• Price: $24.99 USD
• Developer/Publisher: Singles Alliance
• Release Date: June 14, 2024

A review code was kindly provided by Singles Alliance. We thank them for allowing us to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

We’ve previously written about Switch games from the Philippines; I really enjoy learning new things, and when I picked up Agnostiko ORIGINS I feel like I got a small glimpse into Filipino beliefs based on their mythology. The game is a Metroidvania created by a Filipino developer, and tells the story of “the man in the red scarf,” who goes to fight the one responsible for monsters abducting humans in the Philippines in the 1890s.

The game has a little bit of dialogue and storytelling, and includes some voice acting in what I believe is Tagalog? (The sound quality for the voice acting’s audio files could be a little better, but it’s really cool to have!) Anyways, as the man in the red scarf, you go to Mr. Plague’s Mansion to defeat Mr. Plague. But first you’ll have to fight your way through hordes of Filipino monsters and unlock paths that take you further into the mansion.

The controls for the action combat and platforming are simple and easy to use; you have a regular attack, special attack, back dash ability, jumping capabilities, and potions. You gain experience for each enemy you defeat, and monsters reanimate fairly quickly afterwards. I wouldn’t say that the combat is overly difficult, but that doesn’t mean you won’t die a few times.

There are save points in each section of the mansion, which allow you to not only save your progress but also fully restore your HP. If you’re defeated, you get sent back to the room where you most recently saved. You’re most likely to lose against a boss monster, but if you win you level up, and bosses often drop keys to unlock new areas.

When you fight these monsters, the screen displays their name, which I liked having as someone who’s unfamiliar with these creatures. I will say that it might have been nice to have an encyclopedia section/bestiary that explained what the monsters were. I ended up looking them up out of curiosity.

I encountered the following monsters (check out the Wikipedia page on Filipino mythology for more info):

• Amalanhig
• White Lady
• Black Lady
• Gawigawen
• Bal-Bal
• Tikbalang
• Kalansay Sundalo
• Multo Sundalo
• Nuno sa punso
• Itim na Duwende
• Kapre
• Bungisngis
• Tik-Tik
• Pugot na Ulo
• Tiyanak
• Manananggal
• Sarangay
• Manlalayog
• Busaw
• Kurita
• Higante
• Dalaketnon
• Batibat
• Mandurugo
• Ekek
• Mambabarang

I don’t think I could name that many monsters in my own culture! It’s really interesting to see how this could reflect some of Filipino culture. They did a nice job of creating a horror-themed environment with the monsters, with small amounts of blood as well as shrill, bone-chilling screams. (Play with headphones to avoid concerned questions! 😂)

The types of enemies in a room seem to occasionally change or get stronger after you’ve defeated bosses elsewhere. You’re going to find yourself doing a lot of backtracking in the mansion, but it’s manageable due to its size. I really appreciated getting a map, as I don’t tend to do well with directions. 😅

I want to say that it took me about 7-10 hours to reach the final boss. This really reminded me of retro games, but it has more modern features such as the map and save function that keep it from feeling too punishing.

I don’t know if I completely understood the whole story; the English was fine – it’s just that they could have explained more about what was going on. I also had one instance where the game wouldn’t let me press “retry” after a game over, which was solved by closing and opening the game again.

Other than that I didn’t have any major issues with the game. I like the “throwback” graphics style for the character sprites and environments, and the few character portraits used in dialogue boxes look good to me. The soundtrack was fun to listen to as I destroyed my enemies.

Agnostiko ORIGINS is a simple but nostalgic blast to the past with neat inspirations. An article by Virtual SEA suggests that we’ll get a sequel in the fighting game genre at some point in Q4 2024. We’ll get to fight as the monsters this time!