Game Review: Adore

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, XBox, PC (via Steam)

Adore is a monster taming game brought to us all by Brazilian developer Cadabra Games and publisher QUByte Interactive. It arrives on consoles following an Early Access release on Steam back in 2020, and it comes with quite the long pedigree. It won Best Brazilian Game at BIG 2019, and has garnered quite the bit of attention over its five years of development. Did this time give the game a special level of polish? Does it hold up to the reputation that's surrounded it? Oh, and is it a fun game in general? Well, let's dive in and find out!

Adore is set in the world of Gaterdrik and you're placed in the role of Lukha who has found himself caught in the middle of the ongoing struggles between the God of Creatures, Draknar, and the God of Destruction, Ixer. Lukha is what is known as an "adorer", someone who can catch and tame the various creatures found in the world of Gaterdrik. Lukha isn't just any adorer though, he possesses a bit of Draknar in him and is tasked with his resurrection. This is a task easier said than done as it also means that you have to do something about the threat posed by Ixer. You're not totally alone in this quest of course, you have both your creature friends and several random NPCs in the main hub "refuge" area that provide all the goods and services you need to succeed in your mission.  Along the way you'll learn more about the conflict between Draknar and Ixer, what it means to be an adorer, and what it means for Lukha that Draknar is currently residing in him.

Ixer looks like a bug, and Draknar looks evil.

This won't be the only time you die.

Since Adore is something of an Action RPG, you'll be doing a lot of fighting. The first thing that you're likely to nice though is that Lukha can't really do anything on his own. He can roll and he can use his staff to try to capture creatures; that's it. I couldn't help but get flashbacks to AVGN's review of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde since the staff he carries is totally useless as a means of defense, even though you could very clearly swing in any realistic scenario. Combat works like a slightly more complicated version of the auto battling found in Pokémon Scarlet & Violet, though it should be mentioned that this game came out long before those. Each face button calls forth a monster and they perform attacks as determined by their creature type, their skills, and their level. You can summon as many creatures as you have stamina, but the limited stamina meter usually means that you'll only be able to summon two at any one time. Since these creatures come out one after the other, you can set up "combos" of a sort. After the monsters perform their attack(s), they make their way back to you. Since their running back to you leaves them open to damage, you can summon them back to you more quickly with a button press. This is a very important skill to master as creatures take damage and become "cursed" when their HP hits zero. Being cursed means that all the damage they take goes directly to Lukha, and this is probably how most players will run into their first game over. Hopefully your creatures take out whatever threat is coming at you, and you'll not have to deal with the latter parts I just described.

This is where you do all your cooking.

This is where you do most of your upgrading.

Now I called Lukha's staff useless earlier, but it actually is used to capture creatures. Capturing creatures isn't something you can just do though as you'll first need to gather Particles of Gaterdrik. You can only carry three of these particles at once, and you'll need 1-3 of them to capture a creature depending on its rarity. These Particles are found randomly across the world and are basically just one of many forms of loot you're going to have to take into account when you choose which areas you're going to tackle next. Particles in hand, you then begin the capture process by holding the L button and standing in the designated field that pops up until the meter fills up. If you're moved from the field, or break your action to do anything else, you're forced to start again. This can be very annoying as the creature you're trying to capture is usually doing its best to kill you. Once you capture a creature you are also rewarded an essence that can be used to upgrade them. These essences give them specific affinities (think something like elements in magic) and allow them to work better with other creatures who contain the same essence. There's other ways to upgrade the skills of your creatures, but explaining all of those are probably beyond the scope of this review. Lastly, you can only capture as many creatures as you have space. You start with four spaces available (the four face buttons) and four more in your storage area back at the refuge. You can unlock more with relic pieces you find, but this limited number of creature slots really keeps Adore from competing with most other popular monster tamer games as you'll be forced to constantly release creatures you've spent time training.

The first boss actually took me out a few times.

I actually HATE powering up these switches.

Undoing hours of gameplay grind isn't the only thing that keeps Adore from greatness, we have to now talk about the strange inclusion of roguelike elements. Perhaps do to the current popularity of the genre, Adore has roguelike elements that seem at odds with much of the rest of the game. Every time you enter the various "dungeons" of Gaterdrik you do so randomly and are shown what rewards lie in each region. You're then sent to these areas and are not allowed to leave them until you complete whatever the area's main mission is. These missions can come in the form of defeating all creatures, defeating a boss, activating switches, or finding a specific item. If you return to the refuge before you complete your mission you lose all the loot you've gathered so far. Also, if you're killed in any area your loot drops onto the ground Dark Souls-style, and you have a limited amount of time to go back and get it; with it disappearing completely if you die again. These roguelike elements make the grind nearly unbearable as you often have to play through pointless maps until one appears with the piece of loot you need. Also, it takes a lot of anything to do anything useful. You have to go through an entire area to get a piece of meat that is probably only one half of the recipe you need for a healing item, and that's just ridiculous. There's also a currency system but it takes 3-4 runs to be able to even afford any one item. Also, most of these items you're fighting hard to collect are lost upon death, so there's that too. This wouldn't be so bad if everything else was good, but Adore's gameplay loop feels like a chore as it stands. In short the roguelike elements artificially add hours to the grind, and make everything in-game feel like busy work.

You also gain a bonus with each Particle.

An entire run for just this...

