Lovish is a charming throwback to the single-screen arcade games that would have eaten rolls of quarters in the ’80s. Players take control of Sir Soloman, a selfish knight who decides to ditch his party before they venture out so he can have the princess in waiting all to himself. Without his band of RPG staples to help him out, Sir Soloman, and the player guiding him through each challenging room, will have their work cut out for them.

Developed by LABS and Matt Kap, Lovish manages to do a lot with very little. There isn’t a large assortment of different monsters to defeat or traps to avoid across its more than 50 levels. Scenery changes are more or less limited to palette swaps and the goal for each room remains the same: open the door and move on. And yet, it’s never boring or dull.

In fact, after months of languishing with games, never really finding the heart to get into them as I made a huge life change moving from California to New York, I played this for five hours straight, long enough to see the credits roll. I couldn’t get enough of it. And when I encountered a particularly tough level that had me losing lives faster than the death montage in Edge of Tomorrow, I pushed myself to get gud.

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

The challenges and level designs found in Lovish are quite clever. It’s the type of game where it’s easy to see exactly what you need to do to win, but actually pulling it off can prove tricky. Maybe the enemies don’t move exactly as you thought they would. Maybe the floaty jump won’t quite make it over the crevasse because you pressed the button a split-second too late. Errors are bound to happen, especially when you consider Sir Soloman dies after just one hit. That’s why you don’t dump your healer at the beginning of your quest.

It’s a challenging game, but one a manageable one as well. The mental block of beating a level the first time evaporates when you hit the exit, and any revisits to scoop up the various secrets hiding within will likely be no challenge at all. If you want to 100% this game, expect to visit each level repeatedly as there are multiple crowns to earn, secret levels to play, and coins to collect that you can use to increase Solomon’s arsenal of attacks.

LESS ‘BOSS BATTLE,’ MORE ‘SUPERVISOR SKIRMISH’

These shops will also make the final boss more manageable, as it’s the doozy. The others? Not so much. They range from mild inconvenience to absolute annoyance due to the RNG not going your way. Outside of the big baddie, they are not what I’d consider to be rewards for reaching them, though I’ll admit it was fun to see how fast I could wipe them out once I unlocked the downward stab.

The challenge of Lovish kept me playing long into the night, but the eccentricity of the game is what brought me back to it over the next couple of days. Its embrace of chaos through the various random episodes that follow each level and the secret games hidden within it give it a feeling of anything goes. These episodes can be as simple as watching Sir Solomon take a beach vacation to having a turn-based battle with a piece of AI artwork (that is not actually AI, so please don’t boycott it). These moments keep the festivities spirited, especially when a very entertaining one came after a level I spent 10 minutes trying to complete.

SHORT ‘N’ SWEET

A little more TLC with the boss battles might have resulted in a more memorable experience, but Lovish is a satisfying adventure nonetheless. It’s a timeless type of entertainment that takes a simple a premise and runs with it. As the gaming industry continues to get more complex, bigger, and frustrating, it’s a solid reminder that at the end of the day, what matters most is creating a product that people can have fun with.

7/10

This review was conducted on a Nintendo Switch using a digital copy of the game. It was paid for by the author.