Islands of Wakfu

As an action RPG, IOW has been built with ambition rather than finesse. The heart of the game comes from the two main characters, each player taking one in the (local only) co-op, while a lone battler switches them in and out on the fly.

The Eliatrope's your main guy, a melee fighter with a strong and weak attack. He's backed up by a Dragon, who's slower at getting around but is able to spit ranged shots.

Actually, it's a bit more complicated than that. The Eliatrope can teleport - either by moving a cursor around and choosing a target area or by selecting a fast move which tucks them straight in behind the nearest enemy. The Dragon can (naturally) control a ghostly platypus who can pick up certain objects and lug them about.

Both characters have a range of upgradeable tricks that blossom throughout the course of the game - some of which are specials charged by combat. Success or failure in most of the hectic battles therefore centres on mastery of blocks and stuns and matters of positioning.

It's all about working your way around enemy defences, knowing when to switch from stronger melee moves to that weaker distanced assault, and when to let rip with the expensive big guns.

There are plenty of elegant moments - health orbs for the Eliatrope can be used as explosives by the Dragon, for example - and the game will smack you up and down quite mercilessly unless you engage with the full sweep of your powers.

Elsewhere there are combos to learn, and a leaderboard system that encourages you to blast through levels with an eye on scoring and style. Considering how far the developer is from its turn-based comfort zone, Ankama's done a relatively convincing job of blending straight-up fighting and shooting.

With a decent range of pitched battles, bosses and even a few light traversal moments as you teleport from one rocky ledge to another, or perform QTE dimensional jumps to boost you right into the stars, the studio's latest offers a generous chunk of adventure.

And it's chaotic, co-operative fun if you're playing with a friend (or an enemy, I suppose, but you might want to keep a weather eye on unexpected real-world karate chops).

If you're soloing, however, Islands can eventually become a bit of a slog. The lengthy multi-wave encounters, presumably balanced for two, outstay their welcome a little.

It's worth noting, that, underneath the tinkling dew-drops and wafting fairy feathers, Ankama's game offers a cold-hearted challenge but is rarely genuinely unfair. Boss battles which initially seem all but impenetrable often snap smartly into focus when you find the specific attack pattern for the occasion. The moments when bloody-minded attrition is the only means of moving forward are fairly rare.

This is a good thing, as that's where IOW's short-comings as an action game - slightly laggy input, muddlesome enemy clusters when things hot up and iffy checkpointing - can be hard to ignore.

Such rough edges hardly define a product that's otherwise been conceived with care and elegance. However, it can be difficult to forgive wooliness in a game which, by and large, aims to be so unforgiving itself.

Chances are you will forgive it, though. Islands of Wakfu has a hand-made, nutty charm that generally eases even the sharpest of aggravations. As a standalone it may not be as measured or as involving as its MMO big brother, but it retains enough character and spectacle to overcome the handful of rough spots.