Review: Realm of Ink (Nintendo Switch)

The eShop description of Realm of Ink explains, “Death is not the end; it’s just a chance to redefine your destiny through cycles of death and rebirth.” Whereas that would be awful in real life, you’re going to need that cycle here.

As with most roguelites, there’s a story to drive the action. Also as with most roguelites, that story is a perfunctory way to just toss you back into the same levels over and over again. You start with a warrior, Red, who really wants to escape from…a book? Yes. She’s trapped within the pages of a magical book, and the only way out is to fight.

Of course, she’s not on her own. Each run begins at the Spirit Fox Inn where she can upgrade her items, get some practice in, and even change forms (characters) that have been unlocked. Each form brings a different starting skillset that alters the way you play and your effectiveness against the boss you’ll face at the end of each level.

Your chosen form is accompanied by Momo, a pet that also changes its approach as you swap characters, accessories, and ink relics. Those relics are what really diversify the game. You can hold two at a time, each providing unique attacks or buffs as you push your way along. Mixing and matching them as you push along can greatly affect a run’s success. And, with some trial and error, it won’t be long before you’ve settled on a form/relic/Momo combo that will carry you through.

Combat takes place in rooms that must be cleared out to progress. Anyone who’s played an isometric action roguelite over the years will know how this works. You’re basically running down hallways that occasionally close off until you’ve eliminated the enemies in the area.

You’ll eventually reach a boss to overcome before advancing to the next round. Lose, and a celestial fox will eat you and dump you back at the start.

But you’ve learned about the boss, right? So, you can better prepare for the next run. Each boss fight is also prefaced with a shopping area where you can spend acquired resources to upgrade and deck your team out accordingly. After you finally succeed, it’s on to the next chapter of your literally literal imprisonment.

Things get more complicated as you progress, both in enemy difficulty and in character skill management. There’s no shortage of ways to customize your form with both temporary and permanent upgrades, so things are constantly changing.

So’s the scenery. As implied by the title, Realm of Ink has a very artistic, painterly design to it that nicely broadens into a diverse, colorful world.

The same can’t be said of the cutscenes, however, which have been compressed back to the 1990s. I cannot effectively emphasize how terrible they look. Thankfully, that shoddiness isn’t a problem in the actual gameplay, which carries itself well. Although it’ll often take a little time to learn the various attacks and relic uses for each form, the controls are sprightly and mostly intuitive. Combat lacks impact, but I never felt that it mattered; the action relies more on sprightly button use than on force feedback.

However, the combat is also a bit too easy, at least for a while. I had a habit of settling into a character build that was overpowered, only to eventually have that build become somewhat useless. When forced to change up, I was suddenly inefficient and felt like I was back to square one, killing the momentum.

Realm of Ink also suffers from myriad grammar and typography errors.

That’s never a big deal, as it doesn’t impact gameplay, but it does reinforce the feeling that various corners were cut along the way. And considering the large (and growing) number of isometric roguelites available on the Switch, developers should be taking every precaution to help their entry get a leg up on the competition. Ultimately, this game does not. That doesn’t mean genre fans shouldn’t try it, but they shouldn’t expect it to sit amongst the best.