In the winter of 2021, I finally played through the critically acclaimed game Hades, and became instantly hooked. I sank hours upon hours climbing to the surface and fighting enemies along the way. Once I thought I had eaten my fill, I found myself craving more. In my search for something to scratch the itch which Hades instilled in me, I found Warm Snow. After 10 hours of playing through multiple runs, here is what I have discovered.

Upon starting the game, you are introduced to the three basic abilities which serve as the base for your run; dash, attack, and sword throw. These abilities can be modified by selecting a statue to pray to at the beginning of each run, where the game originally only gives you access to one (the rest can be unlocked by defeating the various bosses of the game). Beyond that, it’s up to you and your straw-hat wearing protagonist to make it through each encounter with the core abilities. 

Along the way you can find relics, which are items adding on to the effects of your basic actions. These range from firing arrows and bombs with certain abilities to imbuing your attacks with certain elemental properties. Across my many attempts I was able to utilize a few select favorites, namely the Qi Herb, Thunder Stone, Ambrosia and the Seed of Life.

Players can also acquire skills, which modify your stats and can cause certain effects. These effects often increase things such as attack speed, crit chance or attack damage. However, some of them offer trade-offs in order to gain major boosts. My personal favorite is Damnation, which increases your attack by 300% but cuts your defense by 300%. This effectively turns your character into a glass cannon, allowing you to deal massive damage at the risk of massive punishment. The one bonus to this skill is that you can regain defense as you lose health, softening the blows as you get hit.

Finally, players can pick up a wide variety of Excaliburs across the game, which can harness the relics you have picked up throughout your journey to further enhance their effects. When combined with the boons gained from whatever deity you choose to worship at the beginning of each run, they can create fiercely satisfying builds capable of tearing through whatever challenge the game puts before you. 

With these three components the game offers an all-you-can-eat buffet of builds which lets players mix and match blades and buffs to suit their play style. This also gives the more strategic player a challenge to seek out the various relics and excaliburs necessary to create deadly combinations. However, the search for better relics and excaliburs often left me feeling underwhelmed, spending entire runs searching for a specific item only to find a low-level sharp fang or pearl around the corner. However, the moments where I found the perfect items at the perfect times make up for the moments where my luck ran dry.

The combat of the Warm Snow offers a rich and fast paced system based on the simple elements mentioned prior. While the early encounters of the game can often be challenging, I found myself quickly getting a grip and starting a build that managed to sweep through whatever obstacles remained. Therein lies the brain melt. When you hit that perfect build, when everything falls together in perfect harmony, time falls away. I found myself able to just kick back and relax as I played, giving a genuinely pleasing experience as your damage numbers float across the screen and enemies fall like dominoes.

The game’s narrative, unlike Hades, hardly interested me. The characters you meet throughout the game often felt closer to finger puppets with a mechanical purpose rather than a truly involved character. The design and art of these characters, especially when paired with the environment, gave a visually pleasing experience however often fell flat upon looking below the surface.

The game does offer snippets of world building in the form of small items and books which can be found throughout your runs. These objects come with small descriptions and are used to form an overarching story, which can be unlocked upon collecting all three items, usually giving the full tale and some sort of small reward. However, I was unable to enjoy these little stories to their fullest. The producer of the game, BadMudStudio, is based in China. As the game isn’t a major production, they do not have options for English voice acting. However, the game still offers English text, so I was able to understand the written dialogue. 

Conclusion

Warm Snow presents a fresh take on the Rogue-Like genre, giving plenty of opportunities for replayability and readily presents both challenge and carnage. Despite its shortcomings in narrative and occasionally choppy presentation, it makes up for them with a heavily engaging and complex system of combat.