I had a chance to play for a couple hours this morning, and I’m impressed so far! It’s a metroidvania game, but with a souls-like bonfire/estus flask/lose experience on death and try to recover it mechanic. Movement and combat feel fluid, and deflecting attacks feels great. The combat system seems simple right now, but I have barely unlocked any of the systems in the game and it’s a metroidvania so I know the complexity will only grow.
The world is beautiful and has a complex history that I want to learn more about, although the dialog is a little bit jointed, probably due to localization issues. There are definitely some aspects of body horror to the game, with humans Apemen from the Big Blue Planet being used as livestock in a creepy, gory, ritualistic fashion in the first level. It’s definitely not a horror game, though-- the protagonist is powerful and can fight back against enemies without fear of running out of resources, although combat is definitely unforgiving.
I can tentatively recommend it right now, although I haven’t played it enough to give it a full review yet. I haven’t played it on my steam deck yet, but I’ll give it a shot tonight and give my thoughts over on the steamdeck community
I know this is a weird observation, but the covers on those games are all red and I can’t help but wonder if there was an unofficial industry-wide standard of color psychology when these were released
Throughout the jam-packed season of this free-to-play game, contestants can experience new weapons for each class, the hacked new map SYS$HORIZON, the all-new 5v5 game mode Power Shift, a new skill-based League System, rewarded weekly career progression, private matches — for now in a feature-limited beta version — and the new Hacker Playstyle, which adds several ways for contestants to alter the arena to their favor. THE FINALS’ new Hacker Playstyle lets players step into the shoes of CNS, with a set of new gadgets and a new specialization that can be mixed and matched with players’ existing toolset. Remove walls, defy gravity, tunnel across the arena, and transform items — become the glitch in the system, the ultimate cyber tactician, and bring a new dimension to the game.
The Dematerializer for Mediums: a specialization that temporarily erases physical surfaces, like walls, ceilings, or goo — allowing contestants to see, shoot, and pass through them. Create new passageways and close them back up again —turn every obstacle into an open door.
The Anti-Gravity Cube for Heavys: a deployable cube that manipulates gravity in its immediate area, lifting contestants and objects upwards! Is it a traversal tool? Or a defensive gadget? It’s up to each contestant!
The Gateway for Lights: a pair of limited-range deployable portals! When both are thrown and activated, contestants and objects can move between the two locations. Anyone can use a portal, but players can’t see or shoot through them! Perfect for a quick getaway, when things get hairy.
The Data Reshaper for Mediums: a gadget that changes enemy fortifications (or any random objects for that matter) into something else entirely — like turning an enemy mine into a chair. Or an enemy turret into a table. Great for breaking through enemy defenses!
All builds are getting new weapons, with the Lights getting the 93R burst-fire machine pistol, Medium getting the new FAMAS burst assault rifle, and Heavys able to wield the new KS-23 slug shotgun.
With access to assets and source files, CNS has introduced its own Arena, SYS$HORIZON. This glitchy, neon-filled cityscape exists in the loading realm of the game show and features a mix of vertical and horizontal gameplay. Voxel bridges create pathways between buildings, and pieces of floating, glitched geometry allow contestants to parkour through the arena. Partially loaded and out-of-place, SYS$HORIZON is a sight to behold, especially at night.
Moreover, THE FINALS Season 2 comes with Power Shift — an all-new, casual, 5v5 game mode where two teams compete to escort a platform through the arena. If interrupted by an enemy team, the platform grinds to a halt — or will switch direction entirely. Watch out, the platform will tear through anything in its path and can be rocked by physics. Players can switch their contestants between respawns, allowing them to balance their teams on the fly and hone their skills to perfection. In Season 2, contestants can compete in a revamped League System that improves the ranked play experience, with league rewards that up the stakes. A new Career Circuit system offers weekly rewards from Seasonal Sponsors, allowing contestants to move from Rookie to Master by completing contracts throughout the season.
Last Epoch is a phenomenal game and was worth every penny years ago–I’m incredibly excited for the 1.0 release. It’s got just the right amount of build complexity–if making a Path of Exile build from scratch takes a PhD, then doing it in Last Epoch would be like community college (although there’s definitely differences in complexity from class to class).
The developers (Eleventh Hour Games) offer regional pricing, so non-Americans aren’t priced out of the game, and although servers for online play will be available based on a cost vs demand basis, it is possible to play the game 100% offline.
If anyone has any questions about the game, let me know!
The story is currently unfinished, so I can’t comment on its entirety, but I’m enjoying the themes and choices they’ve made so far. It’s based on fantasy-inspired time travel and visiting the same areas in different eras of time, similar to Crono Trigger. You meet some characters at multiple points in their life, sometimes changing from friend to foe or vice versa. Finally, the endgame mechanic involves exploring alternate timelines where key events in the history of the world had a different outcome (for example, one timeline explores what would have happened if the gods had failed in their quest to exterminate the dragons).
Music
The music is immersive and calm when it needs to be, and engaging and dramatic when it needs to be. Ultimately, I felt like it wasn’t anything to write home about when I turned it off in favor of my own playlists a few years ago, but the composer has had nothing but time to refine their craft and I wouldn’t be surprised if they update the soundtrack for 1.0.
Environment/World Building/Mobs
I feel like they knocked it out of the park on this one. Enemies in the Ancient Era are primal and wild, the Divine Era is regal and civilized but barbaric underneath, the Immortal Era is appropriately gory and dreary but filled with loving people who still have hope, and the Ruined Era is consumed by darkness and it really shows in the enemy design. The giant reptiles you fight in one era may get resurrected to fight against you in the next; wild scorpions will have glittering gems appear in their carapaces as you near a treasure trove, cultists will grow more mutated as their exposure to their deity grows, and more. Side quests have you time-traveling from era to era to complete objectives in creative ways, and there are even ways to skip parts of the campaign by exploring and completing dungeons, for when you’re leveling alts.
NPCs:
Most town NPCs rarely elevate themselves beyond exposition dumps, although there are some memorable moments; but the characters that travel with you or fight against you are great and charismatic. I like one of the characters enough that I’m legitimately upset that they die, and I hope we’re able to save them at some point in the future (or should I say, some point in the past?). Sadly, the main vendor that you use in the endgame is kinda dull and flat and is definitely no Deckard Cain, but that’s honestly the kind of feedback that the devs would appreciate and find a way to apply to the game.
Loot:
Uniques and Set Items have descriptions that build out the world or tell you more about the person who originally used them, kinda like dark souls. Normal/magic/rare/exalted items don’t have descriptions and are based on a prefix/suffix system, and unique items can potentially drop with 1-4 Legendary Potential, a stat that allows it to inherit a number of affixes from an exalted item equal to its Legendary Potential. They are also implementing two different approaches to loot by adding mutually exclusive Item Factions to the in-game world-- the Circle of Fortune will increase item drops and add mini-quests to further increase drop rates for specific items similar to Prophecies and Atlas Memories from PoE; while the Merchants Guild will let players trade increasingly powerful items with each other, either in person or through a bazaar (although there will be limited options to trade items with friends regardless of which faction you choose to join, if you spend time together in game)
Just because a minority is depicted in a work of art does not mean that depiction was made in good faith. Americans are familiar with that concept because of our dark history of minstrel shows and blackface performances.
When the trans woman character’s name is Sirona Ryan, it calls into question whether she is meant to be a character or a caricature.
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