An upcoming indie soulslike is attracting attention for its colorful, and quite attractive, use of the aesthetics and colors of premodern Italian fashion and folklore. Enotria: The Last Song doesn’t stand out too much on the gameplay so far, but the developers at Jyamma are focusing hard on making this thing look really good and really stand out from the pack of other soulslikes that have mostly focused on dirty medieval fantasy or Baroque-to-Victorian settings.
“Enotria is a beautiful sun-lit land inspired by Italian nature, that hides dark secrets behind its bright facades, and it is up to you to unravel the mysteries of this stunning world,” says Jyamma. There’s a lot there to draw from, including Enotria’s seemingly-ubiquitous masks drawn from all manner of Italian festival garb, and really that wild lion-thing in the trailer that looks like it crawled right out of a piece of heraldry.
As for the story and gameplay? Those look like pretty standard soulslike fare. You’re some kind of epithet-styled warrior (a “Maskless One”) who’s going to go fight some folks in extremely purposeful combat based around timing, dodging, stamina, and perhaps locking on if you’re into that kind of thing. I expect there’ll be some kind of magical age of the world to overthrow/overcome/uphold/sustain/destroy.
That’s perhaps too tongue-in-cheek, I’ll immediately admit, as in Enotria you can swap between several masks, each of which imbues you with a different set of skills and has its own skill tree to draw from, as well as white orbs called Ardore that let you alter the state of the environment you’re in. How that really sets Enotria’s gameplay apart from other games in the genre isn’t yet clear.
I personally am thrilled that there will finally be a game where I can get eaten by a giant dragon or whatever while wearing checkered tights, fluffy doublet, and sassy leather capelet. “Please, I’m begging you, put on some armor,” you will say, and my only response will be to put on some parti-color quilted gloves and stick a feather in my deeply impractical cap.
Will any of that be possible in Enotria? I do not know, but the early screenshots include some really, delightfully silly late medieval and renaissance fashion—so I’m holding out hope.
Enotria: The Last Song will release on June 12, 2024. It’s developed by Jyamma Games and currently has pages on the Epic Store and Steam. You can find more at official site enotriathelastsong.com.
