Full Steam Ahead #2 | FIVE: Champions of Canaan
Over the past decade and a few, I somehow accumulated a long list of games in my Steam library. Some were gifts, some were review codes, and some I really don’t recall how I got them. The one thing many have in common is that I have never been able to play them. Often, this was due to my laptop not having the power to run them, and other times, it was because my cheap third-party controller wasn’t recognized by the program. Sometimes, things just never worked out.
But all things are different now, for I have a Steam Deck and a will to delve into my backlog to see what I’ve been missing. Some of it may even be good; much will not. Thus continues our limited edition segment: Full Steam Ahead.
Today, we are looking at FIVE: Champions of Canaan, a Biblical-themed action RPG for PC.
FIVE: Champions of Canaan
FIVE: Champions of Canaan was the first Steam game I tried to review where the limits of my little old laptop became immediately apparent. This wasn’t just an issue with slowdown or lag, like I had seen with some titles, but rather a situation where my maximum refresh rate could be measured in frames per minute. I never got past the character select menu. For nine years, my listed time spent playing this game remained at twelve minutes because that was how long it took me to get Program Manager on my laptop to shut the game down. That said, a Steam Deck is a whole different beast from that old laptop, and it plays without any issues. So what have I been missing out on?
Arena battles. Lots of arena battles. The player character can be chosen from any one of five lineages taken from the Old Testament, most likely the Books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings, with each lineage specializing in a particular weapon type. This hero, one of King David’s chosen champions, must face down the champions of neighboring nations such as the Ammonites and the Edomites by traveling to arenas across the ancient Levant and mowing down waves of lesser warriors in the process. The basic gameplay loop is to enter an arena, defeat an entire round with multiple waves, some veteran warriors, and a boss, claim loot, and then either leave for base or stay and take on the next round. In later rounds, the player may be rewarded with relics that purchase entry to larger, more difficult arenas in other cities.
And that’s about it. FIVE: Champions of Canaan is for all intents and purposes a top-down shooter-brawler with RPG elements. All the action happens within arenas that can go up to Round 100. There are story scenes and plot points, but those too are tied to arena progress. The most exposition comes from the storyteller in town, whose tales are presented in comic book format.
This isn’t to say that FIVE: Champions of Canaan is a bad game. When taken as a stage-based shooter-brawler with special attack cooldowns and a leveling mechanic, it’s actually fun to play. The character models are well done for a game of this tier, and the boss champions’ intro sequences look at least as good as games from the PlayStation 3 era. As a full action RPG, however, it falls somewhat short of the mark, never leaving the confines of its arenas or pushing the limits of anything but historical accuracy to the biblical source material.
I have put a lot more time into FIVE: Champions of Canaan than I expected, because it can be relaxing to sit down in the evening and curb-stomp a few rounds of mooks. So in this sense, it still succeeds as a game.
Disclosure: This article is based on a free copy of the game provided by the publisher.
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