A Quiver of Crows Preview

By Nate Lakritz
10 years Ago

Side-scrolling shooters keep getting improved and reinvented over the years&period; Somehow, such a straightforward genre consistently produces some of the best video games known to man&period; In any time period, you can easily find a great scrolling shooter with the same core gameplay elements that were first present in Defender&period; Some shout-outs go to Contra, R-Type, and Gradius&period; It’s also common to find sequels and remakes to some of these older shoot-&OpenCurlyQuote;em-ups on modern consoles&period; Indie developers often turn to the genre since it’s a proven formula (as long as you add your own unconventional twist)&period; A Quiver of Crows falls into this category, and the added personal touch includes original artwork and an exploration factor&period; It uses the common side-scrolling shooter elements, but brings a bit more to the genre&period;&NewLine;A Quiver of Crows has a distinct art style that makes it appeal to interested gamers&period; It uses shading and layered landscapes to display a Gothic three-dimensional world&period; Badland, a popular game developed by the same studio, also employs this method&period; Both games give off a creepy atmosphere and don’t tell you much about the world you’re playing in&period; Most of the story is extremely vague and leaves the player to create it themselves&period; When games make imagination a key factor to enjoyment, they risk losing a portion of their audience&period; Some people simply cannot imagine the story, even when presented with great artwork and gameplay&period; I fell into this category while playing A Quiver of Crows, and had difficulty figuring out what was happening in the game outside of shooting enemies&period; I’m sure there’s a ton of symbolism and metaphors all over A Quiver of Crows, but I couldn’t quite break past the surface of the game&period; The enemies look like mouths, the setting often changes, and your objective as a whole is non-existent&period; Chances are that the story is right in front of me, but the problem is that I’m not seeing it&period;&NewLine;<figure id="attachment&lowbar;107602" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-107602" style="width&colon; 1920px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="wp-image-107602 size-full" src="https&colon;//cdn&period;bagogames&period;com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/03153353/a-quiver-of-crows&lowbar;009&period;jpg" alt="A Quiver of Crows 1" width="1920" height="1080" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-107602" class="wp-caption-text">The bridge between good and evil&period; (A Quiver of Crows, Sheado&period;net)</figcaption></figure>&NewLine;Gameplay mechanics are very basic and easy to understand&period; The goal in each stage is to find three crows and free them from their cages&period; Along the way, you’ll be bombarded with enemies that are designed to follow you around&period; They are absolutely relentless, and can quickly create angry mobs that require tons of firepower to bring down&period; Some enemies fire projectiles at you that fill the screen with danger&period; Strangely, the dead bodies of enemies do not disintegrate, and pile up in each level&period; The bodies will sometimes get in your way and demonstrate the Gothic nature of the game&period; At the end of each level, you’ll receive a power-up that improves your basic or special attacks&period; &NewLine;Exploration is what makes A Quiver of Crows unique&period; The crows you need to rescue are located in different areas across a maze-like map&period; Tunneling underground, maneuvering around obstacles, and frequently checking your map are all common occurrences throughout the game&period; Other side-scrollers are limited to left and right screen movement, while A Quiver of Crows lets you go vertically at times&period; Although the general sense of each level is horizontal, the vertical plane is a refreshing feature&period;&NewLine;<figure id="attachment&lowbar;107604" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-107604" style="width&colon; 1920px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="wp-image-107604 size-full" src="https&colon;//cdn&period;bagogames&period;com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/03153309/steamworkshop&lowbar;webupload&lowbar;previewfile&lowbar;370082836&lowbar;preview&period;png" alt="A Quiver of Crows 2" width="1920" height="1080" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-107604" class="wp-caption-text">Flying mouths are scary in any context&period; (A Quiver of Crows, Sheado&period;net)</figcaption></figure>&NewLine;A Quiver of Crows actually forces you to face your fears&period; Several times, I desperately tried to avoid the hideous flying monsters who will do anything to hunt you down and kill you&period; I attempted to barrel through an entire level to reach the finish line, blasting down anything blocking my way with explosive abilities&period; Sadly, the strategy was futile, as the sheer number of opponents was overwhelming&period; The only way to beat a level is to slowly advance and face each and every enemy present on the map&period; Some will re-spawn once or even twice, but winning is impossible unless you keep beating them down&period; Leaving some enemies alive will unexpectedly hurt you once they pile up and hurl themselves into your face a minute later&period; A local co-op mode allows players to progress through A Quiver of Crows together&period; Fighting enemies with a companion by your side is always more fun than being alone&period; I do wish online multiplayer was also an option in order to give more freedom to the multiplayer mode, but it’s nice to see a game that still recognizes local multiplayer as popular&period;&NewLine;<figure id="attachment&lowbar;107603" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-107603" style="width&colon; 1920px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="wp-image-107603 size-full" src="https&colon;//cdn&period;bagogames&period;com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/03153333/kHtbwHN&period;png" alt="A Quiver of Crows 3" width="1920" height="1080" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-107603" class="wp-caption-text">Some co-op action&excl; (A Quiver of Crows, Sheado&period;net)</figcaption></figure>&NewLine;A Quiver of Crows is a solid shooter with some original elements&period; As I previously mentioned, an online multiplayer option in the final version would be welcome by most, if not all players&period; Also, I’d enjoy watching some early cut-scenes that explain the backstory of the crows and their world&period; Even though symbolism is a great style of storytelling, the less imaginative players like me need some level of concrete information&period; I don’t think A Quiver of Crows is meant to re-define its genre or even become one of the most popular games of the year&period; It’s an artistic journey that’s sure to entertain and pose a challenge to anyone who plays it&period;&NewLine;<hr />&NewLine;A PC preview code was provided by Sheado for the purpose of this preview&NewLine;

Categories: Game Previews, PC Previews
Tags: Games PC Shoot-'em-up side scroller Top Stories

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