Ever since Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth was revealed for PC, I knew it was something I needed to play. The sublime animation and art in every GIF leading up to the full release had me excited to play what could possibly be an amazing metroidvania. When it finally hit Steam Early Access, it had a lot of potential. It has since been updated a few times and finally had its full PC release early last year. With the PC release finally complete, Team Ladybug and Playism finally brought Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth to consoles in December. I’ve been playing it on PS5, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch over the last few weeks.
When an early access game interests me, I usually buy it to play for a bit before waiting on the full release. I did that with Hades as well. I don’t like spending too much time when a game isn’t complete or fully polished yet. Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth on PC is fantastic and is one of the games I’ve gifted the most on Steam to friends. I was very curious to see how it would feel on consoles and whether the developers would take advantage of any of the new features on current platforms. I’ve covered the Switch port in a separate review and this review will focus on the PS5 version of Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth.
Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth has you playing High Elf Deedlit in a labyrinth full of friends, foes, bosses, puzzles, and more. I’m not familiar with much of the lore in Record of Lodoss War so I had approached this as a standalone metroidvania release from Team Ladybug. My first playthrough definitely made me interested in exploring more of Record of Lodoss War though. The labyrinth is full of save points which will come in handy because you will die a few times as you either learn the mechanics of a new boss or get unlucky with enemies ambushing you at low health. The penalty for death is respawning at the last save room.
Deedlit’s movement and all the attacks at her disposal in Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth gameplay are superb. As you progress through the early parts of the game, you unlock more weapon types after getting the ability to switch elements like in Ikaruga. This helps you solve puzzles and is essential at getting to certain parts of the map. Ranged weapons like the bow also help with puzzles while you do unlock specific elemental skills that will make some boss battles a walk in the park.
Speaking of boss battles, Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth has some difficulty spikes later on. I was prepared for this based on what friends told me for my first playthrough, but it is still worth noting. Other than those, the game is quite easy overall. Just make sure you remap the controls if you are having a rough time with the default setting.
Visually, Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth looks gorgeous on PS5. The animations are sublime with instant loading everywhere. The game loads too fast for the splash screens to even fully render in some cases before getting into your save file. The implementation of player afterimage and every single animation for tutorials and text boxes look excellent. The only downside to the visuals in Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth is in how some environments could’ve been better.
Speaking of getting into your save file, Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth on PS5 uses the PS5 Activity Cards feature letting you skip all the fluff and go straight to the save file menu and get back into the action. I didn’t think this release would make use of PS5 features like that, but here we are. It also has subtle haptic feedback on the controller different from the PS4 and Xbox versions of the game. As a PS5 conversion, Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth is everything I wanted from it.
On the audio side of things, I didn’t think much of the music when I first tried the early access release. I’ve now grown to like it a lot. This includes a few of the songs in the middle of the game that are quite catchy. The audio design in general is very good as well across the board with very nice sound effects.
The only aspect of Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth that might turn some off is the length. My initial playthrough took me about 6 hours after I spent some time looking for additional weapons. I hope the one early game secret’s hint text can be fixed because I spent about 15 minutes trying to figure it out before looking it up online and figuring out the text was implying something else. A few of the gameplay mechanics also felt like they didn’t get enough time in the spotlight by the end of my playthrough. These are my main complaints with the game on PS5.
In the last month or so, I’ve played Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth multiple times across consoles and have grown to appreciate it even more. If you’ve been wanting something that scratches the Castlevania: Symphony of the Night itch, this is it. I adore what Team Ladybug did here. Despite the few annoyances, it is a must play for any fan of the genre. The developers even added a few welcome PS5 features to the native release which make it easier to recommend on the platform with instant loading and great performance.
