Odallus:
The Dark Call

Odallus: The Dark Call (2015) is a running, jumping, and fighting game where you race to save your son from a strange plague that turns humans into monsters. Play involves exploring the levels, finding secret upgrades and hidden pathways, and fighting enemies. Inspired by old series like Metroid and Castlevania, it combines tough fights and complex traversal with quality-of-life features like teleportation and powerups you keep even after you die.

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You play Haggis, a veteran fighter who returns one morning to find his village in ruins, his son missing, and humans turning into grotesque and deadly monsters. You set out on a mission to save his son and the world. You explore eight vast, labyrinthine levels, killing monsters and avoiding deadly traps to find secrets and upgrades that increase your strength to defeat the rising evil.

Play involves running and jumping through the levels, avoiding pitfalls and other hazards, and defeating monsters using an array of weapons. Close study and exploration of each location reveal secret passageways, shortcuts, items and upgrades. Fights are intentionally tough and require expert timing of dodges, jumps and attacks in order to overcome, and formulating ambitious strategies and experimenting with different weapons is crucial.

The result is a unique blend of classic and modern platforming staples that combine to create a game that offers a deep, skill-based challenge yet still offers surprising depth to its combat and exploration.

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Our examiner, Ben Kendall, first checked Odallus: The Dark Call 14 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 10 months ago.