Holy Avenger

Holy Avenger is a 2D side-scrolling beat ’em up/brawler set in a medieval fantasy world. Players follow the story of Lisandra, a 19-year-old druid raised by animals on the island of Galrasia. After having prophetic dreams about the missing Paladin hero, she embarks on a quest to recover the twenty magical Rubies of Virtue that were scattered across the world. Her journey takes her from her isolated island to the city of Valkaria, where she teams up with unlikely allies like the thief Sandro Galtran, battling cursed dragons and city guards while unraveling plot twists and flashbacks to Arton’s past events.

Holy Avenger: A Diamond in the Rough, Forever Trapped in the Mine

In the vast annals of video game history, some titles are remembered for their monumental success, others for their infamous failure. Then there are those like Holy Avenger, a game that exists in a state of perpetual potential—a fascinating artifact of fandom, ambition, and the harsh realities of indie development that serves as a poignant case study of what might have been.

Introduction

From the award-winning pages of Brazil’s most successful comic series to the digital storefronts of Steam, Holy Avenger embarked on a quest as ambitious as that of its protagonists. Developed by Messier Games & Animations and released into Early Access in 2016, this side-scrolling beat ’em up sought to translate the rich, Dungeons & Dragons-inspired universe of Marcelo Cassaro and Erica Awano’s creation into an interactive experience. It promised a journey through the world of Arton, a fusion of hack-and-slash combat and cooperative brawling, and a love letter to a beloved national IP. Instead, it became a legend of a different sort: a project whose development mysteriously vanished, much like the Paladin its story revolves around, leaving behind a bug-ridden, incomplete relic. This review will delve into the intricate tapestry of Holy Avenger‘s creation, its narrative roots, its flawed mechanics, and its ultimate legacy as a poignant “what if” in the gaming world.

Development History & Context

The Vision: From Panel to Pixel
Holy Avenger is not an original IP; it is an adaptation, born from a deeply rooted cultural phenomenon in Brazil. The source material, a comic book series scripted by Marcelo Cassaro (known for Monica Young’s Class) and illustrated by Erica Awano (whose work includes official Warcraft comics), has its own origins in the Tormenta RPG universe—a hugely popular tabletop RPG setting in Brazil. This lineage provided the game with a pre-established, rich world of gods, magic, and heroes, a rare advantage for any development team.

The studio behind the endeavor, Messier Games & Animations, positioned itself not as a faceless corporation but as a group of fans. Their public communications, visible on Steam forums, often reiterated this identity: “fans (nós) baseado em Holy Avenger.” Their vision was clear: to allow players to “live all the saga from the comics” in a interactive format. The initial plan was ambitious: a game that would combine beat ’em up and hack-and-slash elements, feature four playable characters with swappable mechanics, and eventually support local multiplayer for up to four players.

The Technological and Commercial Landscape
Launching into Early Access on Steam in December 2016 (with a formal release date listed as November 2017), Holy Avenger entered a marketplace increasingly friendly to indie developers and retro-inspired games. The side-scrolling brawler genre, once king of the arcades, was experiencing a renaissance with titles like Dragon’s Crown and Castle Crashers proving there was an audience for polished, modern takes on the formula.

Technologically, the game’s requirements were modest—an Intel i3, 4GB RAM, and a GTX 640 graphics card—suggesting a 2D game built with accessibility in mind, not cutting-edge graphical prowess. This was a pragmatic choice, aligning with the capabilities of a small team and the nostalgic feel of the genre. Priced at a mere $0.99, it was clearly an attempt to attract both fans of the comics and budget-conscious gamers, a low barrier to entry for a promised epic adventure.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

The Quest for the Rubies of Virtue
The game’s plot is a direct adaptation of the comics’ central narrative, a classic heroic quest infused with a coming-of-age story. Players follow Lisandra, a 19-year-old druid raised by animals on the island of Galrasia. Her peaceful life is shattered by prophetic dreams of the Paladin, a vanished hero whose armor was once embedded with the twenty Rubies of Virtue—magical gems forged by the world’s most powerful gods.

These dreams set her on a path to recover the scattered rubies and resurrect the fallen champion. The initial inciting incident is powerfully tragic: venturing into the city of Valkaria to find the famed thief Galtran, her animal “cousin” (a cave wolf) is killed by city guards, and she is imprisoned for the incident. This establishes her naivety and her deep connection to the natural world, core druidic themes. Her rescue by Sandro Galtran, son of the thief she sought, kicks off a partnership that drives the narrative forward.

A World Built on RPG Foundations
As the source material notes, the world of Arton is deeply indebted to Dungeons & Dragons. This isn’t merely aesthetic; it’s foundational. The treatment of magic, the clear delineation of character classes (druid, thief, paladin), and the high-fantasy medieval setting are all executed with a veteran RPG fan’s understanding. The narrative is not just a linear sequence of events but is described as being filled with “a multitude of plot twists and flashbacks to Arton’s past events,” suggesting a depth and lore that the game likely struggled to fully convey through its gameplay.

