Lovish Review - A LOVE Letter to the 8-Bit NES Era?

Ole Gamer Joe
1 day ago
5 min read

Lovish

PC/XBOX/PS/SWITCH

2/5/26

LABS Works/DANGEN Entertainment

It’s been a minute since we’ve heard from developer LABS Works, their last release being 2021’s well-received Astalon: Tears of the Earth. The game sent players battling up a twisted tower, taking control of three unique heroes. It was a bit of a grind to get things going, but eventually, Tears of the Earth revealed itself to be a very solid take on the Metroidvania genre, even offering a light touch of Blizzard’s classic, The Lost Vikings, in later stages. Now, in 2026, this talented dev is sticking with its 8-bit retro aesthetics but changing things up a bit with Lovish, a more condensed action game that features 7 worlds broken up into several levels, over 50 in total, each containing a tiny room full of dangers and secrets to conquer. But did I fall in love with Lovish? Or are we going to go through a terrible breakup? Let’s find out in our full review.

Let me start by saying that if you were expecting Lovish to be more of Astalon: Tears of the Earth, you’ll be very disappointed. This is a very basic NES-style action game through and through, putting players in control of a young knight named Sir Solomon, who is completely enamored by young princess Tsuna, who has of course been captured by evil forces, completing the classic trope of a knight needing to rescue the damsel in distress. Not so fast though, as things are a bit different here. Deep down, Solomon is a bit of a softy and has major insecurity issues, as he fears that the princess may fall in love with someone else before him! And so our hero, if you want to call him that, sets off to the Devil Lord’s Castle where Tsuna is being held captive to attempt to save the day and win her love for all of eternity.

Each level in Lovish is its own compact room, where your goal is to reach an exit door. Doing so can involve perilous platforming, throwing switches, or even clearing out every on-screen enemy in order to collect a key. These rooms start out simple enough, as you would expect, but become progressively more difficult, offering up challenges such as disappearing and reappearing spikes, fireballs, and, of course, moving platforms. Adding to the challenge is the fact that you have just a single hit point, at least initially, meaning any mistake will reset your run. The vast majority of rooms, by design, are able to be completed quickly, though do require a level of learning and mastery.

Completing a level is nice and all, but the reality of the situation is that they aren’t TRULY completed until you’ve collected every hidden crown. That’s right, each room has a crown to be discovered, often lurking behind blocks which can be destroyed similar to classic Castlevania games. Other crowns will require you to complete rooms in a set amount of time or to avoid killing any enemies. This adds a great deal of fun to Lovish along with a decent amount of replayability and challenge, despite the game’s rather short run-time of under 5 hours without achieving 100 percent completion.

At the end of each level, players are also treated to a random event scene, many of which are hilarious. Some events are simple, such as running into an AI-generated image who you can bash in the face to earn a prize as if you were in a classic turn-based RPG battle, but others are full-on minigames that you can participate in, from a Game Boy-style dungeon to dodging out of the way of obstacles. The random nature of these events keeps the game fresh, and I looked forward to each one, even if the consequences were sometimes negative.

Back on the overworld map, it is also possible to visit a shop owned by a busty babe named Purin that will sell you trinkets, which help on your adventures. From being able to sustain an additional hit of damage to a frisbee which can be hurled towards foes, all of these items are a joy to unlock and typically fun to engage with. A second shop owner will also eventually appear, and those crowns you collect? Those can also unlock hidden doorways that feature some of the coolest secrets in the game.

Lovish feels great to control, assuming you are accustomed to retro gameplay. It plays much like an NES game in many regards, with a floaty jump and basic attack, and not all that much else to be concerned with. I wouldn’t describe it as a particularly hard game either, with most enemies and bosses offering extremely basic patterns and challenge levels. The real hurdle comes in speedrunning and secret discovery when you revisit areas. And while some items do add additional ways to attack and the like, gameplay never really evolves much past platforming and attacking. This makes Lovish a very simple but engaging experience that almost anyone can learn.

Much like Astalon: Tears of the Earth, the 8-bit visuals in Lovish are top tier, looking straight out of the NES era. While I wasn’t a huge fan of the default “Soft” filter, it can thankfully be toggled off for a cleaner, brighter presentation. The game is quite adorable, with cute character and enemy designs, varied backgrounds in each new world, and those unique event scenes and minigames offering up plenty of variety. This presentation is further heightened by a fantastic set of hard-hitting chiptune compositions. Each song features soaring melodies and infectious beats, accompanying crunchy bleeps and bloops straight out of the '80s. Fans of 8-bit games will fall in love with the visual and audio design of Lovish.

And now, for the depressing part of this review… Lovish crashed on me. Not once, not twice, but probably 10–20 times. Now granted, these crashes didn’t cost me a ton of lost progress most of the time, but they were frustrating nonetheless, occurring randomly on my PC, hurling me back to the Desktop unexpectedly. Thankfully, these issues seemed less frequent when playing on Steam Deck, where the game ran well in my brief one hour of testing. This isn’t to say it won’t happen on handheld either, but hopefully you won’t encounter this issue on ANY platform and a patch will be issued in short order.

That small annoyance aside, I genuinely enjoyed my time with Lovish otherwise. In a world full of roguelike after roguelike and Metroidvania after Metroidvania, Lovish feels fresh and exciting, which is interesting considering its old-school inspirations. It’s simple to play, but addicting, with a decent amount of challenge on offer in trying to collect every last crown. The platforming and action are smooth as silk, with a lovely 8-bit aesthetic and a truly glorious soundtrack. While it might not be the Metroidvania follow-up that some fans may have been expecting from LABS Works, this is entertainment in its purest form, and comes well recommended by this old-timer. I guess you could say, I fell in love with Lovish! Gosh, that line was so obvious, I wonder how many journalists are gonna use that one.

SILVER/GREAT

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