Aluna: Sentinel of the Shards is a story-driven action RPG game that centers around the Latina demigod, Aluna, a character created by actress, producer, and director Paula Garcés, who also starred in her own comic series co-written by the award-winning writers of Assassin’s Creed and Batman: Arkham Origins. The daughter of the goddess Pachamama, Aluna must set off on her quest to defend the New World from evil as they search for the mystical magic shards containing the power of Earth.

Let’s start with the obvious stuff here. The story here seems fairly deep and fleshed out which isn’t a surprise considering the source material. I’d be more surprised if there wasn’t a decent story. I don’t know too much about Latin culture, but the story of this Latina superhero seems pretty interesting. You’ll either love it or hate it.

Next up is the presentation. The art in this is pretty nicely done, very detailed, and very colorful. Character designs are good and lean heavily on South American and Spanish culture. The same goes for the weapon designs which are heavily influenced by this. The audio tracks in the game too are heavily influenced and you can actually choose to play the game in either English, Spanish, or Portuguese.

Now to the meat of things, the gameplay. The gameplay in Aluna will be familiar to those who have played games like Diablo or any other loot-based dungeon crawler. Basically, you play in an isometric view, battle enemies, and then pick up whatever loot you find. Loot picked up has random stats so anything you find, you’ll want to inspect it to see if it’s better than what you’re already using. The game also has RPG elements in which Aluna can level up as she battles to become stronger and then use skill points earned to equip magical abilities.

Controls are not too difficult to learn either and you have the choice of either playing with a keyboard + mouse or a controller.

Are there any issues with the game? I would say that the action can be a little clunky, especially at the beginning. It’s not quite as tight as something like Diablo for instance, but it definitely has the potential to be. Hopefully, future updates will tighten up the controls and action a bit.

Until then, Aluna: Sentinal of the Shards is still a good game, just not 100% perfect yet. It’s still a great experience, especially for the story and the cultural aspects of the game, and one of the more memorable games I’ve played in a while.

Aluna: Sentinal of the Shards is available now on PC, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and soon on PlayStation 4.

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Received game from developer and/or publisher for coverage purposes.
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