The ARPG genre, once a cradle of innovation and a starting point for many popular franchises, is now dominated by a handful of titles. While smaller-scale indie games rarely compete in this market, it’s a refreshing and much-needed occurrence to push the genre forward with fresh takes and new elements.
Coridden, developed by Aftnareld and published by Anshar Publishing, is a single-player or co-op Action RPG about four siblings with shapeshifting abilities, trying to discover the secrets of ancient technology. Coridden offers a deep and complicated RPG system with many customization options, fast-paced combat, and beautiful visual design. The results are pretty impressive considering the small team of two that developed this game.
I played Coridden both on my own and in co-op with a friend, and while certain systems and abilities seem to be designed around multiple players, the single-player experience is enjoyable as well. We play as one of the four siblings, trying to prove our prowess in the city’s arena. Our father has left us each a pair of gauntlets that he has scavenged in mysterious ruins, and before the fight in the arena begins, something strange happens with the gauntlets. We are transported into a simulation where we learn our gauntlets give us the power to shapeshift into various beasts, and the artificial intelligence within the gauntlets informs us that the devices have a defect, and we need to find a way to repair them soon or we might face devastating malfunctions.
Over the lifespan of the ARPG genre, both players and developers have slowly pushed the storytelling to the background, to the point that in today’s competitive scene, the story of popular titles feels like an afterthought. Coridden‘s story tries to take center stage, and while it is engaging in the beginning, the quality just can’t keep up with the pace of the gameplay and systems within the game. Important characters are voice-acted, and the performances are often quite good, but they are inconsistent, and most dialogues with side NPCs feel less important. We started to skip most dialogue scenes and read the quest log later to see what we were supposed to do. In my co-op sessions, I also encountered a problem with multiple players selecting different dialogue options. I imagine when more than two players are playing and select different options, the one with the most votes is selected, but the choice feels random when I was playing with one friend and we each chose a different option.
While Coridden is designed with multiplayer co-op as a main focus, the UI and the implementation of multiplayer functions are very bare-bones. There isn’t a way to directly invite friends over from Steam and we needed to create a lobby. Choosing characters and saves for starting a co-op game feels unintuitive and it would take us a couple tries each time to continue our game properly. The game doesn’t remember the setting for the lobby we were creating, and if we forgot to set a password random players could join our game. And there is no chat function in the game if we even want to play with other people. There is no way to trade items or gold or see other players’ abilities, and considering some quests had limited items and we had to choose which character would get it, with the confusing dialogue option system we could end up with the tanky character getting two ranged weapons and the ranged character left empty-handed.
The controls and gameplay design of Coridden prioritize a controller rather than a mouse and keyboard. The game is still playable with both, and I tried both, but the movement, abilities, and attacks feel much smoother on a controller. I imagine this also translates well for local co-op as well. Just be aware if you don’t have access to a controller, that MKB controls can feel a little janky from time to time.
If we look past these problems, the RPG systems in the game are quite rewarding. The classes and talent tree while not as spectacular as the infamous Path of Exile talent tree, still offers tons of various play styles and customizations that made me want to play multiple characters and see what each one was like. The loot and item upgrade systems are quite simple compared to the endless currencies and upgrades present in other games in the genre, but still offer meaningful progression. We have limited energy in our human and beast forms, so once we run out in one form, we need to switch to the other to keep fighting and let our other form regain energy. This makes the combat much more engaging, alleviates the need for consumables like health or mana potions, and introduces more build variations and strategies to the game.
The visual design of Coridden looks amazing at first, but some issues show up with a deeper glance. The character design looks stylistic, but some armor designs just don’t match the vibes and look out of place. The environment design is varied and beautiful, but certain elevated angles in the top-down view completely block your character and enemies. The UI is simple and understandable, except for the map and quest navigation which could use a bit more clarity. Some NPCs have their portraits shown during dialogue, and the art looks great, but most NPCs don’t have any portraits. These inconsistencies can be seen enough that make me think Coridden could have used some more development time to polish the game.
Coridden‘s voiceover (for the few characters that have them), the sound design, and especially the soundtrack are absolutely fantastic. The epic fantasy score fits perfectly with the theme of the world and the pacing of combat, and it makes the deluxe edition with the original soundtrack a very appealing option in my opinion.
Coridden, with its complex RPG mechanics and customizations, shapeshifting and fast-paced action, simple yet rewarding loot system, and local or online co-op, feels like an exciting and small entry in the ARPG genre that stands out with interesting innovations and simplifications to a genre that can often feel very intimidating to new players. The lack of polish in several aspects is holding it back from becoming one of the most impressive indie games of the year, but it’s pretty close, and a worthwhile purchase for most players.
Nima played Coridden on PC with a review code.