Don’t Sleep On Realm Of Ink: Our Definitive PlayStation 5 Review
Step into a breathtaking world where beautiful hand-drawn art graphics and powerful swipes of colour illuminate your screen with absolute style. You are thrust straight into high-stakes action-adventure gameplay with roguelike progression that demands your absolute best reflexes. Every single run pulls you deeper into a gorgeous but dangerous world where massive boss encounters are a common, varied threat waiting around every corner. If you have played a game like Hades before, then you know what to expect, and this ink-stained journey is ready to leave its mark.
[Specs] [Gameplay] [Performance] [Settings]
Realm Of Ink PlayStation 5 Review
- Developer: Leap Game Studios
- Publisher: 663 Games
- Official Website: Realm of Ink Official Page
- Store Link: PlayStation Store UK Listing
- Download Size: 8.73GB download size.
- Trophies: Platinum trophy with 27 trophies in total to hunt down.
- Hub World: In between runs, you have this huge house to do all the character management stuff like clothing, skills, practice attacks, etc., and interact with the many colourful, intriguing characters of the world.
- Hub Progression: New features within your hub home unlock as you play, so you will, for a few times at least, get that sense of unlock.
- Character Customisation: Earn shards and unlock new costumes and clothing colours for your character.
- Encyclopedia: Full of a massive list of enemies, characters, items, locations, etc., to learn more about the world.
Realm Of Ink PlayStation 5 Review
The core gameplay loop here delivers pure, addictive action-adventure gameplay with roguelike progression. Each run will randomise locations, rooms, and enemies, etc., so it always feels fresh, keeping you on your toes. The game world is split into rooms, and clearing a room lets you progress, and at the same time, you pick which route to take, with each route giving a brief description of what to expect rewards-wise. Combat-wise, it’s very reflexive and slashy; you have a basic attack and a swinging blades attack, along with a dash to keep you mobile. You also have a pet that can attack, and you change its elements through pickups to change its appearance and abilities. There are 12 pets to unlock and equip on runs, and you can feed them in your hub home and increase their effectiveness. You can pick up abilities in a run and carry two, one for the left and one for the right, and again, depending on the element, it depends on the attacks you have. You also unlock an ultimate attack with a big cooldown, though thankfully, all abilities have cooldowns, and cooldowns are fast enough on relics that you can try them out when finding new ones.
The progression relies heavily on the Talent Stele, which is where you upgrade your stats and buffs using fox blood you earn from a run. It is a strict run-based gameplay loop, and you keep Fox blood to put into the skill tree and lose everything else upon death, where you get a breakdown of your run and rewards. I really like that even a bad run can usually still give some progress. As you play, you get to always choose new abilities or curios that can add new buffs and improve crit chances, and one thing that does make the loop more palatable is how much the weapons, abilities, relics, etc., mix it all up and keep it fresh. On a run, you will encounter shops where you can buy food to heal, chat with the locals, buy curios to increase stats and chances, and you can also upgrade abilities for the current run. You can also dispose of unwanted relics for materials, hunt down many breakable vases and pots that can drop coins randomly, and experience random events and interactions like exchanging huge amounts of health for a legendary elixir. Every run is timed, though I haven’t found it to have any impact on the game, but it’s there. As you go to new areas on the map, you can find these vista spots where you stand and get a cool flyover to the area, showing off the brilliant level design.
Realm Of Ink PlayStation 5 Review: Performance & Fidelity
- Art Style: The art style is fantastic and colourful, with its powerful swipes of colour illuminating the world alongside beautiful hand-drawn art graphics.
- Audio: Features great voice work and character narration as you go through the game to flesh out the journey.
- Combat Indicators: Excellent visual clarity during fights as you see where an enemy is going to attack, area of attack, etc., to help dodge out of the way.
- Visual Density: The game does get very reflex-heavy and requires quick movement, and if you get overwhelmed easily, then the game may not be for you, as it is visual overload and reflex-heavy. The further you go in the game, the more this happens.
- Atmospheric Drops: I did find that the game went quiet and flat at times, and I would lose interest in what was going on; it’s just like the atmosphere fell out of it.
Settings, Customisation & Control Details
- Control Responsiveness: The controls are very responsive and tight, which is perfect as this game would fall apart otherwise.
- Control Remapping: You can fully remap the controls to suit your layout preferences.
- Video Settings: Includes adjustments for Hit Impact effect, ink relic VFX, Curio VFX, Ability VFX, and ink pet VFX.
- Game Settings: Options for language, aim assist, strong aim assist, damage numbers, enable screen shake, and a vibration strength slider.
- Accessibility Difficulty: Fox hair brush difficulty is an optional setting in each new run, where you make the game a bit easier and, in turn, earn Fox blood at a slower pace.
- Onboarding: Begins with an opening tutorial section, then you get pop-ups as you play and a main help menu and button prompts. The tutorial is more for attacks and controls, and everything else I found I just picked up along the way, which is fine, but not ideal. The relics for your abilities and everything are not well explained in-game, for example.
- Upgrade Information: I like how in-depth the upgrade information is; you get told everything before upgrading at the Talent Stele.
Related Gert Lush Gaming Reviews
- Hades 2 PlayStation 5 Review
- Dead Cells PlayStation 5 Review
- Curse Of The Dead Gods PlayStation 5 Review
Realm Of Ink PlayStation 5
Summary
GOOD STUFF
The beautiful hand-drawn art graphics are fantastic and colourful, utilising powerful swipes of colour that beautifully illuminate the world. The combat is wonderfully reflex-focused and slashy, backed up by controls that are incredibly responsive and tight, which is completely vital since the whole game would fall apart otherwise. The variety here is excellent, featuring massive boss encounters that are common and varied, keeping you on your toes. I really love how much the weapons, abilities, and relics mix things up to keep the loop fresh, and the fact that even a bad run usually gives you some tangible progress means your time is always respected. Plus, having the highly detailed upgrade information laid out clearly before you commit to spending your hard-earned fox blood is a brilliant touch.
BAD STUFF
On the downside, the onboarding leaves a lot to be desired because the tutorial focuses almost entirely on basic attacks and controls. Everything else has to be picked up along the way, which works well enough, but is definitely not ideal since core mechanics like the relics for your abilities are not well-explained at all in-game. I also found that the overall atmosphere could be incredibly uneven; the game frequently goes dead quiet and flat at times, making me lose interest entirely as if the whole vibe just fell right out of it. Finally, you need to be warned that the visual presentation can trigger a massive visual overload. It gets incredibly reflex-heavy the further you progress, meaning if you get overwhelmed easily by chaotic screens, this loop will likely stress you out.
FINAL VERDICT
Realm of Ink delivers an exceptionally strong and stylish action package on the PlayStation 5. While I am honestly not a fan of the story and the clumsy way it is doled out to the player, the moment-to-moment gameplay is undeniably spectacular. For pure, chaotic roguelike action, its tight combat and deep build variety place it right up there with the absolute best of them in the genre. If you can tolerate a few quiet atmospheric lulls and a steep visual learning curve, this ink-stained gauntlet is well worth your time.
