Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption

There is an elephant in the room whenever one tackles a difficult game. The elephant grows in size if the game in question is also a dark, Gothic experience and features larger than life boss battles.
This often leaves a reviewer with one of three options; ignoring the obvious cliches, using their wit and charm to hint at the comparisons or simply rip the band-aid off and dive right in.
I’m choosing the later; Sinner: Sacrifice by Redemption by publisher Another Indie is an light but challenging indie love letter to Dark Souls. With that out of the way, let’s begin…

Atone for your sins

Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption is a boss battler action-RPG. The protagonist Adam, devoid of memory, is tasked with defeating the incarnation of his greatest sins. Eight individual bosses aka ‘avatars of Sin’ await Adam in a dark, Gothic underworld environment.
Before each challenge, the player must ‘level down’ attributes, to further increase the challenge. These level downs range from reduced health, stamina and inventory.

Rolling, rolling, rolling

Combat is smooth and should feel extremely familiar to fans of Dark Souls and Monster Hunter. The act of drinking a health potion whilst a large boss awaits should be a familiar sight for fans of this genre.
An experienced boss battle gamer may feel that the protagonist in Sinner Sacrifice for Redemption feels far too light. Movement is fluid and feels much faster than other titles within this genre.
The initial tutorial for Sinner: Sacrifice by Redemption is incredibly short. Whether this is by design is debatable. Developing a near non existent tutorial ensures a more difficult game to master, however the titles primary issue is that there is very little content outside of the core experience.

Boss battle after boss battle

Sinner: Sacrifice by Redemption has been developed as a linear experience, where the user moves from boss battle to boss battle. Each boss has a satisfying backstory, which is explored during their intro cut scenes. Players will quickly adapt to each of the boss battle animations and tells.
Outside of these core boss battles there is very little lore or additional content that makes open world games in this genre worth the challenge.
The linear path in this game, coupled with the relatively small number of bosses to defeat, ensures a relatively quick experience for an experienced gamer.

Summary

Hardcore fans of the genre may enjoy a lighter, quicker indie boss battle experience in between Dark Souls repeat sessions. The lack of additional lore, coupled with the linear experience of jumping straight to boss battles, may leave experienced players with very little pay off.
Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption is out now on Playstation 4, Xbox One Game Pass and PC.