It’s really hard to understand what drove so many teams to try the spirit-like path. Sure, making a video game is never easy, but when it comes to metroidvania or two-dimensional puzzle games, the technical requirements tend to be more manageable than average if nothing else. On the other hand, it’s a three-dimensional soul-like game that requires highly proficient combat and level designers, is difficult to balance and manages, and has to contend with some stellar quality videogames led by an ever-evolving Elden Ring. bar.
Yet, either for the appeal of the structure of this subgenre, or for the pity of arrogance, someone periodically always tries to get into the mix with some variation on the theme. The last to do this? French spiders, if nothing else, which has been active for many years and is known for its volatile efforts in the field of action RPGs. At any rate, one thing must be said: Rises of Steel starts from stronger-than-average narrative and artistic foundations, and by learning from the mistakes of the past and leveraging experience, it certainly wasn’t impossible for the Spiders to come. with anything reasonably above expectations. only then did we arrive Try Steelrising and the result … well, we will tell you about it in this useful article.
Long live the Revolution! Too bad for how it went.
There storytelling The “forte” we told you about is a crazy king XIV of the Spiders, the people of Paris. In this turbulent age, you take on the role of De Vacaunson’s masterpiece Aegis, which builds the horde of robotic monsters where it all began, and is sent by the Queen herself to Paris to investigate what is going on. the rest of the royal family.
The proposition is objectively fascinating and goes well with a very different direction of history compared to what is commonly seen in spirits; Sadly, Spiders wields some deftness, starting with a boring opening video that’s been overexposed to the pitch and continuing with a series of letters and testimonies scattered around maps that don’t seem to make the most of the possibilities. completely. Overall, however, it’s a truly distinctive setting that gives the title and its “hero” a bit of healthy uniqueness, and is treated in a way that’s far more valuable in terms of art direction.
In fact, the game’s problems are definitely not related to the plot or how the environment is managed. Unfortunately, it’s a mix of technical and design shortcomings that baffled us a bit; and if, on the one hand, the first can still be fixed, the second is less easy to fix. For example, let’s start with the very scarce game optimizationIn a configuration armed with the GeForce 3070 and components from every angle, performances were literally among the worst ever seen on that PC.
If that’s not enough, I accident They were on the agenda during the demo, so there’s a lot of work to be done in terms of stability. Not wanting to be too negative, but given the pretty brutal load times in the game and the delayed loading of most games’ textures, it’s at least clear that there’s a lot of cleanup work to be done. In Unreal of the past decade. . Maybe the build we tested wasn’t very new, but the release is scheduled for September 8th and we don’t think we have much time to fix these flaws.
Swiss robot
when you switch mode war, if nothing else, things get pretty fast. Aegis can use fast and charged attacks, has a stat-based growth system beyond Dark Souls, and the game, remarkable variety of weapons (they also have stat-related damage bonuses that work almost the same as seen in FromSoftware games). Each maneuver has a certain ‘weight’ that gives combat a very worthwhile physicality, and death vehicles have very different movement sequences, leading to a complete change of playstyle from one to the next.
Not only that, every gun special abilities From shields to counter moves – going through a series of blows and basic attacks – it’s possible to equip both at the same time and switch between them, and even Weaponry for those who want to fight from afar (despite the bullets falling from killed enemies). This overall complexity is further compounded given that the total stamina consumption prevents attacking for a few minutes, and there are certain core weaknesses that can provide tremendous advantages in the game.
At first glance, such a tiered system seems like a boon, not to mention that Steelrising also offers more vertical movement (and thus maps) and a jump button for mid-air combat maneuvers. But when you dig into more detail, you start to notice cracks in the metal. this basic system in fact, the aforementioned balance is bad enough to be abused to say the least. We found an ice element rifle early in the game, but we found that almost any early-stage enemy, including bosses, can be frozen with a handful of bullets from a safe distance and then smashed with effortless combinations.
If that wasn’t enough, some enemies have mostly low range attacks, and hitting them on the jump with certain weapons that keep you airborne for a few seconds (especially some agility-based weapons) is a great way to devastate them. very limited risks. L’artificial intelligence It doesn’t help: the patterns of crazy automatons scattered around the maps have aggressive and sometimes really annoying tracking moves to counter, but their behavior routines sometimes hit or react badly to the hero’s simple proximity. It’s a shame, because Steelrising could have totally convinced us on this point if he had better tuned the systems and worked on some AI. However, overlooked points are marked, especially for a longtime soul player. If there is nothing else in the game”assisted mode“This could literally take the hassle out for those who have been complaining about this lack of genre for a while, but as stated, we don’t believe an experienced player will have great difficulty advancing given the system’s hiccups.
Not very good with maps either. Jumping actually caused Spiders to add platforms and elevated passages to maps, but when you go to evaluate level design The team’s real limitations seem obvious. Practically the entire map of Paris (the second right after the tutorial) consists of a series of corridors and squares positioned in a circle and connected by basic shortcuts. The only variation on the theme is an extra chest for a really mediocre overall quality that doesn’t particularly force you to explore, or dead ends with enemies at the end.
It should be noted that after unlocking the first “serious” boss a pincer this gives you access to elevated areas that were previously far away (and other tools with similar functions are not yet known); Who knows then, even if we find it hard to believe by observing the simplicity of the morphology of the places visited, things won’t get any better.
All in all? This is a bit of a waste, as there is no doubt a brilliant concept behind the game along with a battle system with great potential. However, gaps in the team made themselves evident in production, and we have a hard time believing any significant transformation or evolution at launch.
Even with a very clever concept and a combat system full of respectable ones, Steelrising seemed to us a spirit haunted by multiple ingenuities that did not significantly lower the quality. Of course, we’ve only seen the first part of the game and it’s too early to give up on it, but overall we doubt it can position itself at the pinnacle of this complex genre all at once. We’ll consider it in more detail once we have the full code.
SYMPTOMS
- A very interesting concept in terms of narrative as well.
- The combat system is detailed and full of possibilities.
- Few ingenuity in design that lower the overall quality
- Tested demo is very poorly optimized
Source: Multiplayer
