The story begins with a struggle between good and evil that is eventually resolved, restoring balance to the world. From this resolution, twins are born, each tied to one side of that balance. One represents the light and is destined to rule with wisdom, while the other embodies the dark and will rule with strength. In the present day, the twins have grown. The one aligned with the light has already fulfilled his destiny, but the other, known as Cheong-oh Chasa, the guardian of the underworld, or simply Death, remains conflicted and filled with anger.
This unrest leads to a crack forming in the balance. When it finally breaks, four masks escape into the living world. Chasa quickly realizes that someone else must be responsible for this disturbance. With no other choice, he crosses the river into the world of the living in order to retrieve the masks before they spread their influence.
For lack of a better description, the game is a classic representative of the hollow-like genre. You control Chasa, depicted as a small figure wearing a dark veil and a traditional hat. If you are familiar with this style of game, you can expect many enemies to tower over you, sometimes several times your size. While Chasa possesses all the abilities needed to defeat them, mastering those abilities is entirely up to the player. As a result, success often comes through repetition and learning enemy patterns until everything finally clicks.
Alongside the basic jump, air dash, and single attack, the most important mechanic is the parry, which plays a key role in both combat and traversal. In combat, the parry must be timed precisely just before an enemy attack connects. Unblockable attacks are clearly marked with exclamation points. A perfect guard damages the enemy, protects your health, and restores some vigor, which is required to trigger your secondary attack. Vigor can also be gained through regular attacks. When it comes to traversal, parries can be used on special marked crystals that launch you toward higher platforms. However, this mechanic appears only in a handful of rooms and is not a major focus of the game.
The world is structured around a central village, surrounded by four distinct biomes and a fifth region located above them. Each area consists of a series of small and large rooms that combine enemy encounters with platforming challenges. A very well designed map keeps track of everything you discover. It clearly displays the layout of rooms and exits, while also marking key locations such as save points, merchants, and treasure.
Although the rooms tend to follow a similar structure across different biomes, the visual design remains impressive. Enemy variety and animation quality stand out, and the backgrounds are rich with detail rather than simple blocks of color. The only minor disappointment comes from the cutscenes, which are presented as comic book style panels with speech bubbles. Instead of allowing the player to move through the panels manually, however, the scenes play as video clips.
Treasure is often placed in hard to reach locations, sometimes encouraging you to return later once new abilities are unlocked. Other rewards are hidden behind secret walls that disappear when touched. Despite these secrets, the overall world is fairly small and progression is mostly linear. Many alternate paths remain inaccessible because you lack the required abilities, while others are blocked by doors that can only be opened with special seals.
Saving takes place at lanterns, which restore your health, refill your healing potions, and respawn enemies. Your health is divided into five segments. Each hit removes one segment, while drinking one of your two potions restores one. When you die, you lose all essence, the game’s currency obtained from defeated enemies, and must return to the place of death to recover it. After defeating the first major boss, you also unlock fast travel between activated lanterns, which significantly reduces backtracking. Lanterns also serve another important purpose, allowing you to manage your equipment.
Gear can be discovered as treasure throughout the world or purchased from merchants, and it comes in three categories. The first are masks, which are obtained by defeating major bosses. Each mask changes your secondary attack and contains a different number of slots for seals, the second category of equipment. The final category is standard gear, which can be equipped in four available slots.
Both seals and gear enhance your character through stat boosts or passive effects. These include perks such as extending the parry window, attracting nearby essence automatically, or allowing attacks in both directions. The main distinction between seals and regular gear is that some pieces of gear can be upgraded by a blacksmith in the central village, increasing the strength of their bonuses.
Masks can also be upgraded using rare materials, and each one provides useful abilities that can significantly influence combat. Because masks can be switched quickly, it is possible to prepare different setups by assigning unique seals to each one and adapting them to different situations.
Major bosses are the source of these masks, and they can be quite challenging during the first encounters. Learning their attack patterns and recognizing the moments before they strike is essential. Instead of changing behavior halfway through the fight, bosses transform only after their entire health bar is depleted. At that point they regain full health and adopt a new form. Although this means you must defeat them twice in a single battle, their movesets remain mostly the same, with attacks becoming faster and gaining additional effects.
Defeating these bosses also grants new abilities, such as an extended dash that allows you to move through enemies. Other bosses encountered along the way function more as obstacles than major encounters. They typically have only a single health bar and reward you with a generous amount of essence and crafting materials.
Interestingly, these smaller bosses can sometimes be more frustrating than the major ones. Many of them summon additional enemies during the fight, which fills the arena and creates chaotic situations where avoiding damage becomes much more difficult.