With the gameplay talk out of the way for now, let's talk graphics a bit. I really loved the designs in Adore, and was quite impressed by the artwork that is shown in the loading screens. I'm sure this is a matter for debate, but I personally feel that the actual in-game graphics are quite the disappointment after seeing what I now assume is concept art. Everything feels like it belongs to mid-tier PS3 game at best, and this made it all the more annoying when the game chugged while running on the Nintendo Switch. I can't speak of how Adore runs on other platforms, but it's odd that a game with a world this small, and graphics not exactly cutting edge, to run so poorly. Also, I couldn't help but feel that the in-game graphics had far more of a "cartoon-y" feel to them, very reminiscent of Western animation like Avatar: The Last Airbender. That last part might not exactly be a negative point to all, but that cartoon-y style is also a departure from the loading screen art. Oh, and Adore's roots shine through in the choice of font and text size as they are quite small on anything but a giant TV or a big monitor; good luck in handheld mode on the Switch. All this aside, I do want to mention that I felt that the monster designs look pretty cool for the most part. It's just a shame that there aren't a lot of them. There's only 39 creatures, and the gods themselves, and this feels like a huge missed opportunity to add more variety to the game. Then again, the tiny storage size would've probably just made that something else for me to complain about here.

An example of loading screen art.

This one is my favorite.

There's actually some good music in Adore and I found myself low-key rocking out with the main theme in the Gaterdrik Forest. Then I realized that I'd have to hear it every time I entered the area. Needless to say it got old really fast, and this problem plagued all the other regions as well. Also, the music in the Forest was the only track that I ever truly liked, with most of the rest sort of fading into the background. I was not impressed by the music, but it wasn't actually ever bad, even if it was repetitive. Where things really get weird is in the voice acting, as in there isn't any. Expecting a fully voiced game from a small indie title might be a bit much, but there isn't even any quips or other vocal bits from any of the characters. This leads to a pretty silent experience that even somehow omits things like loud roars and cries from the creatures. Now I don't want to imply that none of the creatures have sounds, but it's a very limited affair, often with only unique ones having any sort of notable audible cry. Adding in the graphic issues on the Switch, and you have issues with presentation so high that it effects whether you're going to want to keep going on with the game. A robust sound design could've saved this game from mediocrity, but it ultimately failed in that very important area.

Controls are a hard topic to go over as they aren't bad, but they are weird. I already mentioned that Lukha's only line of defense is a roll, while it's not exactly delayed, it just doesn't feel as responsive as it could. This similarly comes into play when it comes to summoning your creatures and recalling them, the slight miniscule delay can lead you to taking damage, damage which is hard to recover from in-game. Also, there is no camera control at all, and there are times when I wish I could alternate between a wider angle and a closer one. This is most important in boss battles where you can sometimes get hit from attacks that are coming from off-screen; everyone's favorite kind of attack. Also, some of the button choices seem odd, like using L1 to interact with everything. I get that all the face buttons are used by summoning your creatures, but this is probably a case where doubling up their functions would've been beneficial. The controls are by no means a deal breaker, nor do they ruin the experience, but they're probably the single thing that I'd have thought would've been hammered out with this game having spent three years in Early Access.

Some creature upgrades at a Draknar statue.

Oh, there are other adorers.

Since resource gathering is rather slow, and capturing a full stable of creatures requires a lot of time and patience, there is a lot of replayability to be had here. The game comes at a pretty low price too, so if you're able to overlook the overall lack of polish you'll find a game that you can sink a lot of hours into. There isn't really any reason to go back to the game when you beat it, but building an ideal team, and maybe even capturing the rarest versions of every creature, are goals that fans of monster tamers will be all too familiar with. Since upgrading them has several options, and you're limited to selecting only a few for each creature, one can play for hours just levelling up their favorites. Or, as was in my case, they can spend too long realizing that they had to redo their favorite creature because the tiny font made them pick the wrong choice. Either way, there are reasons to return to Adore beyond its relatively short play time, even if it often comes in the form of busywork and endless grinding.

You encounter Ixer early on.

Draknar actually comes off like a jerk.

While Adore probably isn't a game I fully enjoyed, I will admit that it did have a few moments where it shined. If you're a fan of monster taming games, and maybe want one with a bit more action, then you'll most likely find some level of enjoyment here. If you're a fan of Pokémon though, and looking for something to scratch the itch before the Violet and Scarlet DLC comes out, then you might want to hold off on this one as it is not as deep as anything in that series, and the roguelike elements can be pretty off-putting. It's still a fun game, and comes at a fairly low price at around $20. Temper your expectations and you'll be unravelling the mystery behind the God of Creatures death in no time.

For More Information on Adore:
https://www.qubyteinteractive.com/games/Adore/

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Story: C
Gameplay: B
Graphics: B
Music/Sound: C
Value: C

Overall: C+

Pros:
+ Beautiful graphic designs, music, and world make it Adore a unique experience.
+ The creatures are all fairly unique and you'll find yourself wanting to collect them all.
+ Capturing and training your ideal team can be quite fun once you get into the gameplay loop.
+ While it's not recommended to rush through the game without proper levelling, the game does move pretty fast.
+ This Brazilian-developed game is truly different than similar games produced elsewhere.

Cons:
- While the music is good, it is limited and gets repetitive.
- Graphics feel pretty dated and the game has performance issues, as well as a tiny font size, on the Switch.
- The roguelike elements feel at odds with the rest of the gameplay, and your inability to defend yourself in a game so dependent on action can be pretty annoying.
- It takes a long time to gather materials for anything useful, including healing items, and there is a lot of grinding in the game.
- Generally feels incomplete even though the game spent three years in Early Access on Steam.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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Better hurry and loot my dead body before someone else does.