Josh Journey: Darkness Totems

Donning a cartoon look not unlike that of Adventure Time's, and taking it's own spin on the arcade brawler genre, "Josh Journey" aims to impress, but misses it's target due to a handful of issues ...

Josh Journey and his dealings with the darkness totems begins, as any adventure would, with an epic intro summarizing the plot in a few short lived cutscenes. In these scenes devoid of speech and text we, the viewer, come to realize there's a fight of good versus evil going on. That a goddess of light is fighting against a god of darkness over the fate of the world. As fate would have it the god of darkness momentarily gains the upper hand unleashing some darkness totems onto the planet below. On that planet a misfit band of heroes and heroines led by Josh is warned by a herald that they are the only hope. Up in arms they take to the road battling baddies, and destroying totems a they grow ever closer to the source of the corruption. The god of darkness himself.

As Josh, Melina, Farquol, or Z.O.Z. you must outlast your enemies by both defeating them, and hanging on to your limited stock of health. Heading ever closer to the source of the totems. Each character, with their own unique race and weapons, come complete with six unlockable abilities, and an ultimate skill that can be unleashed to a screen clearing effect. 

Josh, being the leader of the group, is the standard knight with a sword in hand and the ability to defend via shield. Melina, his femalien companion, comes complete with ranged water attacks, and iced abilities that inhibit enemy movement. Farquol, the tag along humanoid aardvark with an axe on hand, has the ability to surround himself with earth summoned spikes that deal damage to enemies. That and an extending tongue that shoots forward on command to draw enemies closer. Lastly, Z.O.Z., the resident robotoid, acts as yet another ranged character with ranged missiles, a powerful blast, and the ability to drop a mine that will explode on enemy contact. Completing a complimentary casting that can be commanded solo or paired up between two players. Giving each player a melee centric and ranged character to choose and switch between.

Each of the roster mates within "Josh Journey" has a lesser and greater base attack with the special abilities requiring built up meter that comes from defeating enemies, and enemy mobs. These energy based attacks deal more damage with the ultimate attack dealing the most damage of all. Though the latter is only made available as a special chest item. Utilizing each characters base attacks, specials, and ultimates is the key to victory. Alongside that swapping between characters when their health is low is also crucial as health power-ups are found few and far between, especially in a 1 player playthrough. 

When you first begin a playthrough you will assign the order in which the characters will be placed if you are playing solo. Swapping between them in the stages can be done in one of two ways. By cycling through them in order using the top trigger buttons, or by tilting the appropriate thumbstick in a given cardinal direction to swap to a specific character. While characters do have a limited life pool once downed they leave their masks behind. You can revive them on route to the end so long as you're not being attacked. Bringing them back with half-life. Alternatively any lost characters can be revived at the Sanctuary base that is made accessible after each stage's completion.

Stages are a mapped out affair in this game. They contain mobs of varied lesser enemies, and a final boss. Completing the given stage playthrough isn't exactly straightforward though. Between start to finish you will be amassing shadow currency from downed foes, and saving citizens. Either by defeating their corrupted form or reviving them as they lay limp on the battlefield. You'll also be looting chests, and breaking barrels as well as crates for the scarce amount of health refills that are made available ever so often. 

After each stage you'll have the chance to visit the Sanctuary, or service hub where you can restore heroes' health via the blessing of the goddess of light, revive lost heroes, and spend the collected shadow currency upon unlocking each characters' attacks, and specials. This is a must as each stage is a very trying experience, when playing solo. 

Mobs in the game often times sucker punch you draining your characters' health quickly. Sometimes killing them off in a matter of seconds, and even when a low health character spawns in to replace them. Aside from the occasional hero specific defensive or evasive move there is no real dodging system to aid in escape from the fast moving mobs. The fact that you only have one hero on the screen at a time in solo only further serves to aggravate this issue, especially considering your own characters' sluggish movement speed. It's one reason the local multiplayer is the better option to go with, and I do believe that is an option, but only with two players each controlling and swapping between two characters each. 

Visually, and audibly the game is quite impressive for the budget indie that it is. The developer really nailed the cartoon vibe, and created some top quality characters. The audio, on the other hand is sort of Irish or fantasy in nature. An odd choice, but kind of fitting in this fantasy/sci-fi hybrid of a tale. 

The Verdict ...

All is good and well until you begin to realize that unless you have someone to play with locally the odds are stacked firmly against you in this brawler. Josh Journey commits the ultimate sin in relying on artificial difficulty to make the game challenging. The mobs are designed to overwhelm you, and force you to rely on the other characters. The problem therein is that there is no dodge mechanic that allows for getting out of situations where your singular character is being attacked from all sides. This is unfair, and leads to cheap deaths when going solo. I can only imagine it's made better with a local partner assisting as there will be more characters onscreen that can deal with and distract the mobs of enemies. If it weren't for this I think the game would be an excellent addition to the brawler genre. All it's lacking is a universal dodge mechanic.