Vambrace: Cold Soul

Vambrace has the art, sound and story direction of a top-flight RPG, bolted onto a badly designed roguelite.

Vambrace: Cold Souls is one of the best-looking games we've seen on Switch – it really is a stunner – but in terms of gameplay, it's a pedestrian affair. Dungeons are boring and difficult, combat is bereft of any real strategic depth or flair and it thinks nothing of wasting hours of your time for zero reward. The story gets off to a cracking start and it's obvious that an amazing amount of artistic talent has been channelled into creating the City of Icenaire and its surroundings, but, in the end, it's all rendered a little pointless by the fact it's attached to such a monotonous and dreary plod of an RPG.

If the art style and graphic execution are superb, its soundtrack fits the environment perfectly and the plot is carefully crafted, the gameplay experience falls short of expectations and as an RPG, it feels like a rather banal effort. While certainly not a bad game, Vambrance: Cold Soul gives the impression that it could be much more but instead, it doesn't leave the territory of an average experience, without any gameplay elements that would make it stand out.

Vambrace: Cold Soul is not bad, but it quickly becomes a mindless, repetitive, grinding slog of the same battles that require very little strategy, not to mention the lack of any sort of enemy variety.

Vambrace: Cold Soul is not a bad game. However, in addition to over-requested bugs and downfalls, the player must deal with a difficulty he may not be willing to. Even in the easiest way things are difficult, so think carefully before you buy it.

If you fit in Vambrace: Cold Soul's niche audience, you'll definitely have a fun time but overall, it's a tough game to widely recommend.

I liked Vambrace: Cold Soul, but it's certainly not for everyone. It requires more patience than many gamers can afford, and that's even among those who are already into roguelikes. If you can settle into its groove, however (and won't lose it when you're sucker-punched right out of that groove), there's some good, challenging fun to be had here.

Be warned Vambrace: Cold Soul starts out challenging. If you realize what you're getting yourself into, and go in expecting that you'll die quite a bit early on, then your persistence will lead to a fun, visually beautiful and rewarding experience.

It looks gorgeous enough, but will you ever warm up to the combat in this rogue-lite dungeon crawler?

Vambrace: Cold Soul falls down in almost every way that matters, and there are far better games out there more worthy of your time.