Tower of Samsara – Hidden Treasures
WARNING: The demo is actually a work in progress in many ways. So if you are willing to give it a try, be mindful that we are still working out some quircks in the gameplay.
Saṃsāra is the repeating cycle of birth, life, death, and reincarnation. During the course of each life, the quality of the actions (karma) performed determine the future of each person. There is no beginning to this cycle but that it can be ended through perceiving reality which is nirvana (liberation).
After incalculable aeons, all civilizations possible have rise and fall on all the planets of our Solar System. Tower of Samsara tells the story of our Sun and its struggle to survive. From this urge, the sun creates itself in the form of our hero, the hermetic champion, to save the solar system from the cold void and to allow the sun to shine back on the ruin of all civilizations and rebuild everything.
Tower of Samsara: Hidden Treasures is the first of a series of games where you are born as the Hermetic Champion to defeat your enemies, learn new abilities and control the elements in both, the physical and the astral plane.
Game Discussion
Steam User 175
I bought this because I loved the demo and I respect the dev’s cojones in launching with that other game that released today. Awesome audio design, beautiful visuals, and fun gameplay. This one has a lot going for it.
Steam User 49
After 100% the game, I wanted to add two things to this review.
1. The issues I had with the controllers in the beginning stopped bothering me not long after I left the first version of this review. It's old school, I was expecting more dynamism from a game that wants to be and feel old school. After getting used to it, it was pretty smooth and the combat was way better after unlocking upgrades.
2. Traversing the world was so much fun after unlocking all the upgrades. Adventuring through the world is still my favorite thing to do in Adventure of Samsara, but after unlocking the upgrades related to movement, you get the sense freedom and agility that I was really eager to feel in the beginning.
I had a blast playing it. Thanks guys for the experience!
--- Original Review ---
I've been waiting for a long time to play this game so I'm really happy that it's finally here.
The Aesthetics:
It's an astonishingly beautiful game, the art and sound design are really on point here. I'm loving just sightseeing around the world. The world building feels Soulslike and when exploring the world I felt the same uneasiness that I get when exploring Dark Souls' maps, those beautiful sceneries but you know there's something disturbing going on in that place. Truly amazing work they did on this front.
The Action:
I'm having some trouble with the combat.
You commit to every action you do. If you perform an action (attack, dash, parry, drink a potion, etc) you will be stuck in that action until it's animation ends which makes it kind of hard to time other actions correctly after it, making (especially combat) less dynamic. I would prefer if there were a few frames during the beginning and ending of some action animations, for example, where I could drink a potion or dash, cancelling the animation and allowing me reposition myself in battle (in case it's in the beginning) or just adding that action to the queue and performing it as soon as the current animation ends (if it's at the end of it).
For exploration, I was having a tough time remembering that I needed to press a button to grab to the ledges, but I was really happy when I found out that there is a setting to toggle auto-grab and it totally changed my experience. Thanks for adding that option.
Issues:
I had some stutters as other have commented, but the update they released later today solved it 100% for me (great to see how quickly they fixed it).
And I have one complaint about a bug creature.
There is this giant ***hole of a beetle in the Aqueduct that shields itself and I can't get past him in any way. I gave up on it, went to the map just adjacent to the Aqueduct only to find what??? MORE OF THIS MORONS. I'm stuck on them at the moment, not sure where to go if I'm not able to kill them, but that's a tomorrow problem.
Overall:
It's a really cool game, the visuals are just insane and it's atmosphere is very good.
I highly recommend it. Kudos to everyone at Ilex Games, great work! I hope it gains the traction it deserves.
Steam User 26
I'm just so incredibly happy to see this game finally out in the world! I've been following it for a while, and to see how much it's grown from its early days to what it is now... it really shows how much heart and hard work the Ilex team put into Adventure of Samsara.
This is the kind of Metroidvania I absolutely love. It just gets that perfect feeling of exploration and getting stronger. The world is huge and everything connects in such a cool way. That moment when you get a new power and you suddenly remember, "Oh! I can go that way now!" – that's pure magic, and this game is full of those moments.
The map is designed so well that going back to old areas never feels like a pain... it feels really exciting. Just moving around feels great and the art is so beautiful it really makes you stop just to admire every single detail.
It makes you feel like a real explorer, slowly uncovering every secret of a place that once seemed too big to handle.
I'm just really proud of the Ilex team for what they've made.
This game is absolutely special.
Steam User 15
Dropping a quick positive review for this game because it unfortunately got Silksonged. My playtime is low because I spent more time with the demo before release. Neat Metroidvania with some fun references to old 80s games. The movement does feel similar to the methodical movement from the original 80s Prince of Persia.
Steam User 48
The biggest take away, is that IIex Games was brave enough to release their game on the same day as THE game of bugs that every other studio rolled out the red carpet for and delayed their own game releases for.
If you know, you know.
For that alone, I give them a pass.
Despite only playing for half an hour, it was enough to understand what was going on:
Interesting concept that builds on the original Adventure.
Clunky movement/combat mechanism (still feels very early access because timing attacks is a go/no-go).
In-game stuttering when using certain skills (like magic repel or the sun orb which crashed my session twice).
Locked-in controls.
As in, the controls are locked in and positioned in a hand-will-cramp sort of position (no re-mapping).
Keys are as follows:
Movement = w,a,s,d.
Combat = j, k (don't laugh, it's true. j is for parry and k is for sword swings)
Magic = i and your arrow keys + a,d (are your hands cramping up from reading this?)
Despite the few setbacks, The Adventure of Samsara is a promising game - just hope that it's 3 reviews can stand up that bug game's 10k reviews.
Steam User 11
I just rolled credits on the game and its really good for a Search Action (Metroidvania). The world is very well designed, but the upgrades to traverse take a little long to get. Though, by the end of the game, I felt like a powerhouse, which is exactly what I want from this experience! Great game, definitely give it a try!
Steam User 23
I played Adventure of Samsara back when it was still in development, and seeing the full release now is awesome. The amount of changes and improvements since then is huge!
I’m not a hardcore metroidvania fan, but it still felt really fun and challenging. The first boss gave me a similar feeling as facing Margit in Elden Ring for the first time, since it really forces you to learn the core mechanics like parrying, dodging, and timing your attacks properly.
Exploring feels really rewarding! Smashing stuff to find hidden passages, landing a perfect parry and discovering secrets throughout the maps is satisfying as hell.
I also highly recommend playing with a controller. The controls feel smoother, which made the gameplay a lot more enjoyable for me.
On top of that, the visuals are simply amazing (IT'S SO PRETTY!), the enemy designs are creative and fresh, the vibes are on point and the audio/music fits the narrative like a glove.
Adventure of Samsara is a fantastic game with lots of challenge, exploration, and atmosphere. If you enjoy metroidvanias or even if you’re new to the genre like me, this one is definitely worth it.