Reply With QuoteI just got through playing the demo for this, and...it's not half bad. Yeah, it is something of a rip off of Dark Souls, but I don't understand all the bad reviews it's been getting. Does it start sucking later on in the game or something?
I found a few places where it helped, but the stamina and core power penalties are steep, and some attacks seem to always stun regardless of your armor. I'm thinking in particular of the MG Cerberus (security guys with hammers) kick attack, which always stunned me and resulted in a follow-up swing for a ton of damage regardless of what armor I was using, the MG Gorgon (security with staff) block/counter, or the security robot leap. If it weren't for the core power costs I'd think it's probably balanced, but as it is you have to sacrifice a lot just to get better stun resistance against some attacks.Originally Posted by Malleus
Yeah, but there were a lot of times when all I wanted to do was dodge, hit, follow-up. Instead I can either do just one hit, or lock myself into the slow multi-hit animation and hope they don't swing back. I ended up using the twin-rigged weapons for most of the game just because their quick attacks make it a lot easier to avoid getting locked into an animation.
I mean, I like that the combat system punishes you for overcommitting, but mandatory multi-hit animations feel very 'gamey'.
Edit: Another example would be the stun/knockdown system. When an enemy stuns you, you wait out your stun animation while they hit with impunity. When you stun an enemy, they reel from the stun until you hit them, at which point they instantly stand up and can immediately attack. In effect your stun is on a timer, whereas theirs is on a timer or until they get hit. It's extremely annoying to stun an enemy and start a quick combo, only for him to do the instant-recovery after my first hit, interrupt my combo with a stunning attack, and then wallop me to death while I can't react. Once I figured out that this could happen it was fairly easy to avoid, but it's an illogical mechanic that doesn't seem to serve any purpose.
I think I would have enjoyed it if I wasn't getting killed over and over again by the two new enemy types. The three-level design with the mobile ops center was a cool mechanic, and I liked how it dynamically changed the layout of the level. It's just hard to appreciate that when I have no idea where I'm supposed to be going and there's an extremely tough enemy (some with one-hit-kill attacks) waiting behind every corner.
Last edited by catbarf; 13th Jun 2017 at 17:50.
I just got through playing the demo for this, and...it's not half bad. Yeah, it is something of a rip off of Dark Souls, but I don't understand all the bad reviews it's been getting. Does it start sucking later on in the game or something?
so I guess I'll finally play it.
I've been feeling a bit Soul'd-out ever since I couldn't even bother finishing Dark Souls 3. Sekiro is apparently super-difficult and parry-focused, which doesn't sound too appealing, but this? Yeah, I'll give this a whirl and see how I feel about it.
I'd absolutely recommend it (especially for free), as it's a great game, but be aware that it is one of the harder "soulslike" games. Not as hard as Sekiro, definitely, but it's less forgiving than the Dark Souls games.
I liked the beginning of the game, the initial revelation about the player character, and that fuuuuuuucked up surgery scene. Played for a few hours, got past the first boss fight, but then kinda ran out of steam. Yup I'm deffo soul'd out.
Also this thing is 9 bucks on Steam right now if anyone is looking to pick it up.
Well I got this Steam first but never got past the first boss fight. Now that I've picked it up for free on the PS4 in finding it much easier which I think has something to do with the controller that I was using on the PC; deteriorated after getting through all the Soul's games.
I finished The Surge 2 recently. It’s similar to the first one but improved in pretty much every way.
The basic gameplay loop is the same, you progress via exploring and opening up shortcuts, and this game does them even better than the first one. Everything is connected to everything, and you regularly get the „ah, so here I am now” feeling when you reach a familiar area via an unfamiliar route. It also has a metroidvania aspect when you gain the ability to use ziplines halfway through the game, which allows you move around areas in new ways, and access new ones. The game world is extremely well put together and it was a joy to explore and navigate. Also, the locations are a bit more varied as the game takes place in a city. They are mostly urban, but there’s a park area with vegetation which was a nice change.
The combat is still awesome, impacful, with great animations and movement like in the first game, but there are some new mechanics, like the directional parry system. You not only have to time the move right, but match the direction of the attack to succeed. You don’t have to use it, but it’s very rewarding. There are some new weapon types too, so more variety.
The rpg system got better. Now when you level up, you automatically gain hp and stamina, so you don’t have to waste implants on those, freeing up the slots for the interesting stuff. The energy system is also a more integral part of the gameplay. You only have energy based healing (and other buffs) in this game, no more of the ones you just get at the medbay. Basically when you hit enemies, you gain energy, and use that to heal or buff directly from it, or convert it to injections for later. This encourages some aggression, plus makes the game flow much better, since it’s not like in Dark Souls where it’s „oh, I ran out of healing, I must go back to the bonfire”, but „oh I ran out of healing, buti f I kill the next opponent without taking damage, I can store up some”.
There are some online components too. You can leave messages (in the form of graffiti) for other players. There is the banner, which appears in other players’ world – the fewer players find it in the next hour, the more rewards you get, so the point is to hide it. There’s also the revenge enemy mechanic. If an enemy kills a player, it can become a revenge enemy for other players. If they kill it, they get extra rewards and a message saying that player XY can now rest in peace.
Audio part is great, especially the combat sounds, but music is good too, more memorable than in the first game. The graphics would be great, but there’s a bright filter on everything making things look washed out, which I don’t really like. Also, the game is a performance hog, especially in the forest areas.
The story continues from the first game, and is less cryptic, but not a big deal. It’s the gameplay, which absolutely delivers. All in all I had a blast playing this, and would recommend.
Thanks for putting together your review. It has definitely made me a little more interested in considering it at some stage, at least when it goes on sale.
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