The game is very cinematic to a fault. On one hand, it does an excellent job immersing you into the world and creating an experience that, at times, can be very intense. On the other, it felt like the majority of the focus was put into the presentation and not the gameplay. There are really cool, brutal kill animations that give the combat a feeling of realism. Every hit is heavy and uncoordinated. You play as a cargo transporter without much fighting experience, so it makes sense that your attacks would be slow. This encourages you to be methodical, an important factor for any survival horror game. If you are playing on any of the harder difficulties, taking on more than one enemy at a time could be a death sentence.
It sounds fun at first, but after a while, it starts to feel clunky. There aren't any combos, so all you do is swing a baton left and right. If you need to dodge an enemy's attack, just tilt the left analog stick left or right with little to no effort. This feels too easy, especially since you can just hold the analog stick in either direction during combat to automatically evade every attack. Blocking is useless. You get some cool guns and levitation powers that are very useful, but it's encouraged to stick to melee combat for the sake of resources. Another good aspect for a survival horror to have.
The problem? It feels like it lacks consequence. Now, I played on Normal difficulty with medium security settings, so don't take my complete word for it. In the harder difficulties, supplies are limited so you're forced to save every resource that you can. I'm mostly talking about the dodge mechanic. I can say there are consequences to the combat since every time you attack, you're forced to watch the character swing a baton in slow motion, but every time you do the other enemies in the vicinity hang back and wait their turn, and avoiding them is relatively easy once you get a feel for the gameplay. Some of them will block your attacks, but this can be overcome when you upgrade your baton enough.
It's a 10/10 cinematic game with 3/10 gameplay.
As for the story, it's fine. I picture other people would like it a lot more than I did. Some of the writing in the beginning didn't make any sense, but I figured it'd all come together as the plot progressed. It did, and I wasn't very impressed with how it all came together. The ending was meh, especially the twist. The story built it self up in a way to a reveal that the main character may not be as good as he seems, leading to the final act being a redemption arc of sorts, but it lacked the nuance for me to take it seriously. The "big reveal" is very blatant and didn't feel like it was properly built up to.
The final boss was meh.
Some of the worldbuilding is pretty interesting.
To give this game credit, normal mode still felt hard. They didn't pull their punches when it came to the difficulty. It really gives you the impression that you're in a survival scenario.
Overall, this is a *passable* game that will probably have wonderful sequels. I don't hate it, I enjoyed it for what it was, I just don't feel encouraged to return to it anytime in the near future.
It sounds fun at first, but after a while, it starts to feel clunky. There aren't any combos, so all you do is swing a baton left and right. If you need to dodge an enemy's attack, just tilt the left analog stick left or right with little to no effort. This feels too easy, especially since you can just hold the analog stick in either direction during combat to automatically evade every attack. Blocking is useless. You get some cool guns and levitation powers that are very useful, but it's encouraged to stick to melee combat for the sake of resources. Another good aspect for a survival horror to have.
The problem? It feels like it lacks consequence. Now, I played on Normal difficulty with medium security settings, so don't take my complete word for it. In the harder difficulties, supplies are limited so you're forced to save every resource that you can. I'm mostly talking about the dodge mechanic. I can say there are consequences to the combat since every time you attack, you're forced to watch the character swing a baton in slow motion, but every time you do the other enemies in the vicinity hang back and wait their turn, and avoiding them is relatively easy once you get a feel for the gameplay. Some of them will block your attacks, but this can be overcome when you upgrade your baton enough.
It's a 10/10 cinematic game with 3/10 gameplay.
As for the story, it's fine. I picture other people would like it a lot more than I did. Some of the writing in the beginning didn't make any sense, but I figured it'd all come together as the plot progressed. It did, and I wasn't very impressed with how it all came together. The ending was meh, especially the twist. The story built it self up in a way to a reveal that the main character may not be as good as he seems, leading to the final act being a redemption arc of sorts, but it lacked the nuance for me to take it seriously. The "big reveal" is very blatant and didn't feel like it was properly built up to.
The final boss was meh.
Some of the worldbuilding is pretty interesting.
To give this game credit, normal mode still felt hard. They didn't pull their punches when it came to the difficulty. It really gives you the impression that you're in a survival scenario.
Overall, this is a *passable* game that will probably have wonderful sequels. I don't hate it, I enjoyed it for what it was, I just don't feel encouraged to return to it anytime in the near future.