Graven Review: Supernatural Combat Meets Resource Management (PC)

If there’s a chance of saving your loved one, what would you do? For Graven, it’s journeying through a land of death for even a sliver of hope. It’s obvious that the world is in a horrible place and the undead are knocking at every step. Pick up your staff and learn some magic, because you don’t stand a chance without either of them.

Graven is not an easy game by design; it is meant to test your skills in resource management. Healing is rare, enemies are numerous, and even the slightest mistake gets you killed. It’s not a game that’s easy to learn as by the time you do learn, it might be too late. Paired with a lack of navigation and it’s a punishing game that might force you to give up. Lowering the difficulty might help and with sufficient practice, it’s a challenging game that puts your skills to the test.

Graven is available on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch for 24.99 USD.

Story – Fighting Hordes Of Undead

You step into the shoes of a priest who lost his daughter due to a conflict. He learns of her potential survival and embarks on a journey to bring her back. This journey brings him to a small town infested with undead, with the survivors barely holding them back. You must fight your way through the undead, searching for answers while helping everyone survive a little longer.

Similar to REMORE: Infested Kingdom, the story serves as your main motivation and you get fragments of exposition by searching notes. A journal helps you remember what your main objective is but there isn’t much of the story to tell. The lack of characters keeps your focus on fighting enemies and conversation takes a backseat. Who you meet and the enemies you fight aren’t related to the story for the most part. It’s going from one place to the next while fighting to complete your objectives.

You arrive on a boat and that’s where the fun stops.

While the story serves as motivation for the priest, their goal is almost unrelated to the situation at hand. It’s easy to forget that there is a motivation behind your actions because you spend most of your time struggling. You don’t get much interaction from other characters other than knowing where to go. Having more story emphasis would be nice but the real appeal is the challenging gameplay that you must endure.

Gameplay – Limited Resources, Lots Of Undead

Graven is a first-person adventure similar to Contraband Police, where you approach targets with melee and ranged weapons. You walk around areas looking for tools to help you solve puzzles while you fight various amounts of undead. These range from skeletons to shambling zombies, eventually evolving into flying monsters and vicious beasts. You start the game with your trusty staff, but eventually get a larger arsenal.

While first-person action games provide a mix of melee and ranged weapons, Graven adds magic to the mix. Your spells range from a fire stream to lightning strikes that are useful in and out of combat. The environment can also be used to your advantage, with exploding barrels and barriers giving you an edge over enemies.

Burning objects reveals new paths or resources.

One of Graven’s greatest strengths is the fact that resources are limited and you must be creative. Rather than rushing in head first, you must consider your environment and what you have on hand. If you can throw objects at enemies, throw them. Should an opportunity to maneuver around enemies show itself, take it without hesitation. Light up an exploding barrel? If enemies are nearby, it’s a resounding yes.

That creativity helps you take advantage of your limited resources and it’s great to see the game reward you. The more resources you have, the better prepared you are to stand up to the bosses. It also means you don’t put yourself at risk and take unnecessary damage, since healing isn’t easy. You aren’t able to farm up resources or save up for more powerful weapons. This forces you to be innovative, but it also means Graven is a significantly harder game.

Difficulty – Punishing Trial By Fire

RPGs often provide players with methods of getting EXP and the resources necessary to prepare for upcoming challenges. Graven doesn’t subvert the formula per se but it does restrict the resources and provides lots of enemies. Reading the in-game manual tells you that fighting enemies isn’t a reliable way of earning resources and it shows.

Graven is a difficult game at its default difficulty which is tough for players not used to resource management. Health potions don’t replenish, enemies deal large amounts of damage, and you lose gold when you die. Since resources are limited, any gold you lose puts you at a severe disadvantage.

Dying frequently isn’t something you can avoid.

This means that you might quit the game in frustration or start over to get another chance of winning. It’s technically possible to put yourself in such a poor situation that winning is extremely difficult. While some players relish the challenge of fighting against overwhelming odds, that means gameplay is unforgiving. Lowering the difficulty is your best chance of succeeding, even if it might feel “too easy”.

There’s nothing wrong with a game that challenges you as the Souls-like games can attest to. But it’s difficult to get used to a world where fighting enemies isn’t always rewarding and you use barely replenishable resources to defeat them. This is especially true as there isn’t a good map system you can reference. Getting lost and wasting precious time is frustrating, adding to the higher difficulty.

Audio & Visual – Grainy & Old-School

Graven doesn’t use advanced graphics and it doesn’t need them. The basic 3D graphics are used but the grainy design fits the setting. This is reflecting a modern world whose ranged weaponry includes crossbows. Everything is dimly lit which you expect in a world where torches are the brightest light source.

The audio isn’t heard much since it usually comes up in combat and cutscenes. You won’t hear much of it while you explore and fight, because enemies make most of the noises. When you aren’t alone, you hear audible noises that help you prepare for combat. If a new enemy is just around the corner, you either know what it looks like or hear enough to know to get ready.

Graven was reviewed on Steam with a code provided by Fulqrum Publishing.