The Relic: First Guardian

The true dark fantasy of The Relic: First Guardian is all of the potential it squanders; an energetic action game marred by its own shambolic state and broken in too many inexcusable ways.

The Relic: First Guardian is a purgatory of tedium and glitches dressed up to look like a heavy-hitter action RPG.

Unfortunately, The Relic: First Guardian disappointed us. It has plenty of ideas, quests, and bosses, but everything feels a bit slapdash and poorly polished. You can sense the passion and dedication, but productions of this scale require more structured teams and a significantly larger budget. It would have been better to lower the bar a bit, reducing the quantity of content in favor of higher quality—both in terms of the combat system (the game’s core) and the technical aspects. We hope this first project will serve as a learning experience for the developer to understand where they went wrong, because there’s no shortage of ideas, passion, and love for the genre.

The Relic: First Guardian is certainly an ambitious debut project from the studio Project Cloud Games, promising a vast open world, eighty unique elite enemies, and a simple yet conceptually strong story. However, that ambition ultimately hindered development, resulting in a product that fails to deliver on any of its initial promises in a polished state. This forces those who have already purchased the game to wait for numerous fixes before it reaches the level of quality promised by the trailers and promotional material.

The Relic: First Guardian is best described as an action RPG that blossoms despite its clear limitations. It is far from a perfectly well-rounded game, with awkward animations, imprecise controls, and underwhelming character models standing out as obvious flaws. Even so, its stylish combat, built around carefully timed attacks and defenses, delivers a thrilling sense of catharsis that keeps you coming back.

The Relic: First Guardian is a game that dared to be different and suffered for it. In the pursuit of challenging what has been tried and tested, it put forth a plethora of great ideas: equipment-based tactical combat, non-respawning enemies as progression, and genuinely great boss battles. Unfortunately, it also revealed why those ideas weren’t the norm. Poor animation implementation, questionable camerawork, and forgettable narratives all end up making this a much lesser product than the sum of its parts. In fixing what wasn’t broken, it only revealed the cracks within itself.

The Relic: First Guardian is a game with good ideas, but it ultimately fails to execute them. Performance issues, recurring bugs, and the lack of essential navigation features make the experience feel unfinished, leaving the impression that it needed more time in development.

The Korean studio doesn't quite hit its stride. Despite this, and provided the technical aspects are quickly fixed, The Relic: First Guardian is a dark ARPG that rewards initiative without ever becoming too frustrating or punishing; it's not a mere imitation of FromSoftware's work.

Relic: The First Guardian is not so messy as to be unplayable. In fact, the game’s combat can be excellent at times, and the use of Korean folklore twisted into a dark narrative is an interesting idea.

There are things about The Relic: First Guardian that I absolutely loved. The game's exploration also leaves something for you to find, and the game's combat is satisfying and rewarding. It's just a shame I had to suffer through major bugs that kept me from progressing or finishing quests.