Cursemark – Beautiful, Challenging, and a Bit Repetitive

• DEVELOPER: CLYDE games
• PUBLISHER: Mad Mushroom
• PLATFORMS: PC
• GENRE: Rougelike / RPG
• RELEASE DATE: TBA
• STARTING PRICE: TBA
• REVIEWED VERSION: PC

Cursemark was a pleasant surprise. It combines Dark Souls-style combat with a Legend of Zelda-like world layout, Blasphemous-inspired visuals, and Hades-style boss fights. It’s not your typical roguelike, but it includes solid soulslike moments with RPG elements such as upgrading your gear and skills. Overall, it’s a strong game that can get a bit repetitive at times, but the more you play, the smoother and more rewarding it becomes.

Run-Based Progression with Magic, Runes, and Relics

The story is easily forgettable the moment you start playing, your main goal is to explore the Unkown Lands, a handcrafted world filled with ruins, wilderness, and threats. You have certain quests you need to do, but that’s pretty much it as you move from side of the map to the other. Some areas will be locked so you’ll need to find ways around and in my honest opinion it is slightly frustrating when the game forces you to move around instead of finding ways to unlock the doors in different ways.

Cursemark features a branching world filled with different biomes, bosses, enemies, relics, and secrets. It mixes careful exploration with fast-paced spell combat, letting you pick and unlock skills, plus there is a flexible rune system that lets you make unique builds on every run. Progression is run-based, with new paths, spells, and upgrades unlocking as you venture deeper, but if you die, you’ll have to start over.

On the way, you collect various resources, like Tears, which are used to unlock powerful magic abilities such as fire, light, electricity and many more. Runes add bonuses to your spells and weapons, and you also have an ultimate attack that deals massive damage. You can equip talismans that offer a wide array of bonuses for your character, like boosting armor or granting a damage increase when your HP is low.

Tough Battles That Reward Precision and Patience

You don’t have total freedom with spells since they aren’t randomly generated, but there’s still room to experiment and find the best builds. Exploration plays a big role, as you’ll need to find keys to open new areas and face tougher challenges. Enemies range from weaker ones like wolves and teleporting ghosts to armored knights and strange creatures that attack in different ways, both up close and from a distance.

Bosses can feel a bit too strong if your build isn’t ideal, but most fights are fair once you learn their attack patterns. Since you can dodge and even become invulnerable during certain abilities, it’s possible to take them down with practice. That said, some bosses have a huge amount of HP, which can be frustrating, but it also adds a real sense of challenge for players who enjoy tough battles.

While there are genuinely a lot of things to do, I personally wasn’t a huge fan of repeating everything from scratch. You can’t skip parts, meaning you have to defeat the same enemies all over again, even though you continuously unlock and upgrade new content. For example, in one run I had fully upgraded runes because I collected a lot of gems that allow for various upgrades, refusing to upgrade before that and failing to defeat a third boss.

Smooth Performance with a Few Rough Edges

When it comes to visuals, the game features beautifully crafted pixel art with a good amount of detail. The music can get a bit repetitive, but it’s easy to overlook because the world looks stunning. I have to admit, I didn’t expect such a solid experience. I did run into a few bugs, like clipping through buildings or not seeing enemies hidden under trees, and occasionally them getting stuck on walls. But aside from those small issues, the game runs smoothly and feels well put together.

If you’re looking for a game that offers a solid challenge and mixes different genres into something unique, Cursemark is worth checking out. It’s a good game, not spectacular, but it plays well, feels satisfying, and the bosses will definitely test your skills before you get the hang of things. It’s easy to recommend, though keep in mind it can start to feel a bit repetitive after a while.

Review copy provided by the publisher

4