EvilQuest

I have a soft spot for small games that commit fully to a single weird idea, and EvilQuest commits hard: you are the villain, there is no redemption arc, and the story ends with Galvis killing God. That premise alone separates it from the sea of retro-RPG nostalgia bait, even if the execution is rougher than its ambitions suggest. The moment-to-moment play sits somewhere between Crystalis and the old SNES overhead action-RPGs, with real-time combat, a lightweight attribute system where you distribute stat points on level-up, and a spell roster that eventually grows to 14 usable magics. Dungeons span about 15 distinct levels, moving from sewers to an ice cave to a pyramid and out into an Astral Plane portal maze near the end. Boss encounters are the clear highlight: they are large, varied, and feel genuinely authored rather than reskinned. The spritework on enemies and bosses carries real craft, and the soundtrack leans into bass-heavy, almost ominous compositions that suit a world-conquering dark knight far better than you might expect from a micro-budget indie. Here is where honesty matters, though. Balance across the game is inconsistent in ways that critics flagged and the Steam community confirms. Magic costs can feel punishing early, and the final dungeon particularly piles on enemies and a teleporter maze that tests patience more than skill. The writing around Galvis sits in an odd middle space: he is petty and absurd in ways that edge toward dark comedy, but the game never fully leans into the joke, which means some dialogue lands as unintentionally silly rather than intentionally wry. Players who pump stats into Strength or Intelligence can also break the difficulty curve in the opposite direction, turning late-game enemies into non-events. The game is self-aware enough to be charming, not quite self-aware enough to be sharp. For its length, around four to five hours for a relaxed playthrough, none of that is fatal. The villain-protagonist angle remains genuinely underexplored in retro RPGs, and EvilQuest was early enough to the idea that it still feels distinct. Chaosoft built everything from scratch, original art, original animation, original music, and that handcraft shows even when the polish does not. The Steam community sits at a strong positive rating built over years of players who found exactly what they came for: a short, strange, cheerfully evil romp through pixel dungeons that does not overstay its welcome.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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