Raji: An Ancient Epic

 Switch
User Score
7.6

Generally favorable reviews- based on 72 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 48 out of 72
  2. Mixed: 13 out of 72
  3. Negative: 11 out of 72

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  1. Pullis123
    Oct 1, 2020
    6
    Overall, I think this is a super cool game idea, and I got really hyped for India's mythology and that the game studio is based in India. It really reminds me of the Prince of Persia on PC that I played when I was young. This is both in a good and negative perspective because the movement and controls over Raji's main character are not smooth like in Prince of Persia on PC back in theOverall, I think this is a super cool game idea, and I got really hyped for India's mythology and that the game studio is based in India. It really reminds me of the Prince of Persia on PC that I played when I was young. This is both in a good and negative perspective because the movement and controls over Raji's main character are not smooth like in Prince of Persia on PC back in the days. The stiff movement made me put down the game after just 2-3 days, even do the storyline made me want to finish it.… Expand
  2. mercurypool
    Aug 31, 2020
    6
    Let me start by saying, I really wanted to love this game. I gave it all the chances, repeatedly, and played it all the way through. But Raji: An Ancient Epic is just not a good game.

    Let me get the good out of the way: this game is beautiful. It is narrated beautifully, it look beautiful, and I really really enjoyed learning about the Hindu culture and mythology. That part was    Let me start by saying, I really wanted to love this game. I gave it all the chances, repeatedly, and played it all the way through. But Raji: An Ancient Epic is just not a good game.

    Let me get the good out of the way: this game is beautiful. It is narrated beautifully, it look beautiful, and I really really enjoyed learning about the Hindu culture and mythology. That part was magnificent and I will definitely continue exploring that in my free time.

    But ultimately, this is a game, and should be judged by gaming properties and criteria. So let's delve in.

    Raji: An Ancient Epic is a hack and slash mechanic that's inspired from the likes of God of War and Dark Souls. It pits you in an environment, throws monsters and other creatures at you, supplies you with different weapons and upgrades and wishes you luck.
    It can be argued if Raji manages to do this aspect of the game well. I, personally, do not think so. The controls are janky, and more often than not, the depth perception is so poor that i was hacking at the air while the enemies took potshots at me. In the end, it was easier to just brute force each one of them, making sure i do my "special finishing move" that restores all my health, rinse, repeat. Once you unlock some of the more advanced weapons in the game the fighting becomes a nuisance, and more often than not I breathed exasperatingly while more enemies spawned on the screen, while all I wanted was to listen to more folklore and enjoy the scenery.

    Raji also incorporates some puzzle elements, which felt to me were put on there in a failed attempt to lengthen the play time.
    There were three types of puzzles during the gameplay - organizing circles on the floor, organizing circles for a tree, and playing around with cogs.
    Each one of those suffered from a distinct slowness. Why would it take such a long time to move a piece of the puzzle, why do I have to spend so much time rotating circles? Again, this brought me to the brink of frustration, but I kept pushing through, because the game is so beautiful.

    And lastly, the controls. In one word: bad. In several more: very very bad.
    The game has some elements of a platformer, which requires you to run and jump. However, due to a distinct lack of depth perception of the game, I ended up more than I care to admit just jumping to my death, mainly because of the weird angles and weird artistic choices the creators have made. Again, the platforming part of the game stood in the way of the game, instead of enhancing it.

    I really wanted to love Raji: An Ancient Epic. I gave it all the chances, but this game was frustrating, unnecessarily obtuse and uncomfortable to play.
    I loved the story, the mythology, and all the visuals. Perhaps a graphic novel game-style would have suited this tale a bit more than a hack and slash, and I hope that, should there be a sequel, the developers would learn from their mistakes here, and not just dig in their heels and repeat the same mistakes.

    6/10, mainly and primarily because of the story and visuals.    … Expand
  3. Golu
    Aug 20, 2020
    5
    5/10 - Average

    Play time - 3 hours. Mode - Both docked and hand-held. The Good - - A game on Indian mythology. - Refreshing protagonist. The Bad - Combat and movement controls need a lot of work - I am comparing this game to games like Bastion, Hades. - Repetitive enemies. - Combat is mostly one-dimensional. - Clunky progression/skill system. - Voice acting could be    5/10 - Average

    Play time - 3 hours.
    Mode - Both docked and hand-held.

    The Good -
    - A game on Indian mythology.
    - Refreshing protagonist.

    The Bad
    - Combat and movement controls need a lot of work - I am comparing this game to games like Bastion, Hades.
    - Repetitive enemies.
    - Combat is mostly one-dimensional.
    - Clunky progression/skill system.
    - Voice acting could be better.
    - Camera is zoomed out a bit a too much.
    - Text is unreadable in hand-held mode.

