Lovish is the next game from LABS Works, the team behind the wonderful Astalon: Tears of the Earth. A somewhat unexpected left turn, Lovish is a level-based action platformer where you play as a knight called Solomon on a quest to rescue his beloved princess. Oh, and you only have 1 HP.
Upon completing each single-screen level, one of many random events will occur. These might involve a wizard teleporting you to a ‘scary dimension,’ a game producer talking to you about NFTs, or an encounter with Garlic Man (who can’t stick around because he’s in the middle of a speed run).
These events are often as hilarious as they are mysterious and are a great incentive for getting through each level. The levels appear simple at a glance, involving jumping over spikes, slashing enemies, and collecting keys and pennies, but they do get much trickier as you progress. Again, having only 1 HP complicates what would otherwise be a straightforward platformer.
Permanent progression is made in the form of unlocking shops where you can spend your hard-earned pennies on items that let you, for example, see how much health a boss has, attack upwards and downwards, unlock a dash move, and more. There is a way to have 2 HP per level instead of only 1, but it comes up much later in the game.
Eventually you’ll unlock the ability to find different types of crowns in each level. Secret crowns are devilishly hidden, peace crowns can be obtained by beating a level without killing anything, and time crowns are awarded to those who can beat a level within a set time. Collect enough crowns, and you will be able to open special doors that offer even more special rewards.
I encountered a couple of bugs, which certainly marred the experience. I played the game on PC with a controller, and every now and then it would get stuck, so I’d be permanently moving to the right, obviously a big problem in a game where you only have 1 HP. Eventually, pressing enough buttons would stop it, but this issue remained a persistent, if sporadic, annoyance.
The game also seemed to have problems loading quite often, which, considering how simple the graphics are, seems like an odd problem to have. Every time you load in and out of a level, play a random event, or even do something as simple as opening the menu to view your collected items, it would hitch. Not a dealbreaker, by any means, but enough to make the whole experience feel sluggish.
Unfortunately, I found myself struggling against Lovish in more foundational ways. For a game that demands pixel-perfect platforming, it does not control well. I would frequently have difficulty fitting Solomon between two blocks above him, even with excessively careful movement of the analog stick or d-pad.
Jumping and hitting a block, falling back down, and getting hit by a fireball or enemy was extremely frustrating. When you only have 1 HP, mistakes like this are significant. More often than not, I felt like I was fighting against the design of the game in unintended ways.
This feeling carried over into some of the boss fights, in particular the final boss. The final boss has two phases, with the second consisting of a fight against a giant head with two big fists, you know the type. To deal damage to him, you need to jump past the fists and onto a moving platform to strike the head. The problem is the platform is right near the boss’ fireball-shooting mouth.
The only conceivable way to defeat this guy is to jump onto the platform, hit the head maybe once or twice, then jump down before the fireballs arrive. Rinse and repeat. When the boss has 80 HP and you have 2 HP, this fight is just tedium stretched into absurdity. Get hit twice? Too bad, start the fight again. There is no fun or rewarding challenge here when the difficulty is completely arbitrary.
Lovish has a solid identity and structural premise, with charming aesthetics, enticing mysteries, and truly funny random events after each level. Sadly, the conceit of Solomon having only 1 (and later 2) HP utterly fails to work when stretched out over the whole game. What begins as an interesting challenge soon becomes infuriating, exacerbated by the occasional bug and poor design choice. Lovish is a game I would love to recommend, but when there are a million other hilarious indie platformers that respect your time, this one is a tough sell.
Rating: 6/10
Lovish was reviewed on PC with a code provided by the developers.