We always want more games to feature watercolour-esque or hand-drawn visuals, and Helvetii — an upcoming action game from Team KwaKwa (developers of Soup Raiders) — looks like it's going to give us our fix. And we won't have to wait long, as the game hits the Switch eShop on 3rd February!
Inspired by Vanillaware's stunning art style (we're definitely getting some Muramasa vibes from this), Helvetii is a 2D action roguelite that's based on the Gaulish Helvetii tribes. In Celtic history, the Helvetii were people who were driven from southern Germany to the north — an area that we now know as Switzerland (via Britannica).
To save the land from rot, you'll be able to swap between three playable characters: a young war chief, a fox who's been turned into a human, and a druid. Each character has a unique moveset, and you'll be able to acquire random power-ups throughout your adventure which are redistributed at the beginning of each playthrough. With beautiful music from Dale North (River City Girls, Wizard Of Legend) and vocals from Emi Evans (NieR, NieR Automata), and exciting combat where you can dodge, parry, and juggle your foes, this sounds like the perfect, and pretty, action game we're after on these cold winter days.
Here are some of the key features of the game from publisher Red Art Games, along with more of those gorgeous visuals:
Features
■ Three unique playable characters
■ Room and power-ups are randomly redistributed at the start of each playthrough
■ Wield numerous powers bestowed upon you by primal deities
■ Carefully crafted and detailed 2D environments
■ Soundtrack composed by Dale North with vocals by Emi Evans
■ Texts in English, French, Swiss German, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese
If this has stirred something in your heart, you can also pre-order a limited physical edition of the game for €29.99 over at Red Art Games' store.
What do you think of Helvetii? Will you be picking this up on 3rd February? Slice your thoughts down in the comments!
Comments 11
Rogue Legacy meets Muramasa, cool.
The music is the first indicator for me that its not a Vanillaware game. this game does look awesome
Looking forward to seeing more of this. I won’t bite just yet (there’s too many other games releasing in such a consolidated time period), but I love the art style, calls back to two of my favorite games in Muramasa and Sakuna. I would glad enjoy another similar game.
The game is published by Rainy Frog, the same publisher for Sword of the Vagrant so it's not surprising that this game would be similar to Vanillaware's past games. It seems Rainy Frog would be the next Vanillaware company for these kind of games since Vanillaware themselves as of now ain't doing a good job of re-releasing their own games for modern systems.
Looks really pretty; I'll be interested in the reviews.
The animation looks so stiff.
@Serpenterror
I just bought Odin Sphere and Dragon's Crown Pro on my PS5 for around 20 dollars on sale a couple of months ago. It wouldn't hurt for them to port them to switch though. A Muramasa update would be nice too.
Edit: This one doesn't look anywhere near as smooth or crisp as a vanillaware game.
Doesn’t look similar to VW to me.
I will glady take it since VW is still sleeping on the Switch for whatever reason
So tired of seeing awesome looking games followed by that dreaded word "roguelite"
Looks good but 30$ little steep.
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