Larva Mortus

 
Developer: Rake In Grass
Steam Release: Mar 2009
Hours Played: 5.7
Similar To: Binding of Isaac / Enter The Gungeon / Razenroth / The Weaponographist
Rating: 3/5 Parsnips

GAMEPLAY
This little known Gauntlet-style game predates The Binding of Isaac a good year or two. It may seem a little repetitive but comes with enough weapon variety to allow you to clear rooms in different ways. After clicking on an envelope on the map-screen, you are taken to the first room of the level. Each level contains about 4-10 rooms (in the early stages at least) which you can see in plan-view in the form of a map in the lower right of the screen. The game mainly either has you hacking away with a large sword, shooting with a variety of weapons or blasting with dynamite at a variety of ghouls, monsters, critters and creepy crawlies. Once you clear a room it is greyed out on the map and becomes empty of enemies thereafter but if you leave a room without clearing it, enemies will respawn when you go back. 
 

BALANCE & PACE
Each mission has an objective which you must achieve to clear its corresponding envelope from the map. The game plays and runs well and clearing screens of enemies is extremely satisfying. You get a huge variety of power-ups and you pick up new weapons as you go along. Selecting a weapon is as easy as running your middle finger along the mouse wheel. Some are good for short range, long range, extra damage or rapid-fire etc. A lot of the fun comes in keeping your distance and figuring out which weapon will do the job... and then obliterating them in the most efficient manner. The HUD keeps you well informed with a health bar and level-up button in the top left corner, ammo and dynamite meter in the bottom left, weapon selected in the top right and the mini-map in the bottom right. As you level up, you put a skill point in one of seven attributes.

PRESENTATION & DESIGN
The game may not win any awards for innovative graphics but it does a sound job with the tools it has. The main menu has a red, black and gold colour scheme that suits the gothic theme. The choice of sound-effects and how this is implemented is also top-notch. Selecting choices on the menu screens is accompanied by a crinkly paper sound - a small but effective touch and when weapons are fired and enemies die they make all the right satisfying noises. You certainly cannot complain of Larva Mortus being short on menus as there is a wealth of information. Hitting Start Game takes you to the Map-Screen which allows you to open a bunch of menu screens. Here you can peruse things such as quest log, equipment and trophies but also click on an envelope on the map and view details of that mission. 

 

PROGRESS SYSTEM
Similarly, in-game, you can click a symbol in the top-left to view the profile of your character which, again, has pages of stats to keep the fussiest of geeks absorbed. At the end of every mission you're given a pop-up showing your score, playtime, monsters killed and new equipment found. In-game, you can click on the info button to check up on a wealth of info about your character and enemies. Progress is a little more unclear. There is a story and there are key missions to complete, along with envelopes (with symbols representing levels of difficulty) that you click on to start. What is unclear is how those envelopes relate to the main story. As far as I can tell, they don't because when you quit and return many envelopes have disappeared while some pop up at random. This breaks consistency and seems like a bug more than anything else. 

CONCLUSION

The inconsistency with the envelopes means your up-coming missions are randomized every time you go back to your game which just seems odd. You're also at a loss to explain how those minor missions relate to the main story. Do you need to do them at all? Will they help you complete those missions in the main story? Why has Europe got zero missions when it had five before? While we're at it, what point is there in having a score? Thankfully, your quest log in relation to the main story is stored across sessions which prevents the envelope debacle being a game-breaker so focusing on completing the main missions and ignoring the score seems to be the way forward here.