Сынок знаешь, ты тоже вот-вот кудесником станешь.
An utterly unremarkable rogue-lite FPS game. But. But in the subgenre of remarkably bad games, the utterly unremarkable one is king. But there weren't even ten good or at least above mediocre games in this year so far. But there were no any singleplayer FPS games in about last ten years — only abysmal garbage or walking simulators about MARINES or spunkgurgleweewee about MARINES or MARINES vs nazis or MARINES in hell.
Considering total lack of hitscan enemies, the core gameplay falls somewhere in post-quake1 (sub)subgenre of the FPS games — movement is the only way to survive. And at first, movement, while inoffensive, feels really floaty and unengaging, but when you unlock second jump everything clicks. Now, on top of running at great speed, you can jump across the whole room and above melee enemies. You can even make build with quintuple jumps and play attack bomber pouring bullets on enemies from above.
Speaking of which, there are a fair number of pleasant, unusual and effective guns to use. Some of which, to be fair, are outright ripped from other games. But on the other hand, outside of real guns there never were an all-stars FPS with best guns from different games.
Levels consist of randomly connected pre-made rooms with some minor changes. Rooms themself are fine, some even with secrets. And considering the limited amount of rooms with relatively regular placements of enemies, it against plays toward the FPS games of that era, when memorizing enemies placements was encouraged and resulted in great speedruns with unbreaking flow.
Rogue-lite part took note from rogue legacy, but improved it for grown up people, who don't have time to waste time on virtual gambling. First, you can unlock the choice of several builds, and take one fitting for you, by guns or by skills. Then there is an upgrade to have a random gun at the start of the pyramid, so you have a chance to get rid of least useful one you had by default. Next, the upgrade tree is balanced rather good, so it's not often that you can't purchase anything. So with persistence you can in time overlevel the enemies (it took me twenty five hours to finish it). Also there is a shop, where you can buy random skill or medallion to skip first boss of the pyramid (or use some other medallions). Scrolls with skills can be bad or good, but most importantly, there are several scrolls which radically change the resource management, for the current floor or for the whole pyramid.
In the game there are three pyramids (+ infinite basement) with one boss on the third floor and separate final boss on the seventh. And the first pyramid is the most peculiar (also most inspired by Serious Sam), not only it has less archers, and most of its rooms later just reskinned and mixed in into other pyramids, but both bosses of the first pyramid are more of puzzle-like type. First boss of the second pyramid is generic sponge, second reminds more of the sonic boss. First boss of the third pyramid is like an ogre — it just has layers. And annoying spamming generic ranged enemies. And final boss of the game is just a rather easy bullet sponge with high damage.
Graphically, game is buried under a ton of console cinematic soap, but almost all of it can be turned off. And while FOV goes quite high, the virtual lens is so wrong, that you can't go above one hundred fifteen, without it being detracting to the gameplay. (while Halo 1 and Half-Life 1 were pretty good at one hundred fifty)
Storyline and writing are garbage, and are quite embarrassing at that, even while being imaginative mash-up (maybe?). I remember only Accused Farms requesting such theme. Narrative, on the other hand, is quit fitting for chosen story.
But in the end (it doesn't even matter) it's kinda one of the best games of the year, because there were no games in this year.
Considering total lack of hitscan enemies, the core gameplay falls somewhere in post-quake1 (sub)subgenre of the FPS games — movement is the only way to survive. And at first, movement, while inoffensive, feels really floaty and unengaging, but when you unlock second jump everything clicks. Now, on top of running at great speed, you can jump across the whole room and above melee enemies. You can even make build with quintuple jumps and play attack bomber pouring bullets on enemies from above.
Speaking of which, there are a fair number of pleasant, unusual and effective guns to use. Some of which, to be fair, are outright ripped from other games. But on the other hand, outside of real guns there never were an all-stars FPS with best guns from different games.
Levels consist of randomly connected pre-made rooms with some minor changes. Rooms themself are fine, some even with secrets. And considering the limited amount of rooms with relatively regular placements of enemies, it against plays toward the FPS games of that era, when memorizing enemies placements was encouraged and resulted in great speedruns with unbreaking flow.
Rogue-lite part took note from rogue legacy, but improved it for grown up people, who don't have time to waste time on virtual gambling. First, you can unlock the choice of several builds, and take one fitting for you, by guns or by skills. Then there is an upgrade to have a random gun at the start of the pyramid, so you have a chance to get rid of least useful one you had by default. Next, the upgrade tree is balanced rather good, so it's not often that you can't purchase anything. So with persistence you can in time overlevel the enemies (it took me twenty five hours to finish it). Also there is a shop, where you can buy random skill or medallion to skip first boss of the pyramid (or use some other medallions). Scrolls with skills can be bad or good, but most importantly, there are several scrolls which radically change the resource management, for the current floor or for the whole pyramid.
In the game there are three pyramids (+ infinite basement) with one boss on the third floor and separate final boss on the seventh. And the first pyramid is the most peculiar (also most inspired by Serious Sam), not only it has less archers, and most of its rooms later just reskinned and mixed in into other pyramids, but both bosses of the first pyramid are more of puzzle-like type. First boss of the second pyramid is generic sponge, second reminds more of the sonic boss. First boss of the third pyramid is like an ogre — it just has layers. And annoying spamming generic ranged enemies. And final boss of the game is just a rather easy bullet sponge with high damage.
Graphically, game is buried under a ton of console cinematic soap, but almost all of it can be turned off. And while FOV goes quite high, the virtual lens is so wrong, that you can't go above one hundred fifteen, without it being detracting to the gameplay. (while Halo 1 and Half-Life 1 were pretty good at one hundred fifty)
Storyline and writing are garbage, and are quite embarrassing at that, even while being imaginative mash-up (maybe?). I remember only Accused Farms requesting such theme. Narrative, on the other hand, is quit fitting for chosen story.
But in the end (it doesn't even matter) it's kinda one of the best games of the year, because there were no games in this year.