izigame.me

…when people run in circles it’s a very, very mad world.

The review is based on a PS5 playthrough with medium aim-assist (default setting). I've beaten the game twice to see experience both ending and finish the third act, I've also spent some time playing the Ascension DLC.

Pros:
+ The game allows you to tune a great deal of UI elements, subtitles and a few gameplay elements like aim assist strength, which in my opinion is an alternative to level of difficulty selection, since there is no standardized one.
+ The gunfight is rather simplistic: you can use only one weapon at the same time, which can have a few passive buffs (which you unlock by using that weapon) and one active alternative fire mode with a cooldown. Besides, you can also strike enemies with only one sword attack, which might seem like an absolutely unnecessary or even pointless ability at first. However, the game's design competently forces the player to grasp the sword-wielding to a certain degree past the mid-game point, since the sword can break red shields that are used by plenty of enemies towards the final sections of the game. Your movement-related abilities arsenal doesn't have too many options: sprint, jump and dash with a short cooldown, however each of them is necessary in their own way and these tools are more than enough to avoid damage from any attack patterns. It all depends on the player's skill. Obviously dash can be combo'd with jump, less obviously the range of the dash depends on how long you hold down the respective button, which allows the player to regulate the dodge distance, depending on what's happening during the fight. Later in the game you get a hook, which allows you to be quite a bit more mobile. This gradual implementation of the new abilities and constant usage of said abilities by the player creates a desired gameplay flow without overloading the gameplay loop.
+ The game has a complex economy system connected to the interaction with the in-game items. There are Artifacts - items that have no negative effect on the player. The only limitation is that there are no more than 15 slots for the artifacts in your inventory. In the later stages of the game this limitation will make players ponder which of the acquired 15 artifacts you need to destroy, you pick up another, more useful one. You can also use consumables that range from standard med kits to temporary passive character upgrades. There are also 2 types of currency: obolites - the simplest equivalent of money, which you can spend in certain places to purchase different types of items and permanent buffs; and Ether - another type of currency. It's quite gamblesome, yet it's the main and the most useful type. Its' purpose is to decrease the risks of interacting with the items. Upon interacting with certain items, the player gets a notification that there's a chance of getting a random debuff upon, say, opening a chest, which can be removed in most cases by completing certain assignments. 3 debuffs lead to critical malfunction, which destroys a random item in your inventory. Though, as long as you have enough Ether, opening chests is totally risk-free. However, in a blind playthrough the player will always lack Ether, which encourages players to take the risks. Though it doesn't mean that you have to do it every time, because it is implied that it's fine or even essential to miss some of the items. And lastly: parasites. The main heroine's suit can attach some sort of creatures, which are guaranteed to give the player 1 buff and 1 debuff. The player gets to decide what to sacrifice and weigh the usefulness of the parasite. It's also worth mentioning that you can completely ignore the parasites as well.
+ There's a system called "Adrenaline" in the game. Simply put it's a five-level buff system. By default, each level is a 3-kills killstreak which grants you a passive buff upon reaching it. Throughout the game, certain in-game events may both increase and decrease the amount of kills required for the next level. Any single hit the player takes automatically nullifies the progression of this system, with the exception of those instances when the player has different kinds of items that provide you with shields. Generally-speaking the system works great: if you play clean you reap the rewards. If not, it's still fine but it wouldn't hurt to git gud.
+ On March 22nd 2022, the co-op mode was added to the game. You can play and beat the game in a two-man co-op from the very beginning to the very end. You can create a play session in the beginning of every location, where you can choose one of the three options: join someone else, summon other players to help you or create a private lobby to play with your friend. For me personally the added co-op is a good thing since it's fully optional. In terms of gameplay the co-op changes a few things: for instance, your teammate can go anywhere he wants; consumables and weapons, generated during gameplay, remain shared for both players; you can now revive each other after suffering a lethal hit which makes the game a bit easier because it prevents you from losing all your progress in difficult situations as long as you're skilled enough. Regarding the shared items: this might lead to some curious situations where one of the players becomes significantly more powerful, thanks to the skills, knowledge and dexterity that have been gained by simply playing the game or basically thanks to being greedy. These problems can be solved by communication (the game creates a voice chat when other players join the game) or, unfortunately, by quitting co-op in case you're not willing to tolerate such players. Hope you're not one of them.
+ Apart from the co-op mode the game also offers asynchronous multiplayer. This is how it works: as you play the game you may encounter corpses of other players and see the final seconds of their lives. After that, you can scavenge them by spending your own Ether and receive a reward (some sort of item) or alternatively you can avenge their death, which means you'll have to fight a very strong enemy and if you succeed, you receive some ether as a reward. In case you don't have enough ether to scavenge and you don't want to risk losing your progress you can always just skip this event. It's also worth noting that asynchronous multiplayer fits really well into the main concept of the game about the infinite loop, since the main heroine factually always runs into her own corpses, which is quite symbolic.
+ Another great feature that I wanted to point out is that the map highlights the paths that lead to main story progress and to other doors and sections which can be classified as optional. Such clarity and readability of the map combined with good movement and gunplay create a transcendent flow of gameplay, and allows the players to avoid wasting their time on something as petty as looking for where they need to go. The ability to put players into the zone is an important feature of a quality rogue-like game in my opinion.
+ For my taste, the biomes the player visits look and sound marvelously.
Unfortunately, the amount of symbols in my overview exceeds the maximum allowed number for Steam reviews. In case you want to see a full version of the overview, you can check it out here.
Steam curation page.
The Editor.