{"id":5341,"date":"2026-09-21T00:13:56","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T20:43:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/?p=5341"},"modified":"2026-09-21T00:13:57","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T20:43:57","slug":"a-promising-action-rpg-lost-in-its-own-ambition-the-relic-first-guardian-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/review\/a-promising-action-rpg-lost-in-its-own-ambition-the-relic-first-guardian-review\/","title":{"rendered":"A Promising Action RPG Lost in Its Own Ambition | The Relic: First Guardian Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The action RPG genre has reached a point where simply borrowing ideas from Souls games is no longer enough. Players have seen stamina systems, parries, mysterious worlds and oversized bosses countless times before, so any newcomer needs something of its own to stand out. The Relic: First Guardian certainly tries. It has an interesting dark fantasy setting, a huge world to explore, dozens of bosses and a progression system that avoids some of the usual RPG clutter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the first few hours, I could see the potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, the longer I played, the clearer it became that The Relic: First Guardian is a game with more ambition than polish. There are enjoyable ideas buried here, particularly in its combat and exploration, but too many of them are surrounded by technical problems, repetitive content and questionable design decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is an action RPG that can occasionally be exciting, but rarely feels as refined as it needs to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A Broken World That Never Fully Pulls You In<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plot is set in Arsiltus, a previously rich world now engulfed by the Void after the destruction of the Great Relic. You are the First Guardian, woken with scant memory of what has transpired, and finally sent forth to seek the scattered shards of the Relic and repair what remains of the planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a very appropriate setting for this kind of game. The problem is that the story never grows into anything truly memorable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of the story is told through fragmented conversations, environmental details, and experiences found around the world. Arsiltus and its backstory have some interesting ideas, but the game struggles to make them feel like a compelling story. The main guy himself is not that intriguing and a lot of the secondary characters don\u2019t get enough time spent on them to make their story land emotionally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Voice acting doesn\u2019t help, either. The acting is typically wooden so scenes that should be emotionally charged appear curiously dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are exceptions, but they are rare. Some of the lesser stories of the individuals still living in this world in ruins can be more compelling than the major story itself. Unfortunately, those moments aren’t quite enough to carry the overall plot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Combat Has Good Ideas, but Lacks Refinement<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Relic: First Guardian is best in combat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The game doesn\u2019t simply imitate the Souls formula, but rather takes the notion and tries to put a new spin on it. Stamina is mostly used for defensive maneuvers like avoiding and blocking so you may be more aggressive with your attacks without having to constantly watch a stamina meter. Weapon abilities and magical attacks also have cooldowns rather than using traditional resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This leads to a more aggressive rhythm where you\u2019re encouraged to mix up standard attacks, abilities, dodges and parries rather than just waiting for an opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of specific importance is parrying. Many foes can take a surprising amount of damage, therefore destroying their defenses is often more effective than simply chipping away at their health with normal assaults. Once you find the cadence, some meetings are quite rewarding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s also a nice assortment of weapons and equipment so you may try different tactics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But good ideas don’t always make good fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Animations might be stiff and once you start doing some attacks you can get locked into them longer than you might think. This is frustrating when facing faster foes that can react before your animation is finished. Hit detection is also not always accurate and the camera becomes an additional enemy when fighting in close quarters or against larger foes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it all clicks, fighting is swift and rewarding. When it doesn\u2019t, deaths might feel like the game\u2019s rough edges rather than your own blunders. That distinction matters enormously in an action RPG built around difficult encounters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dozens of Bosses, but Quantity Isn’t Quality<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Relic: First Guardian has one of the highest numbers of boss encounters in any game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sounds impressive at first. Some of the best moments in the game are when you\u2019re exploring the landscape and stumble across a powerful Brutal. There are a few of these fights that have some fun attack patterns and reward you for learning how to parry and counter certain moves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing is consistency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are simply too many employers for them to all seem meaningful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of them are humanoids, which begin to merge together after several hours. Others have limited movesets, too much health, or assaults that are not explained well enough. Some confrontations feel like they were painstakingly constructed around the combat system, while others are just standard adversaries with larger health bars. Eventually, the automatic excitement of seeing another boss wore off for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of asking myself what type of creative fight lay ahead, I typically asked myself how long before the next health bar disappeared. Less bosses and more time spent on each encounter separately would have made for a lot better game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exploration Without Proper Guidance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsiltus itself is fairly huge and I found myself just choosing a direction and seeing what I could discover at first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exploration can reward you with weapons, armor, upgrade materials, hidden quests and bosses so there is a real reason to leave the main path. The lack of frequent inventory clutter also helps make growth feel cleaner than many RPGs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, the world building eventually becomes one of the game\u2019s main flaws. Main goals and optional elements are not usually well differentiated. You can spend a lot of time following what looks like a major road, beat up a tough monster and find that you’ve practically come to a dead end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Progression can also be hampered by hurdles that don\u2019t tell you explicitly what need you\u2019re missing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mystery is what makes exploration intriguing. Confusion does not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The game often crosses the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And more and more the sense of environmental repetition develops. Villages, enemy factions, and natural areas all reuse familiar elements, making the globe feel far less diverse than its size would first imply. Arsiltus is big, but big is not the same as intriguing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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PS5 Version Requires More Polish<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The experience also falls short in terms of technical performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The game also suffers from severe frame-rate instability on PS5, with the drops being particularly annoying during combat. Timing parries and dodges are so critical as part of the gameplay, so irregular performance isn\u2019t just a visual issue\u2014it may impact how battle feels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are bugs too, from simple visual glitches to more major concerns with quests and progression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The visuals are inconsistent themselves. Some locales can appear great thanks to good art design and ambiance, but the character models, animations and tiny environmental details often look archaic compared to other recent action RPGs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another mention goes to the camera, because it can become very frustrating during boss encounters. It’s never fun to lose sight of an enemy because the camera is fighting the landscape, especially when a few missteps might swiftly finish an encounter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of these things ruin the experience on their own. But together they are continuously reminding you that you are playing something that needs a lot more time in development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Final Verdict<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Relic: First Guardian is hardly a bad action RPG, which makes its failures all the more aggravating. Its fierce fighting, exciting parries, occasional exploration surprises and tougher boss encounters hint at the potential of a far greater game. Ambition often works against it, unfortunately. Too many bosses mean repetition, the vast globe often feels empty, and interesting story ideas are left explored. Confusing progression, terrible animations, camera problems, glitches and unpredictable PS5 performance make the experience worse. There are really fun moments throughout Arsiltus, but it would have been better served by a smaller, more concentrated journey. It\u2019s ultimately an ambitious and occasionally spectacular action RPG that\u2019s hampered by inconsistency and lack of polish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This review is based on the PS5 version<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Score: 50\/100<\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The action RPG genre has reached a point where simply borrowing ideas from Souls games is no longer enough. Players have seen stamina systems, parries, mysterious worlds and oversized bosses countless times before, so any newcomer needs something of its own to stand out. The Relic: First Guardian certainly tries. It has an interesting dark […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":517,"featured_media":5342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/517"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5341"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5347,"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5341\/revisions\/5347"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}