Alwa's Awakening is a Retro-style Metroidvania released in 2017 from creator Elden Pixels available on PC, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4 and Xbox One.
The Land of Alwa was once a beautiful place where people lived in peace and freedom. That changed when Vicar appeared and used The Power of Hate to enslave the land under his rule. Entrusting magical ornaments to the Protectors, his four lieutenants, all hope seemed lost. But one day, the people of Alwa sent for a heroine from another world, Zoe, to fight back against Vicar and his Protectors.
Using an 8-bit aesthetic, the game intentionally hearkens back to the days of Nintendo Hard action platformers, albeit with some modern conveniences to reduce the risk of destroyed controllers.
In 2020, Elden Pixels released a sequel titled Alwas Legacy.
Alwa's Awakening tropes include:
- Ability Required to Proceed: A Metroidvania staple. Zoe will obtain the ability to create a pushable block (which can later be upgraded to float on water), a rising bubble (that can be upgraded to float upward indefinitely) and a lightning bolt that can break down some walls.
- Adorable Evil Minions: Mobs look more sad and tired than outright malicious.
- Ambiguous Ending: After defeating the Final Boss, Zoe walks to an altar where a pillar of light falls upon her and she collapses. Then the 8-bit art suddenly changes to a 16-bit style and she is teleported to the lake shore from the beginning of the game (albeit with the upgraded art style) where Saga from the beginning appears and tells her to wake up, just as at the start of the game...
- Anti-Frustration Features: Dying returns Zoe to the last checkpoint but any items/upgrades remain and puzzles stay solved.
- Badass Adorable: Zoe is as cute as they come and the most powerful mage in the land.
- Broken Bridge: A literal one blocks progress until Zoe collects the block creation power, which allows her to cross the gap.
- Door to Before: Several areas must be entered from one direction the first time to access a switch to open a door.
- Hearts Are Health: The Life Meter's segments are stored by picking up Heart Symbols occasionally dropped by enemies.
- Healing Checkpoint: Save points restore health (though they do not refill the water flask).
- Interchangeable Antimatter Keys: Zoe will encounter locked doors that require these. Saving three for the final area (the locations blocked off by three doors can be accessed via other methods with a bit of searching) will allow a minor Dungeon Bypass.
- Joke Item: One "collectable" item in the game is a rock. Upon picking it up the game notes that it is utterly uninteresting and useless, so much so that it will not even bother adding the rock to the inventory screen.
- Magic Staff: Zoe is told by Saga to get her first weapon, literally named the Magic Staff. When Zoe touches it, she can tell that it's special.
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Nintendo Hard: The player has three hit points. They can obtain an item that auto-refills health once, but that still makes the maximum number of hits six and that will not help against One-Hit Kill death traps which are featured frequently in the game's platforming challenges. - Regenerating Mana: Using the three abilities drains Zoe's magic meter and she cannot use an ability again until it refills. How quickly it refills depends upon the ability used.
- Sequel Hook: This is pretty much the entire ending, with or without The Stinger.
- Shout-Out: A few:
- The first boss concludes his opening speech by stating "But enough talk... Have at you!"
- A character just before the Final Boss advises you to Attack Its Weak Point For Massive Damage.
- Legacy has the recurring character Gwendoline; a hulking, armored knight who you meet in many places only to have her retreat due to inconveniences with her huge armor; is probably a nod/parody to Gwendoline Christie. Specifically her role as Captain Phasma in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. The joke being how despite their badass appearance and reputation they accomplish very little.
- Spikes of Doom: The game has standard floor and ceiling spikes that do a point of damage when touched and also spiked balls that are a One-Hit Kill.
- The Stinger: Collecting four tablet pieces throughout the game unlocks a short one after the end credits.
- Super Drowning Skills: Just touching water will cause a game over.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: A man speaks of his treasured blue orb and says that he would be very sad if someone were to steal it. Of course, taking it is required for 100% Completion.
- Video Game Demake: Given the game's 8-bit style, "port" might be a better term but Elden Pixels produced a cartridge version of the game for the NES. Most sprites had reduced colors due to NES palette limitations but backgrounds look nearly identical and the sound (originally created with Famitracker) is pretty much unchanged. The most significant change is in some area layouts (including boss battles) due to the original game being designed for a widescreen aspect ratio.
