Our VerdictJudero is peak indie game: Funky, weird, rough and wonderful in a way only such a small, ambitious project could be.

Our VerdictJudero is peak indie game: Funky, weird, rough and wonderful in a way only such a small, ambitious project could be.

Our Verdict

Our Verdict

Judero is peak indie game: Funky, weird, rough and wonderful in a way only such a small, ambitious project could be.

PC Gamer’s got your backOur experienced team dedicates many hours to every review, to really get to the heart of what matters most to you.Find out more about how we evaluate games and hardware.

PC Gamer’s got your backOur experienced team dedicates many hours to every review, to really get to the heart of what matters most to you.Find out more about how we evaluate games and hardware.

NEED TO KNOWWhat is it?You are Judero, a warrior-Druid putting right what has gone wrong in Scotland.Release dateSeptember 16, 2024Expect to pay$18DeveloperTalha and Jack Co.PublisherTalha and Jack Co.Reviewed onSteam DeckMultiplayerNoneSteam DeckUnverified(but works well)LinkSteam

NEED TO KNOW

What is it?You are Judero, a warrior-Druid putting right what has gone wrong in Scotland.Release dateSeptember 16, 2024Expect to pay$18DeveloperTalha and Jack Co.PublisherTalha and Jack Co.Reviewed onSteam DeckMultiplayerNoneSteam DeckUnverified(but works well)LinkSteam

What is it?You are Judero, a warrior-Druid putting right what has gone wrong in Scotland.

Release dateSeptember 16, 2024

Expect to pay$18

DeveloperTalha and Jack Co.

PublisherTalha and Jack Co.

Reviewed onSteam Deck

MultiplayerNone

Steam DeckUnverified(but works well)

LinkSteam

Judero casts you as the titular Judero: a rough-hewn warrior-priest clearly made out of Milliput and an old GI Joe action figure. He cuts an imposing figure, but he’s actually a very thoughtful, open-minded guy: One defining early moment of the game begins with the jumpscare-adjacent, discordant introduction of a clearly evil witch, then cuts to her and Judero having tea and discussing the townsfolk’s mistaken impression of her.

Image1of4(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

Image1of4(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

Image1of4

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

Judero stands on a silty bridge over a river with a castle in the background

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

Judero looking at pink enemies on shoreline from isometric view.

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

Two characters in Judero discussing the ethics of ecoterrorism

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

intro splash screen for insectoid enemy “Wee Beasties” in Judero

Friend-shaped

Late in the game, one of those goggle-eyed clay NPCs I love so much recalls a strange saga wherein they forbid their lover from entering a locked wing of their shared home⁠—not to protect a secret, but in a desperate attempt to seem like the sort of person who might be interesting enough to have secrets. Every townsperson in Judero will wax poetic about their strange, surreal, or tragic lives in beautiful, moving prose, and one of my favorite parts of the game was just wandering through each village, speaking to every single NPC. There’s no “I hear the Fighter’s Guild is recruiting again” filler to be had: Everyone has something to say, usually in multiple parts.

When you enter houses in the towns, the art style shifts to dreamy, vibrant watercolors, with even Judero replaced with an impressionistic stand-in, and the residents inside often seem unstuck in time. In the second village, a pair of lads in T-shirts and shorts ruminate on the merits of ecoterrorism in a world sleepwalking toward destruction: “We aren’t trying to get those people to love us. We have learned a sad lesson, that nobody loves this world.” In a neighboring building, a shirtless drummer extols the virtues of the divine feminine and predicts that the world will end in 2050: “The last 15 years will be a brutal genocide against the poor then we will all be gone.”

Image1of3(Image credit: J. King-Spooner, Kayabros)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

Image1of3(Image credit: J. King-Spooner, Kayabros)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

Image1of3

(Image credit: J. King-Spooner, Kayabros)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: J. King-Spooner, Kayabros)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: J. King-Spooner, Kayabros)

(Image credit: J. King-Spooner, Kayabros)

(Image credit: J. King-Spooner, Kayabros)

(Image credit: J. King-Spooner, Kayabros)

(Image credit: J. King-Spooner, Kayabros)

interior house rendered in psychedelic watercolors

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

A woman called “Drummer” ponders the end of the world and a genocide of the poor by the year 2050 in Judero

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

Early boss in Judero, a double-headed ogre, promises to live a more virtuous life

Despite the sharp political cast of some of its digressions, Judero never felt ham-fisted or polemical⁠—the anachronisms hit me like a stiff breeze or splash of cold water, showing up with no introduction or explanation and making me do a double-take. Judero presents its big ideas thoughtfully, wrapped in the general surrealism of the whole experience, often in optional nooks and crannies. Its philosophical musings and open-ended side stories are going to stick with me for a long time.

