Realm of Ink from 4Divinity and Leap Studio is a fast-paced action roguelite experience in which ink binds everything. Learn more in our Realm of Ink review!
Realm of Ink from 4Divinity and Leap Studio is a fast-paced action roguelite experience in which ink binds everything. You’ll be jumping into the role of Red, a swordswoman in the hunt for the Fox Demon. It’s during this quest that you end up realizing that you’re inside a book, and that your destiny is tied to what the book dictates. It’s now up to you to find a way to go beyond what this so-called destiny has in store for you, so that you can finally write your own tale.
Once the brief – and rather pixelated – intro cutscene is over, the game will send you into a short tutorial so that you can learn all of the basics. You’ll gain control of your character with the left analog stick, as you use light attacks with the Y button and slower but stronger heavy attacks with the X button. Press and hold down the X button to charge up a strong attack. You can press the B button to perform a quick dash to try to avoid enemies and incoming attacks. You’re invincible while dashing, which also makes it the only way you can avoid hazards.
As you progress through each area, you’ll find special Ink Relics that can aid you in extending your run. You can equip up to two Ink Relics at once. After you have equipped two Ink Relics, your Ink Pet will evolve into a unique form based on the combination you selected, depending on the five elements of the Ink Relics. You will then be able to use its special ability by pressing the A button, which can certainly help to turn the tide of battle in an instant.
Ink Relics that are imbued with divine power will grant you an active Ink Relic Skill, as well as a passive bonus. You can decompose unwanted Ink Relics to turn them into Ink Stones, which can then be used to upgrade Ink Relics to increase their power. Active Ink Relic Skills will be mapped to the ZL and ZR buttons for easy access, and will have a cooldown attached to balance things out so that you don’t abuse them.
What types of Ink Relics will you run into? Take, for example, the Bone-Rending Tiger Roar. This Ink Relic will summon a sequence of tiger claws that will tear through the area ahead while dealing 140 points of Ink Relic Skill damage. Should the tiger claws manage to land at least one critical git, a second set of tiger claws will trigger. This one also grants passive boosts thanks to the White Tiger Ink, including an increase to critical hit rate and critical damage, as well as a 10% boost to light and heavy attacks.
Given the game’s roguelite nature, you’re going to be picking from a variety of abilities as you progress through each run, while you choose which route to take. You could, for example, grab yourself the Time Compressor, which makes it so that each enemy hit by the final strike of a light attack accelerates the cooldown of all of your Ink Relic Skills by half a second. Another option is the Sky Sunderer, which boosts heavy attack speed, thus unleashing more attacks with each swing. Or you could go with the Lotus-Sundering Cleaver, which will multiply the damage of light and heavy attacks for 8 seconds every time you enter a room. The Rippling Propagator is also a good option since it changes your light attacks combo to add a dash forward at the end, allowing you to deal damage and safely return to your starting position with an added invincible dash.
You can also collect Curios from treasure chests to boost some of your stats and even add some extra status effects. Grabbing the Bloodthirsty Wolf Fang will increase your critical hit rate by 3% while also adding bleeding damage that can stack up to 10 times. Grab the Zaure Cloud Boots to increase your movement speed by 20%. Grab the Strategy Blade Ring to add 20% bleeding damage from the blades that are summoned around you every 5 seconds.
There are even Elixirs to add to your loadout. Grab a Luck Elixir to, as the name suggests, increase your luck by adding a 3% drop rate chance for Epic or higher Crious, as well as to increase how many silver coins you get by 3%. Go with the Soulmeld Elixir to permanently increase Ink Relic Skill damage by 5%. Or you might want to choose the Venowirm Elixir, which will permanently boost status effect damage by 8%. Maybe that last one would be best combined with Ink Relic Skills and attacks that deal poison or bleeding?
You can collect silver coins as you defeat enemies and complete objectives. You can put these to good use and trade them for some additional useful Curious, such as a Crocodiel Skin Drum to increase your critical rate and critical damage, or a Doom-Binding Bell that boosts status effect damage by 30%, although it also increases curse duration by 30%. Visit Chef Jade and her food stall to get your hands on some Crab Meat Lion’s Head, Braised Soft-shelled Turtle, or Daoist Fish Soup. The Braised Soft-shelled Turtle will restore 25% fo your HP and will increase damage reduction by 10% for the next pair of rooms.
When you die – not if, but when, that’s when the other roguelite elements will kick. You’ll be revived at Miss Ching’s inn, where you’ll meet said Spirit Fox. That’s not her name, really, but that’s what the locals call her, and she’s yet to correct them. Anyway, it’s then that you learn that your story is part of a book. During each of your runs, you’ll get to collect special Fox Blood gems. This will act as the in-game premium currency that will allow you to slowly but surely make some progress.
You can visit the Talent Stele to spend your hard-earned Fox Blood gems to unlock permanent boosts that will have an effect on all subsequent runs. These include, for example, Blade Flurry, which will increase the damage dealt by light attacks by 3%, or Resolute Impact, which will have the same effect on your heavy attacks. You should also get the Reliable Friend boost since it will increase all damage dealt by your Ink Pet by 15%. Maybe also get Good Shape since it will increase your max HP by 5%, and an extra 5% can certainly go a long way!
Realm of Ink is a fast-paced action roguelite experience in which ink binds everything. You’ll be jumping into the role of Red, a swordswoman in the hunt for the Fox Demon. It’s during this quest that you end up realizing that you’re inside a book, and that your destiny is tied to what the book dictates. It’s now up to you to find a way to go beyond what this so-called destiny has in store for you, so that you can finally write your own tale.
There’s some extra replay value to go along with the roguelite formula, since you can collect a special resource that can be spent to unlock different looks for Red. While, at first, this might seeem like it’s only for cosmetic purposes, it’s actually something that changes some of her attacks and abilities while also adding extra skills or gameplay mechanics to some of them, which will change how you approach things.
The game does take a hit on its leap to the Nintendo Switch. The framerate stutters a bit when things get too crowded, which you’ll notice right away since your pet’s framerate is cut in half compared to that of Red and enemies. The overall resolution is also lower, and the animated intro is extremely pixelated from being compressed so much. It’s something that, at first, felt a bit jarring, but this was something I ended up getting used to after a handful of runs. Realm of Ink is out on Nintendo Switch with a $24.99 price tag.
Disclaimer
This Realm of Ink review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by 4Divinity.
