Developed by Wildfire Game and published by bilibili, Eastern Exorcist is a 2D side-scrolling action RPG. Before we get going it should be said that Eastern Exorcist is currently available as an Early Access title on Steam covering the first chapter, with a PS4 and Switch release forthcoming; so things will definitely change down the road. Now that we got that out the way, let's get started.


In Eastern Exorcist you assume the role of Lu Yunchuan, an exorcist and senior apprentice of the Cangshan Sect. You, along with your fellow brothers and exorcists, are sent to defeat King Mandrill who has been stealing people's souls to strengthen himself and is said to be on a nearby mountain. After your brothers capture and release a fox spirit at Lu's insistence, you continue you up the mountain, defeating all enemies who cross your path. After your first boss battle, Lu realizes something is amiss and heads back to his fellow exorcists. However, when you arrive at the camp, all but one of your brothers has been brutally slain. The surviving exorcists claim that they were ambushed by King Mandrill, who was informed by the fox spirit you had let go earlier. Soon afterwards Lu is expelled from the sect for his failure to protect his brothers, leaving with their ashes to return the remains to their ancestral homes and seeking vengeance against King Mandrill.


The story, much like the rest of the game, is very linear. Granted it is kind of cliche being mostly a revenge story, but it's still pretty good. It's very much go to this place, talk to this person and then continue here kind of a story. Cutscenes are done through the use of some excellently-drawn artwork and is presented with a Chinese opera feel. It gives it a really rich and immersive feel, giving the player some investment in the battles ahead and motivation to keep playing.

There is one small issue but it's not hard to miss: the English. While the translation for the most part is pretty solid, there is quite a few errors as well. A good deal of it is just wrong pronouns, tense and verbs/adverbs; 'when' instead of 'went', 'founds' when they meant to use 'finds' and 'his'/'her' getting mixed up. It's all pretty minor stuff but sometimes it just distracts you from the severity of what they might be talking about. While we are on the topic of text and translations, another issue is with pop-ups that appear such as mission updates or when you complete challenges. Sometimes the text will overlap other text making some of it unreadable or it will simply get cutoff mid word. There are also some small alignment issues but I felt a lot of it is due to the fact that English words have a lot more characters compared to Chinese and just don't fit in the space given. It's not game-wrecking but it's certainly noticeable.






Although cast out from your sect, Lu is still an exorcist and a skilled one at that. Which is good because Eastern Exorcist is pretty damn difficult. You have the usual skills; double jump, dash/evade, guard and parry. You got your basic sword attacks, charge and jump attacks, countering. The beginning of the game serves as a tutorial to help you get a feel for the controls, with additional tutorials available. But it's not enough to just hack at demons til they run out of health. Lu has the ability to exorcise or dispel fallen foes, killing all nearby completely. A button prompt appears above their health gauge, which will begin to fill back up as well, and failure to dispel before their gauge is filled will cause them to get back up again.

After successfully landing counters and certain attacks, Lu will have a flash of red and gold appear quickly. This is a Slash and is one of your most powerful attacks. It deals a good amount of damage and will break most normal enemies' guard and a large chunk out of a boss' guard gauge. The timing is pretty brief but not hard to get down at all. While engaged in combat, each action you perform will use up some stamina and when you run out, you can't do much beyond walking around. You naturally regain stamina by not taking any actions. Apart from stamina, you also have a MP gauge which is for using Exorcism Arts you learn as you progress through the story. These Exorcism Arts provide a wide variety of abilities such as sending out a shadow clone to strike enemies in that direction, summoning spiritual swords that attack nearby foes or just increasing the damage to your attacks. Each one has its own skill tree allowing customization such as granting stackable buffs, increased damage or improved abilities.


Previously, I mentioned that Eastern Exorcist is difficult; damn difficult, actually. While most of the regular enemies you encounter aren't generally too much to handle, if you do slip up trying to parry for example, you can get punished pretty quickly. It's the bosses who really bring the challenge to the game. Each boss has its own gimmick and attacks, while taking minimal damage until you stun them by breaking their guard completely.

For example, the Green Wraith can send shock waves across the ground and dash forward, pummeling Lu with its massive four arms and a mass of tortured souls that deal debuffs to health and seal your Arts. They keep the pressure on you pretty non-stop, to the point it starts to get spammy. I had cursed quite a few times at some of the bosses in the handful of multiple attempts to defeat them. They have attack patterns but the change as their health drops and it feels like there might be a bit of randomness thrown in as well. But the feeling when they do fall and you dispel them is incredibly satisfying. They really force you to have good command of all the skills and techniques available to you, which makes those victories all the grander. It's easy to call it a hack n' slash but with everything you can do, it's much more than just mindlessly slicing everything you see.

Upon defeating an enemy, Lu obtains a number of souls which are used to improve his Exorcism Arts and to level up. Across the map there are shrines that once lit serve as a checkpoint should you die, allow you to train, take on challenges, teleport to other shrines and, most importantly, level up. Each time you level up you get a decent increase to your max health and attack but your stamina remains the same. As you would expect the number of souls required go up but luckily there is another method to earn souls apart from defeating enemies by completing Challenge Stages. After you defeat most bosses, you'll unlock a new challenge in which you must win within certain time brackets with, as you might have guessed, souls serving as the rewards. They are nice little side activities and change things up by adding basic enemies and new patterns of attack. It keeps things from turning into a grind fest, though you do have to grind a bit since both you leveling and skill trees require the same souls.






Given the linear nature of the story, the map has the same flow. Though each section does offer a bit in exploration and finding hidden souls, there isn't much to do or find beyond that. This certainly is not a bad thing. It's a very to the point game and with a heavy focus on combat, a less open-ended approach certainly works. A few "side quests" here and there, but they pretty much don't require much more other than continuing as you were and don't really feel like separate events from the main story. The game controls pretty well and movement is tight but the default binding for playing on keyboard isn't fantastic but playing with a controller lent itself to a more enjoyable experience. You can change the bindings but once again there are some text alignment issues. You can also change the difficulty which changes how much damage you are dealt, should things prove to be too hard or maybe not hard enough.


The art of Eastern Exorcist is certainly one of its highlights along with the combat and boss battles. The landscapes are often full of dark colors and serve to make some of your flashy moves stand out even more. A lot of detail was taken with really establishing the mood and tone of the game, not just with the locations you travel but the designs of the friends and foes you come across, with the boss design being fantastic and fit the setting perfectly. Sadly the cut scenes seem to not be at the same quality as the rest of the game, as there is a decent amount of blockiness and blurriness popping during said cut scenes. It's forgivable and luckily it wasn't during gameplay, but it's there. I can't say I was really impressed with the soundtrack but I really didn't notice it either. It was there but nothing that really stood out or helped with adding to the game. The voice over work is all dubbed in Chinese and is done well, with the opera pieces being very pleasant.


It took me just around 7 and a half hours to complete Eastern Exorcist and this is only the first chapter. After the credits have rolled, you are shown gameplay from what is presumably chapter two, featuring a different protagonist and a shift in setting as well. Beyond your first playthrough, you unlock Trials mode which is a boss rush with you starting at level 1 and there is a leaderboard to compete for the fastest time. Other than the new game+, there isn't really too much else to do besides waiting for the next chapter or chapters. In the end, Eastern Exorcist is an excellent game with a lot of potential and room for improvement. The few issues that do exist are easily fixable and honestly don't really hurt the overall experience. If you are a fan of 2D action games or just like a game with some challenge behind it, this is a wonderful title certainly worth considering, regardless of if you get it now or wait for it to get some more polish.