Pharaonic
Milkstone Studios · 2016 · Souls-like, Action RPG, Exploration, Hack and Slash, 2.5D
PC
Mostly Positive77% · 244
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About Pharaonic
✦ AI summary
Pharaonic is a punishing side-scrolling combat-RPG set in Ancient Egypt where you must master stamina-based combat, collect gear, and unlock divine powers to uncover the truth behind Ahmosis I and survive a kingdom full of brutal enemies. It combines Dark Souls-style tactical combat with faster-paced 2D exploration, demanding precision and patience as a single mistake means death.
In Ancient Egypt, death awaits at every corner
Pharaonic is an unforgiving sidescrolling Combat-RPG set in Ancient Egypt. Explore a vast kingdom full of dangers and brutal enemies while you find the truth behind Ahmosis I, the Red Pharaoh.
Only the most audacious warriors will have any chance of success. The Pharaoh's army and countless dangerous creatures will stand in your way.
Original and streamlined combat system
Polish your combat skills to the finest and loot the best gear possible to even have the slightest chance of overcoming this difficult endeavor. Will you opt for lightweight equipment, trusting on your agility to avoid death? Or will you prefer to take the blow and strike back even harder? The decision is entirely yours to make.
Get ready to challenge the gods
Throughout your path you will find help from the Daughters of Ishtar, as well as the oppresed countrymen. Learn new skills and subdue divine powers to overcome your opponents. Drink from your life-water canteen to heal your wounds, and acquire new equipment that will help you avoid death one more day.
It's a tough journey, but the Gods believe in you. Will you be worthy of that honor?
Pharaonic takes the excellent combat design of Dark Souls and adapts it to a faster paced side-scrolling environment. Use your shield to block and parry incoming attacks, manage your stamina and wait for your chance to attack and defeat your enemies. A single mistake can be fatal, so stay on your toes to avoid making any.
Features
- Explore an Ancient Egypt full of traps and treacherous enemies
- Exhaustive, refined and satisfying combat system.
- Complete character customization, with hundreds of pieces of equipment at your disposal.
- Face impressive bosses and their minions in epic fights full of tension.
- Talk with plenty of colorful characters to fill the blanks in your memory and learn what's happening to the kingdom.
- Lots of secondary paths to explore, full of treasures and traps.
- Dozens of weapons and shields with different combat styles.
- Use the powers of the Gods and cast spells that will help you in your journey.
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
I enjoyed this game, but objectively speaking, it's not an extraordinary one. Pharaonic faithfully follows the Souls-like recipe, but in 2D. The gameplay is therefore slow, the player must analyze enemy animations and attack accordingly. There's a "quick" attack, a powerful attack, a shield to parry or counter, and a dodge. Healing is done either with a flask or, towards the end, with an equipped item "spell". Progression takes place in levels with many branching paths, making it quite maze-like, contrary to what the 2D aesthetic might suggest. The environments are quite varied, as are the enemies. And even though the graphics are rather simple, I find them quite beautiful. The theme is original but the story is quite basic. There are also some NPC with few lines of flavor text, and sometimes some requests. So what's wrong with Pharaonic? Not much, but at the same time, the game doesn't do enough. Our character's stats are rudimentary, as are the few character progression options. Overall, the game doesn't evolve from beginning to end. But the adventure isn't very long, so boredom doesn't have much time to set in. Although each level are quite maze-like, the adventure ultimately …2 found this helpful
uff. One of those games where I sincerely doubt the developers played it themselves. The relatively untouched setting and 2,5-D-perspective is already the most positiv-ish one can say about Pharaonic. Visually/creatively bland, basically only two types of enemies copypasted endlessly (light and heavy - even most bosses are just an iteration of one), painfully slow combat (hit-hit-wait for enemy attack-dodge and repeat for the overly long healthbar), every movement feels like being underwater, nonsensical and inconsistent hitboxes and -detection (for the player as well as the enemies), grindy leveling and so forth. Was even to boring for killing the time while waiting in the hospital bed. Runs well enough on the Deck at least.1 found this helpful
Good Game 11/10
Judging from the other reviews, this is a highly underrated game; sure enough bringing souls-like mechanics to a 2Dish environment could feel strange, however the gameplay is curated and well-thought, with many and diverse weapons, skills, rings, spells, enemies, boss fights and maps. On top of this, truly great settings, great egyptian vibes with many references to their cult and religion. Great sound design as well. Story is also good. I also very much appreciated that enemies' gender is randomly chosen.
I had already played it back on PS4 but had to get it again for PC. I still think this game is a lot of fun and underrated. A very well done, challenging 2.5D Souls-like game with a fresh setting. I also like the art style a lot. Not the most demanding graphics, but it just feels nostalgic in a good way, a bit like fun PS2 games in prettier. I would wish the devs would return to this game some day and make a second one in the series. Great fun!
Combat is 95% of this game and it is just clunky and bad, mixed with an uncompelling story and weird 2.5D dark souls system (which I did actually like, I just think it wasn't implemented super well) I'd give this game a pass.
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