Lest that sound too boring or high-handed, I can vouch that this is also a very funny game: While most enemies are mythological abominations, partway through the game, Judero finds himself fighting “Men from Carlisle” (an English city bordering Scotland) who inexplicably shout “Carlisle!” over and over like Pokémon. Towards the end of Judero, one Simpsonsesque heater of a line had me laughing so hard my girlfriend came over from the other end of our apartment to see what the commotion was: “The hallucinations are getting more vivid,” Judero muses while lost at sea. “Thankfully my talking ape friend has been keeping me sane.”

Staff and sandals

Gameplay-wise Judero is an odd mix, with its digressions into different styles and perspectives reminding me of the NieR games. It also has the same core as NieR: hack n' slash brawling and bullet hell projectile dodging.

That melee combat is easily the weakest part of the experience: It has poor feedback in general, with hits on enemies feeling weightless, the perspective often making it a chore to line up attacks, and many enemies having aggravating, multi-part attacks that can stunlock Judero and eat through his health bar. At its best, the brawling is adequate connective tissue: Another thing to do while you wander over hill and dale.

What’s frustrating is that every other aspect of Judero’s gameplay is much stronger, particularly its bosses and their screen-filling projectile attack patterns. One late-game fight in particular really scratched the same itch 2016’s excellentFuridid for me: A duel with a forest goddess and her lover in the skies above a magical island. Instead of bashing them with Judero’s walking stick in between attacks, you have to dash around activating magic sigils on a timer. Fights like this could be thrilling, and I wonder if Judero would have been better-served embracing twin stick shooting instead of melee combat, or otherwise excising the attack option entirely in favor of dodging and puzzle solving.

Image1of3(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

Image1of3(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

Image1of3

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

battlefield in the air over a forest in Judero showing pentagram and projectiles

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

Spooky, halloween-themed area in Judero with open graves and purple lighting

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

(Image credit: Talha and Jack Co.)

Surreal bonus stage area in Judero resembling ones from classic Sonic the Hedgehog games

Even with those complaints, Judero has a real capacity for surprise and whimsy in its mechanics, catching me off-guard in a similar way to its conversations. One of the highlights is the setup of its third act: An open-ended archipelago you can sail around and explore in any order, complete with optional dialogue and a positively delightful poetry reading from your passenger, that talking ape friend I mentioned earlier. I activated act three’s point of no return a bit early and probably left some exploration on the table, but the whole thing’s a delight, full of oddly-shaped and completely optional islands to explore, as well as more of those NPC conversations I love.

Performance-wise, Judero’s about as lightweight as they come and even runs fine on Steam Deck, though installing it to my SD card instead of the hard drive resulted in some pretty sluggish load times⁠, particularly in that open ended sailing section. That’s something to keep in mind if you’re considering this for Deck or are still rocking an HDD for storage on your desktop.

Judero is the kind of indie game that’s really worth celebrating. It’s funky and has some rough edges, but that comes with the territory for such a unique labor of love. Judero isn’t a transcendent action game or a next-level puzzler, but those aspects are good enough to support its real draw: a thoughtful, strange world and incredible aesthetics.

The Verdict83Read our review policyJuderoJudero is peak indie game: Funky, weird, rough and wonderful in a way only such a small, ambitious project could be.

The Verdict

The Verdict

83Read our review policyJuderoJudero is peak indie game: Funky, weird, rough and wonderful in a way only such a small, ambitious project could be.

83Read our review policy

83

JuderoJudero is peak indie game: Funky, weird, rough and wonderful in a way only such a small, ambitious project could be.

Judero

Judero is peak indie game: Funky, weird, rough and wonderful in a way only such a small, ambitious project could be.

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