The tone, listed as “Comedy” in its MobyGames attributes, hints that the adaptation aimed to capture the comic’s likely blend of epic stakes and humorous character interactions, a difficult balance to strike in a video game format.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

The Promise of Hybrid Combat
On paper, Holy Avenger‘s gameplay loop was compelling. It proposed a fusion of two related but distinct genres: the linear, crowd-control focused beat ’em up and the loot-driven, character-building focused hack-and-slash. The key innovation was the ability to play with all four main characters simultaneously, alternating between them. This suggested a layer of strategic depth, where the player might swap to a specific hero to solve a puzzle or exploit an enemy’s weakness.

The Flawed Execution
However, player discussions on Steam forums paint a picture of a vision brutally hamstrung by technical issues and incomplete implementation.

• The Unforgivable Save Bug: The most damning and frequently cited flaw was the apparent lack of a save system. One player’s plea on the Steam forums encapsulates the frustration: “PELO AMOR DOS DEUSES INCLUAM O SAVE GAME!” (“FOR THE LOVE OF GODS INCLUDE A SAVE GAME!”). They lamented, “Sério eu enjoei de jogar por que toda vez tem que começar desde o tutorial é um saco isso!” (“Seriously, I got sick of playing because every time you have to start from the tutorial, it’s a pain!”). This fundamental omission rendered prolonged play sessions pointless and blocked progress entirely.
• Game-Breaking Glitches: Threads with titles like “JOGO TRAVA NA FASE DA NIELE” (“Game freezes on Niele’s stage”) and reports of bosses being unbeatable (e.g., “Alguém conseguiu matar elfo negro??” – “Did anyone manage to kill the dark elf??”) indicate a profoundly unstable experience. One user reported a bug where entering the manual save screen would trap the player, making progression impossible.
• Limited Combat: While the ambition was to blend genres, user impressions pointed towards combat that was functional but shallow. One player noted, “Combate um pouco limitado, mas funcional” (“Combat is a bit limited, but functional”), suggesting the hack-and-slash elements never matured into a satisfying loot or progression system. The beat ’em up foundations seemed to be in place but lacked the polish and impact of its genre peers.

Abandoned Potential
The most tragic aspect of the gameplay is evident in the developer’s own posts. In July 2019, years after launch, Messier Games started a thread titled “Comprometimento e Bugs” (“Commitment and Bugs”), stating: “Our goal is to be on your side and to ensure that our dream of making and playing a game made by fans… does not become a nightmare. We are committed to fixing the bugs reported here.” This commitment, sadly, appears to have been short-lived. The development went silent, and the promised features—local multiplayer, additional game modes, and a final polished version—vanished into the ether.

World-Building, Art & Sound

Aesthetic Faithfulness
While direct visual analysis is limited without extensive screenshots, the game’s description emphasizes its origins in Erica Awano’s artwork. As the illustrator for both Holy Avenger and official Warcraft comics, her style is a significant draw—likely featuring detailed, dynamic character designs and a vibrant color palette that blends high fantasy with a comic book sensibility. The 2D side-scrolling perspective was the perfect canvas to translate the comic’s panel-by-panel action into a moving visual feast.

The Sound of Silence
There is virtually no information available on the game’s sound design or musical score. In a genre where the crunch of combat and a driving soundtrack are essential to the rhythm of play, this is a significant unknown. The absence of any mention of a soundtrack or sound-related accolades suggests it was likely functional but unremarkable, or perhaps another victim of the game’s overall lack of completion.

Reception & Legacy

Critical and Commercial Silence
Holy Avenger‘s reception is defined by its absence. On MobyGames, there are zero critic reviews and zero player reviews. On Steam, the review section is barren. Data from PlayTracker estimates a player base of around 12,000, but with a staggering 939% confidence interval, indicating the data is too thin to be reliable. It is the quintessential obscure title, lost in the churn of Steam releases.

Its legacy is not one of influence or commercial success, but of caution and curiosity. It did not influence subsequent games; it serves as a lesson. It is a case study in the perils of Early Access, the importance of nailing core features like saving, and the challenges of adapting a beloved property with limited resources.

A Cultural Footnote
However, to dismiss it entirely would be a mistake. For a brief moment, Holy Avenger represented something meaningful: the attempt by Brazilian developers to bring a quintessentially Brazilian fantasy epic to the global gaming stage. It is a artifact of fandom, a project started with passion that ultimately succumbed to the immense difficulties of game development. It holds a place in history as a poignant reminder of the countless projects that aim for the stars but never quite make it out of the atmosphere.

Conclusion

Holy Avenger is a game haunted by its own potential. Its foundation—a beloved comic series with deep RPG roots, a passionate fan-developer team, and a genre ripe for a fresh take—was rock solid. Yet, the execution crumbled under the weight of critical technical failures and, ultimately, abandonment. It is not a bad game; it is an incomplete one. It is a beta version forever trapped in a launch state, a collection of good ideas—swappable characters, a rich world, hybrid combat—that were never realized.

The final verdict on Holy Avenger is that it is a fascinating failure and a historical curio. It is a game for archivists, for students of game development pitfalls, and for completionists of Brazilian pop culture. It is a diamond of concept, forever trapped in the rough, unpolished, and unfinished stone of its execution. Its place in video game history is secured not for what it achieved, but for the ambitious dream it represented and the sobering reality of what can happen when that dream is left unfulfilled.