    There is a lot of love that went into Raji but it still needs work before it becomes a great game.
    Review in progress.    … Expand
  4. JCgamer18
    Aug 22, 2020
    6
    I've been playing this game for a couple of days.

    The good: The art and story are fantastic. I was really enjoying it and found the style to be beautiful and different in a good way. I really wanted to know what happened to golu. The landscapes in this game are beautiful and made me wish i could see them for myself it was great. I also liked the combat with how the weapons were    I've been playing this game for a couple of days.

    The good:
    The art and story are fantastic. I was really enjoying it and found the style to be beautiful and different in a good way. I really wanted to know what happened to golu. The landscapes in this game are beautiful and made me wish i could see them for myself it was great.
    I also liked the combat with how the weapons were balanced and each one was useful. i used my spear to take out more big enemies my sword and shield for agile and my bow to take out enemies from a distance.
    The bosses were also very well designed. I had lots of fun figuring out how to defeat the bosses i've encounted. each one made me think on how to get the advantages. The combat required a certain amount of strategy.

    The meh:
    the voice acting. its meh but sometimes really bad over a dozen times i heard the foulness has been defeated. evil would had worked way better. i also found some of it to be poorly managed like vishnu was very low and hard to hear while it was easy to hear durga and raji was the loudest.

    The negative:
    The game crashed on me whenever i tried to load the game from the load menu 3 times its a serious issue if your game can not use the load function. The game has serious framerate issues and would chug heavily at times and it was visible constantly. i also fell below the world twice while moving faster using the dodge roll. and on one section raji just died on the vine heading down to a temple. There are serious issues with this game that really should have been fixed before release and i really wanted to finish it but the glitches really beat me down along with the chugging framerate.

    the other issue is balancing. enemies are not balanced. the monkey enemies destroy you if you doing have a wall run point on hand they are fast and spam their attacks way too heavily and removed me from other parts that felt easier and worked for. They need some more balancing of certain enemies because some felt out of place in their difficulty level for early points in the game.

    Finally the controls. this is the worst thing to have. The controls for the menus are convoluted and confusing this was the straw that broke the camels back. The skill menu controls were way too complex and selecting your options with the B button is the weirdest thing i have ever seen its like they made a mistake and refused to correct it. The menus are so difficult to navigate because of how awkward it is to use them in the skill menu.

    Overall: this game needed work and its evident from playing it for a while and especially with all the glitches i encountered. I really wanted to love this game because i was enthralled with the story and art style but the gameplay it needed a lot of work. I can only give this game a 6 out of 10 right now in the state its in but i have hope they will fix the issues mentioned because i really liked the story and the direction of the style and art but so many issues prevent me from loving this game.

    I would recommend waiting for a price drop to even consider getting this game.    … Expand
  5. EnigmaXtreme
    Aug 25, 2020
    7
    While we have seen many different independent studios crop up all across the world in many different countries, India surprisingly hasn’t really been one of them. It is a shame considering the rich history and culture the country has to offer that we haven’t seen more studios arise from the subcontinent but Nodding Head Games hopes to change that with their brand new game, Raji: An AncientWhile we have seen many different independent studios crop up all across the world in many different countries, India surprisingly hasn’t really been one of them. It is a shame considering the rich history and culture the country has to offer that we haven’t seen more studios arise from the subcontinent but Nodding Head Games hopes to change that with their brand new game, Raji: An Ancient Epic, releasing on the Switch as part of their Indie World Megadrop this past week.

    The game tells the story of Raji and her younger brother Golu who work as part of a travelling carnival until one day it is ravaged by demons and Golu is kidnapped. The story is told through shadow puppets while it is also narrated in game by the Hindu gods Duhra and Vishnu who are watching over Raji on her journey to save her brother, they also bestow upon her weapons like a staff and bow.

    I feel it is safe to assume that most people playing this game will only have a truly elementary understanding of the Hindu faith, hell most people who say the most exposure they have to it is watching Apu on the Simpsons. This is where the game shines as it features an amazing representation of India culture, featuring snippets of Hindu lore through artwork narrated by the gods as Sitar music plays in the background.

    The game plays similarly to the original God of Wars with fixed moving cameras over a 3D world, although the camera feels incredibly far away making Raji almost a speck on the map. Combat is a standard affair with normal/heavy attacks and the dodge button, but Raji can also pull out some Prince of Persia moves with her wall jumos and swinging around poles to attack the beasts that show up. The game also utilises an intriguing health bar, all the characters health is set in a circle around themselves.

