Action RPGs are actually one of my favourite genres of game, but finding the good ones is more difficult than it should be sometimes. You’ve got games like Diablo, Elden Ring, Mass Effect, and The Witcher to compete with. So having the chance to check out a new one, The Relic: First Guardian, I couldn’t say no, simply because I would love something that is gonna grab my attention for a longer playthrough like this genre tends to offer.

Who doesn’t love a bit of… Lore?

The Relic: First Guardian, takes place in a world destroyed by the Great Relic. You’re, as the name suggests, the guardian of the relic, but you have amnesia and can’t remember what your goal is. Not very convenient, isn’t it? You follow a mysterious voice around the world, collect shards of the relic, seek to honor the voices of those who came before you, save the world, happy days.

Somebody call 911! Shawty fire burning on the dance floor!

The biggest difference from the majority of ARPGs is the fact there’s no traditional levelling system. There’s no XP granted from defeating enemies, besides money. There’s actually no point to defeating enemies as it stands in this current system. Now, money can be looked at the same way as Souls/Ruins in a way. Gold is used to buy weapon, health, and stamina upgrades, so it’s a semi-familiar feeling to Soulslike fans.

One key difference in this respect is none of it is lost if you die, which means no corpse runs to make sure you don’t lose anything. Realistically, there’s actually no negative to dying, it’s just more of an inconvenience. Although, if you look around for the runestones where you save your progress (basically this game’s bonfires), there are plenty around so you’re never far from the action. This further takes away an semblance of challenge.

I found another site of gra… Wait, wrong game.

The Relic: First Guardian keeps most situations to one on one combat. There aren’t a lot of spots, unless you choose to run through everything, where multiple enemies will attack you at the same time. There’s essentially two types of enemies, if you really want to dumb it down. The ones that get staggered and the ones that don’t. The enemies that get staggered are obviously incredibly easy, you hit them and they don’t swing back. Obviously, the types that don’t take a bit more effort because the recovery time after each attack is fairly unforgiving. Unlike a game like Dark Souls, you can’t seem to dodge through attacks, so you need to aim to dodge out of range.

You also have an ability you can use to help damage enemies, starting with a fireball. I found this to be incredibly frustrating because half the time I pressed L and R to use it, it didn’t seem to want to activate, it was just making me aim in the middle of fighting an enemy or a boss and throwing me off. On that note, I know after Elden Ring, saying this game has 80+ bosses is nothing, but between the rather unforgiving recovery time, and what feels like no I-frames, even the simplest boss can be a little frustrating.

It’s light, then it’s dark.

So what’s the verdict? The Relic: First Guardian has some systems that are clearly borrowed from other ARPG games, but simply not incorporated very well. It wants to play like a Soulslike, but doesn’t have the fluidity. It wants to have weapon specific gear builds, but everything is based around the weapon skill trees and not finding upgraded gear. There’s next to no reason to refight enemies, and outside of a little frustration there’s no penalty to dying so you may as well just run through areas. End of the day, there are a lot of games that do every mechanic The Relic: First Guardian does, but better, so it’s not exactly worth the time investment.

The Relic: First Guardian is available now on Nintendo Switch 2, PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2.

A copy of The Relic: First Guardian was provided by the publisher.