Play it on: Windows (Steam Deck OK)
Current goal: Stop wasting all my silver on heal potions

It’s beautiful when folks who grew up loving video games start making their own, spinning out fresh, oft-strange takes on touchstones from the past. That’s on my mind this week as I play Lunacid, a first-person dungeon actioner serving up a fresh mélange of grimy PlayStation aesthetics, Dark Souls, and most of all King’s Field. (It’s also kinda queer, and has amazing music.)

After choosing from nine classes (pick Forsaken if you want maximum suffering) you awaken in a dank pit of the damned. All you can do is start exploring the caverns ahead in hopes of someday finding an exit. It took me about an hour to start enjoying myself, but once everything began clicking I happily delved deeper for four hours straight.

With grody dithering and low-poly everything, Lunacid evinces a mastery of 32-bit PlayStation aesthetic. It looks like you remember King’s Field looking, while in reality FromSoft’s PSX dungeon crawls were far more primitive. Nowhere is the game’s modernization so apparent as in its controls. Whereas King’s Field barely managed “plodding” at its absolute peak, Lunacid always hums along at 60fps and, provided you level up your speed stat, lets you sprint around like a gazelle. This feels terrific on an Xbox pad.

Which stat should I level first?

Speed! Just trust me. IMO spend at least your first 10 levels just juicin’ that until movement starts feeling sweet. Shinobi starts with 15 speed, which makes it far and away the best class early on, for me. I uh, didn’t stop until 53…maybe I have a problem.

Perhaps Lunacid’s ultimate cred as a child of King’s Field comes from its lack of concern over jank. Its simple combat isn’t too terribly evolved over the formula FromSoft first put forth in 1994. Everything’s less sluggish now, but ultimately you’re just a camera orbiting stiffly moving beasts that possess a mere handful of animations apiece. Bayonetta this is not.

Just as the mechanical spartaness of King’s Field ultimately works, so too does Lunacid’s. It doesn’t attempt to replicate complex “AAA” Dark Souls-level action, nor should it waste resources trying. Instead, it champions some of Dark Souls’ other strengths: mood, exploration, quirk, loneliness, and charisma. All qualities Dark Souls inherited from King’s Field, now in good keeping with a new generation of creators. — Alexandra Hall