Okayish
HIGH Zipping thr… oh my God, that’s Mink from Dragon Half!
LOW The retro platforming gameplay is remarkably pedestrian.
WTF Actually, how many people will recognize Mink in the first place?
Dammit! Our princess is away in another castle, and the Devil King has her in his nefarious clutches! What’s a blue-clad hero to do but set off on a noble quest to rescue the object of his affections from such a heinous predicament?
This is the setup for Lovish, a comedy adventure that kicks things off with Sir Solomon and his party heading out to kick the Devil King’s ass and rescue the princess from his tower. However, Solomon is more than a little concerned she’ll fall for a member of his party instead of him, so he impulsively dumps them in a moat outside the castle and heads in alone.
Why’s he so sure she’ll fall in love with him? Well, Sir Solomon has an ace in the hole — a special helmet with which he can laserbeam anyone in the vicinity, forcing them to fall in love with him on the spot. This is a power which I’m going to file away under the category ‘Morally Dubious’, but it’s okay because he’s… going to use it on the princess so that she falls in love with him? Yikes.
Okay, Sir Solomon is clearly some sort of predator and should be arrested immediately if not sooner. However, he’s also the protagonist of Lovish so I guess we’re going to be on his side from this point forth? Let’s get this ethically questionable adventure on the road!
As a reasonably faithful NES-era-themed platforming romp, there isn’t a great deal of nuance to the gameplay. Solomon has but a single hit point from the outset and can initially do little more than hop around and whack enemies with his sword. Foes can take a beating, but if they even graze our hero, he’ll be killed stone-dead and will lose one life from his stockpile of two hundred lives.
Yes, I said two hundred lives, so expect to die a lot during Lovish. It’s the kind of experience where players will zoom through a tightly-timed obstacle course, only to get impaled by hidden spikes that suddenly punch out of the ground when they think they’re safe.
Movement feels blocky in an authentic 8-Bit fashion, but sometimes the enemies and traps don’t have entirely accurate hitboxes, leading to some weird ‘gotcha’ moments involving questionable deaths. It’s not a super difficult adventure, but it can still be punishing.
Thankfully, Sir Solomon can obtain a few upgrades to help even the odds such as an extra hit point, a speedy dash to dart through danger, and a pogo stick-style sword attack that allows him to bounce off enemies, though there’s little here that hasn’t been seen before in countless other titles.
Stages in Lovish are rarely larger than a single room. Solomon trots in, has to navigate a gauntlet of enemies and traps littering the space, and escape through a door at the end which sometimes also needs a key found elsewhere in the stage to unlock it. Obtaining said key can sometimes be easier than getting out with it, given that floors will sometimes break away under Solomon’s footsteps leaving no way back, or new hazards will suddenly appear upon picking it up.
At the end of every so many levels, a boss lies in wait to shake things up. These encounters aren’t too hard as a general rule, with simple attack patterns and acceptable amounts of health to chew through. It’s a smart choice given that players can withstand one hit, at the most. They typically have some unique quirk like having to reflect projectiles at them, or getting a few stabs in as they scurry across the stage from one side to the next. If they were significantly more durable or had more complex patterns, I’ve no doubt frustration would begin to seep in before vanquishing them.
There are also loads of hidden crowns to be found in each stage. The first type is usually found hidden away in a wall or object that needs to be uncovered by attacking it with Solomon’s sword. Or maybe it’ll appear after collecting all coins in a level, killing every enemy in sight, or leaving them all alive… but typically it’s the equivalent of Castlevania Wall Chicken. Smack them walls and uncover the reward.
The second and third types of crown are more uniformly achieved by simply finishing a stage without hurting any enemies or rushing through it within a specified time limit, though these can’t be completed until passing a certain point in the adventure. In short, expect to repeat already-completed areas multiple times in order to unlock some major secrets, including a sizable amount of extra stages.
I’d say it’s worth going the extra mile to uncover the final batch of levels, several of which are instantly recognizable as tributes to classic NES titles and are often more interesting than many of the base stages. It’s just a shame that it’s topped off by a car wreck of a secret boss who’s only vulnerable when he deigns to be, aside from a narrow window of opportunity that feels more like a glitch than an intentional gameplay mechanic.
Between each level there are oddball cutscene hijinks to experience, including Solomon avoiding phone calls from his mother, jumping down a well that either leads to a collection of coins or instant death, Mink from Dragon Half (!!) roasting an enemy alive, tripping and knocking a tooth out, getting unexpected mail from someone who isn’t exactly an ardent admirer… the list goes on, occasionally veering into the territory of short minigames and Quick Time Events.
Honestly, I think these off-kilter interstitial sequences are great. However, even with dozens of them to discover along the way, it won’t be long before they start repeating and their charm starts to erode almost immediately afterwards — except the one with Mailbird. Mailbird kicks ass.
So, that’s Lovish. It’s not bad… but it’s not great. Without the insane sense of humor and quality retro styling, I probably wouldn’t give it a moment’s thought. But, it does have those qualities, and uses them to excellent effect, even while the gameplay is disappointingly pedestrian. It has some neat quirks, amusing throwbacks and charm aplenty, but overall it’s nothing to brainwash a princess over.
Rating: 5 out of 10
Disclosures: This game is developed by LABS Works and published by DANGEN Entertainment. It is currently available on ???. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 6 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed, with 172 out of 264 crowns collected and all major postgame content finished.
Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Fantasy Violence, Language. It’s an 8-Bit themed platformer with the usual dangers such as spikes and cartoon monsters. In between levels comedy skits can show events such as the hero being squashed by boulders, taking an arrow to the noggin or losing a tooth after tripping. The hero also gets called a ‘little shit’ in one of them, so some minor bad language use.
Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.
 Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game’s dialogue and narration is delivered via text. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. There are no mechanics that require the use of sound to be successful, so I’d say it’s fully accessible.
Remappable Controls: I couldn’t find a way to remap the controls or view a control sheet, which is surprising. X jumps, Square smacks things, Circle dashes. It’s pretty standard for this type of game, with occasional minigame diversions very occasionally shaking things up.
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