    The game does lack that final polish however, the game only allows you to jump when you are at a ledge but even then I found Raji would just miss grabbing hold like she wasn’t in the mood to do so. I also find Rajio moved at a fairly sluggish pace like shes constantly wading through mud. During the first boss battle, I was getting my butt whipped because I got caught in a corner, until IT got caught in one instead and I just kept shooting at it. Audio and performance issues also plague the game at times with framerate and audio skipping. Plus, while most of the voice actors in the game are tolerable, there was something off putting with Raji’s voice actress with her sounding like an Indian character in a Nick Jr cartoon.

    While it is clear that Kratos’s journeys inspired this game it lacks the flair and intensity of those titles and thankfully the quick time events too, there isn’t much exploration as well with the game being a fairly strict linear narrative only lasting a few hours at best. Those hours though are filled with some amazing sights from a world that seriously needs more exposure in gaming. While the game doesn’t offer anything new, with mechanics taken from Prince of Persia and God of War, the rich Hindu mythology is a sight sure to amaze.    … Expand
  6. irai16
    Nov 30, 2020
    7
    A valiant first effort for Indian devs. The visuals/art style is genuinely spectacular, and the combat is generally fun and satisfying as well. Problems can arise from a weird lack of depth perception, making combat and especially platforming a little finicky and annoying, and an incoherent story; I didn't really know what was going on and Raji jumped from location to location seemingly atA valiant first effort for Indian devs. The visuals/art style is genuinely spectacular, and the combat is generally fun and satisfying as well. Problems can arise from a weird lack of depth perception, making combat and especially platforming a little finicky and annoying, and an incoherent story; I didn't really know what was going on and Raji jumped from location to location seemingly at random. Vishnu and Durga's conversations were great though, definitely a highlight, and as an Indian the attention to mythology was a joy to see.… Expand
  7. Aeronin
    Aug 21, 2020
    6
    TLDR version of my review:

    Good: Music, Concept, Art Bad: BUGS. The game employs a real-time combat system and includes a skill tree design - allowing you to choose what skills/element you wish for Raji to master. I was not a fan of this. It's all fine when theres maybe 3 or 4 demons after you. At times when there are 8 attacking you from every direction on the map, it was very    TLDR version of my review:

    Good: Music, Concept, Art
    Bad: BUGS.

    The game employs a real-time combat system and includes a skill tree design - allowing you to choose what skills/element you wish for Raji to master.

    I was not a fan of this. It's all fine when theres maybe 3 or 4 demons after you. At times when there are 8 attacking you from every direction on the map, it was very frustrating as I died time and time again, without even knowing why. I concede this might be because of my inferior gaming skills. I found the mass mob battles even harder than the boss battles. (Zelda has trained me well to look for patterns. )

    The game also included simplistic mural puzzles. Some 2D, some 3D. Either to unlock a snippet into Raji's past or to cleanse the area of corruption. Too simple. There was no challenge. It felt like something they put in there just for the sake of adding a puzzle element.

    Finally we come to the peak of my frustrations while playing this game. Many times I was either knocked out of the battle field, or the demon had disappeared leaving me stuck inside instead. It even happened during the final boss fight.

    To make matters worse, I had to face the final boss without the option of using the final weapon gifted by the Gods. Somehow I had gotten stuck underwater and when I reloaded the save, it had autosaved to the next point but without the weapon. I never even got to use the weapon once.

    Throughout the whole game more questions appear than answers. Obviously setting up for a sequel.

    However at the price point (discounted) of $22.49, it's a no from me. Maybe if it was $15 and below.    … Expand
  8. IamSquid
    Jan 2, 2023
    7
    I don't know what happened! I played the demo and loved it, so I bought the full game and it wasn't as good. Nevertheless, its an incredible looking game, so maybe I'll give it another try.

Awards & Rankings

33
#33 Most Discussed Switch Game of 2020

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
69

Mixed or average reviews - based on 21 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 13 out of 21
  3. Negative: 2 out of 21
  1. Cultured Vultures
    Oct 8, 2020
    70
    While certainly rough around the edges, Raji: An Ancient Epic is an earnest swing that shows a ton of heart and some great ideas.
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  2. Switch Player
    Oct 5, 2020
    80
    Raji: An Ancient Epic is a beautiful adventure unlike anything we’ve likely seen in video games, let alone the Switch. The gameplay itself is of a strong if unspectacular standard, but it’s the design and the experience which you’re paying for here.
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  3. Nintendo Insider
    Oct 5, 2020
    70
    Raji: An Ancient Epic stands apart from its competition thanks to the game’s mythological exploration, but the unpolished state that it has arrived in detracts from its clear successes. Even if it doesn’t wholeheartedly deliver on its potential, there’s still much to admire from the adventure looking back from its conclusion.
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