Sundered®: Eldritch Edition

Sundered®: Eldritch Edition

After a few day’s worth of playtime on this game, I feel like I’d like to toss in my two cents on it. By two cents, I should clarify that I mean many paragraphs. this review will not be short, and I apologise. Sundered, on the whole, is a good game. There are several elements that merit critique in my eyes, though they didn’t detract from the game so much as to merit a negative review. With that out of the way, let’s dive in to some thoughts and ramblings.

Firstly, I should say also that this game has quickly become one of my all time favorites. The atmosphere, the artwork, the enemy design and storytelling all are favorites of mine, and I think they’re exceedingly clever and engaging. However, even when you take away my biased opinions, the game stands up to scrutiny, with well designed gameplay and mechanics (as well as story and the other previously mentioned aspects).

Real player with 82.7 hrs in game


Read More: Best Roguevania Action Roguelike Games.


Well, you can tell by my hours of gameplay that I really enjoyed this game and got the most out of it, even the bad out of it.

The harshness of the reviews left me really unsure, in the first few minutes, no matter how much I was enjoying, the game design made me fear for what people have said, so let me clarify a few things.

TL:DR

Great game, very challenging, beautiful animation, exploration is rewarded, so is proper strategy (Change your routes and upgrade luck early, please). The randomness is not unfair, it is not unfair, your skills matter. Bosses are great, minibosses often suck. The major flaw is making the “good” path so poor, but the rest is brillant. If you want to have 1 run and the best experience, I’d say “Put the hardest difficulty and fully embrace”

Real player with 58.2 hrs in game

Sundered®: Eldritch Edition on Steam

Thalassophobia

Thalassophobia

| Follow our GROUP and CURATOR for more interesting games and quality reviews!

|

Thalassophobia

A game that borrows inspiration from the roguelike and survival genre alike and puts you in an instant fight for survival against mysterious creatures, starvation, insanity and more.

Be prepared to fail over and over again while you keep learning how to keep a good balance of yours crews needs and safety.

Real player with 4.0 hrs in game


Read More: Best Roguevania Action Games.


I bought this to do a review of it for YT. Never before have I heard myself so depressed after a video. It isn’t from the melancholy of Lovecraftian literature either.

Gameplay:

Aesthetically it reminds me of retro-indie games. Pretty good in that regard. However I’m not a fan of the GUI trying to move out of the way while I’m attempting to use it (infuriating to say the least). It took me about 15 minutes to learn the mechanics and I’m still not sure I have all of it with an hour of playing. I got the furnace once, but I’ve not seen it since and died soon after, considering the game doesn’t teach you how to use it. I tend to succumb to sanity being exhausted, but it’s impossible to keep my crew sufficiently saturated and not crazy. Frankly it’s not fun for me to die and die again with little to no progress being made so I don’t want to play it anymore.

Real player with 1.0 hrs in game

Thalassophobia on Steam

Source of Madness

Source of Madness

I’ve finished all of the current content, so I think I’m in a good position to critique the game as it is currently. Overall, this game is a real gem. I’m a fan of Lovecraftian-styled games along with rogues and sidescrollers, so this game is perfect for me. The character movement and combat starts out sluggish, but once you unlock some more dashes the pace becomes faster. The developers have already addressed this in an update today that bumped up the character movement, among other improvements. However it’s still a game that favors defense, and the bullet-sponge nature of the enemies is my biggest criticism. At times it can borderline on ridiculous. Also, the second level of Act 1 feels way too long, and in my opinion, doesn’t earn its length.

Real player with 17.4 hrs in game


Read More: Best Roguevania Early Access Games.


Right now, I’m coming off of a sugar rush like feeling after playing 5 hours of this game. In its current state the game is fantastic.

The game checks off all the boxes for a wide variety of gamers.

SoulsLike - Check

Metroidvania - Check

Action / RPG - Check

Platformer - Check

Gorgeous Game - Check

Horror - Check

True Lovecraft Monsters - Check

Just a geek that needs to collect a game with very unique design mechanics - Check

I could go on. I’m a huge fan of SoulsLike and Metroidvania games. Throw in the Roguelite concept where both the environment and your enemies are never the same is fantastic. The use of neural network AI to create the enemies is mind bendingly genius.

Real player with 16.4 hrs in game

Source of Madness on Steam

Cosmophage

Cosmophage

Love this game. Does a great job of easing you into a chaotic bullet hell. The music makes it feel that much more intense which puts a unique and needed flare to the genre. Challenging, but rewarding!

Real player with 2.8 hrs in game

At first I thought “hmm, this is pretty easy!” - no, it gets harder. Sound track is on point, too!

Real player with 0.5 hrs in game

Cosmophage on Steam