If you don't know who Garshasp is, you may want to brush up on your Persian mythology. Garshasp is, if you couldn't tell from the title, a mythological monster slayer and the main character of this game by Fanafzar Game Studios. This studio is based in Iraq and made the game using free software with a team of about nine people. It's a very ambitious action game, but falls a bit short when it comes to accessibility.

The game begins with Garshasp camping out in the wilderness when he is suddenly attacked by monsters. When he runs back to his home town to warn them of a possible attack he arrives just in time to see his brother slain by the enemy leader. I'm avoiding using any pronouns here because since the game lacks any sort of subtitles, I have no idea how to spell any of the Persian names that were being thrown about. This also makes it hard to follow at times since there are some pretty intense pronouns used and without being able to see them it's hard to remember just exactly what's what.

Garshasp plays out as any God of War clone would. The mouse controls your light and hard attacks and you can use these in conjunction to do small combo attacks. You also have a block button and a roll to use for defensive capabilities. You have a grab attack that will usually cue up a cinematic kill for the enemy it was used on, which can also lead to quick-time events, requiring you to hit the movement keys depending on what icon shows up on the screen. You soon gain an extra meter to be used for special attacks, executed by holding guard and hitting another key, which can do some serious damage. The camera is completely controlled by the game and not the player which can lead to some awkward camera angles at times.

You won't be spending the entire game fighting though, as there are some platform sections as well. Sometimes you'll be sliding down a wall using your dagger and must navigate left and right to avoid obstacles and reach the bottom. Jumping through obstacles is also commonplace, as there are obstacle course-like areas to the world that will have you jumping through saw blade or running past swinging branches.

Accessibility Issues/Concerns

This game plays out with frantic action and is essentially a button masher. You will be constantly clicking the left or right mouse button over and over in order to kill all of the enemies. Not many combos are seen throughout the game so the order you hit them hardly matters. The special moves require you to hold block while hitting another button. All of the buttons are remappable to anything though, including gamepads, so that should alleviate many of the issues that inherently come with the genre. The cinematic kills that are sometimes required to vanquish enemies are quick-time events with on-screen prompts. There are three difficulty levels to choose from within the game: Easy, Normal, and Hard, all of which affect the damage you take and give.

There are absolutely no subtitles to be seen within the game. There aren't any audio cues either so while it is entirely possible to complete the game without subtitles, hearing-impaired gamers will miss out completely on the storyline. As mentioned earlier, this also has the effect of creating a confusing storyline for those who aren't hearing-impaired since many of the character names are distinctly Persian and hard to decipher at times.

Color never plays an issue in Garshasp and never actually gets in the way. Your health isn't the traditional green but instead has a blue-ish tint to it so it won't be confused with the red special meter. The menu text is easy to read, but the in-game text that acts as a tutorial looks a bit squished regardless of resolution and is a bit hard to read.

At a Glance

Mobility: Controls are completely remappable. Combat is pretty much a button masher and there are quite a bit of precision-heavy platforming sections. Quick-time events are required to kill certain enemies.
Score: 5/10

Hearing: No subtitles or captions. Game is still completely playable but the story will be lost for the hearing-impaired.
Score: 1/10

Vision: Color is never an issue. Text is a bit hard to read during the in-game tutorials.
Score: 8/10

Overall: Garshasp: The Monster Slayer has one huge thing holding it back: the lack of subtitles. Since this is an indie development team and not some triple A titles there's always the hope for a future patch to add them in the future. It is a very mediocre action game made more impressive by the story of the development behind it. I'd love to see what this team could do with more impressive engines in the future.