enough — Codex Lost Is an Exercise in Frustration I gave Codex Lost a little over two hours because I genuinely wanted to give it a fair chance. That was more than enough. This is one of those games where "Soulslike" seems to have been interpreted as "make everything unnecessarily awkward and frustrating." Difficulty is one thing. Bad game design is another. The combat is probably my biggest complaint. Targeting is terrible. Locking onto the enemy you actually want to attack feels far less reliable than it has any right to be in a game whose entire combat system revolves around ranged spellcasting. Fighting the controls and camera is not challenging gameplay—it is just irritating. Then there are the controls themselves. You cannot even properly remap them. In a modern PC/console game, particularly an action RPG where timing and muscle memory are fundamental to combat, this is ridiculous. Players have different controllers, different preferences, different accessibility requirements, and decades of experience with different control layouts. Apparently, Codex Lost has decided that none of that matters. Movement feels equally dated. The character canno…

This seemed fun at first glance, but it didn't grab me at all. - The controls aren't intuitive. - Too many rubbish items early on just made it confusing. - Combat was okay but very straight forward. - The story is semi-interesting, but ultimately it wasn't enough to keep me going. I have high hopes for the formula and I see that they're working on a sequel. If they can get it right on that one I'd for sure play it.

Note: With just one boss to finish, couldn't reach him, because I couldn't resolve the River of Light crystal color puzzle even after watching many times 3 different videos and trying to draw a map and follow the steps. Uninstalled, what a pity. But still, one of the best games I've ever played, and no doubt about it ! *********************** FINAL SCORE FOR ME: 9/10, ** but should have been an easy 10/10 **. Why? Game is absolutely brilliant in every aspect. But as happens often, a dev gets enamored by a very clever idea, and turns it into a hard place: Especially the River of Light, had me stumped for days, till I uninstalled the game. Past that was the last boss of the game. Even so I treasure the game as it its an amazing feat and I enjoyed it so very much. ---- The Dritolith, green crystal floor slabs angle changing as you change your direction. There are the many white ovalish lights. If north is the back where the teleport circle exit is : The secret is targeting white lights, the farther accepted the better in the north or south ends, so when you move your view angle is less wide, and also the slabs angle moves will be lesser. Move forward or backwards looking at t…

great world map, lots of diverse environs and enemy variety, however just way too buggy and the npc have the worst voice over i've ever heard and they talk for hours each of nothing could've been great

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the game. Yes, some parts were incredibly janky. Yes, some levels made me annoyed, some enemies i just ran away from (looking at you ghost ships). But for a solo dev to come up with this, going the way of only allowing a playthrough as a mage and cramming so much love and lore into the game i can ignore these minor grievances and i'm really looking forward to the second one.