Early access with great potential.
For fans of the top-down combat RPG genre, Path of Exile doesn’t need much introduction. The first installment of this free-to-play title (available for free on PC and consoles) from New Zealand studio Grinding Gear Games has provided fans with the deepest, most challenging experience found in the genre since 2013. In fact, the game is so deep that it actually hurts it – new players are sometimes put off by the giant “constellations” of the ability tree or the absurdly deep crafting system. So the second volume, among other things, tries to find a better balance between depth and accessibility, which it definitely succeeds in, without losing its charm. Compared to its competitors, it is still significantly more difficult, but at the same time it looks great and its gameplay is unique in many ways.
Story campaign
Although the full version of the second game next year will also be completely free (like the first part), for now it is only available in early access, which is paid. It costs CZK 699 and can be found on PC (including Steam) as well as PS5 and Xbox Series consoles. At the moment the game offers the first half of the campaign (three acts out of six), but it is already almost finished and will easily last you fifteen to twenty hours of excellent fun. By far its best feature is its noticeable emphasis on more precise gameplay than we’re used to in the genre. What exactly does this mean? That you have better control over your character’s movements and attacks, which is subsequently also used in fights with stronger enemies and especially bosses. The bosses in this game have a number of complex attacks and tactics that can be very deadly and will force you to pay significantly more attention than you usually do in similar games. But thanks to this, you will be much more drawn into the game.
Among other things, you will be drawn into the campaign by a good, moderately dark story, which continues the first part, but is structured in such a way that even beginners can easily understand it. Set 20 years after the events of the first game, the mighty Count Geonor appears to have gone mad and, during a very impressive CGI intro sequence, frees an all-powerful monster from captivity, reminiscent of the monsters from The Thing with its elusive power. variability. Subsequently, he begins to feed this monster to his own subjects in his castle. Your search for this cursed place of evil does not go as you hoped, and for the rest of the campaign you will travel through various locations, from dense forests to desert ruins and forgotten jungle pyramids, in a desperate pursuit of the escapees. monster.
Six professions
The full version of the game will include twelve playable professions, six of which you can try out right now. While it’s true that in many games like this there is a noticeable difference between playing as different characters, I found it even more noticeable here thanks to the aforementioned more precise controls. By the way, in addition to the mouse itself, you can control on a computer by combining WASD to move the character and at the same time clicking the mouse, which leads to noticeably better control and a feeling of control of your character. If you play with a controller, the precision of your character’s movements/animations/attacks becomes even more noticeable, especially on the PlayStation 5’s DualSense controller, which also makes surprisingly good use of haptic feedback in this game.
By far the hardest thing to play is a warrior who only fights at close range, and as I mentioned, the enemies in this game are very deadly. You can expect this class to see more armor or ability buffs because in the current version it is much more difficult to play than the other five. Meanwhile, due to its characteristics, the combat monk can first use a bow, and then use powerful magic in close staff combat. The distance from enemies is counted for shooting at rangers with bows and mercenaries with crossbows, as well as witches and sorcerers. While the sorceress specializes in disaster management, the witch can summon undead assistants and create an army of twenty people, including melee, ranged, medics, and so on.
Final
For a preliminary approach, the creators considered two options for content – either the second half of the campaign in a less finalized state, or the first rough draft of endgame activities. In the end, we settled on the second option. But since the ending begins at level 65, and the first three acts of the campaign only allow you to complete half of that progress, the current version of the game still includes a similar mandatory playthrough of the first half of the campaign again, but on the infamous “brutal” difficulty. This will force you to explore the game mechanics even more carefully, while at the same time you will be pleased with the growth of your character’s power as you work your way to better equipment and advanced abilities in their “constellation”.
The ending itself then takes the form of a greatly enriched famous Atlas from the first part, where your goal is to gradually reveal a vast map of locations, hiding additional bosses and game modes. The creators have taken some popular mechanics from previous seasons of the first game and incorporated them into the endgame here, so challenging variations of enemy hordes await you in modes such as Delirium, Rift, Ritual or Expedition. While the endgame as a whole is in a noticeably early stage of development and balancing, it already offers extremely deep entertainment that, depending on your skill and luck (in finding particularly difficult final bosses in the vast expanse of the Atlas), can easily last for a long time. you for a hundred hours or more.
Technical processing
Although the game has an intentionally very mild color palette (much like the dark style of Diablo 2), it is graphically extremely complex, full of character and environment detail, excellent movement and attack animations, and of course, properly epic spell effects. The second part runs on the creators’ own engine, which is an improved version of the technology of the first part. As for technical glitches, the story campaign is set up almost perfectly and feels more like a finished game than an Early Access game. You can play alone or in a group of up to six players in one group. You will meet other online players in cities, the servers are stable most of the time.
The performance debate is a little more complex. In addition to hardware, your profession and stage of the game also depend here. I played on both the classic and PRO versions of the PlayStation 5 console, and also discussed with colleagues who play on computers. Obviously, playing as a witch with a team of twenty undead AI at your side has a greater impact on fluidity than, say, playing as a lone warrior. Likewise, game flow is better during the relatively calmer campaign than in some of the more intense end-game horde modes where there are many more monsters on screen. Luckily, the console version also has graphics quality settings or image scaling and supports gaming at up to 120Hz, but it’s clear that the game isn’t perfectly tuned in this regard yet. You won’t notice it as much during the campaign, but the higher monster density endgame is a bit more demanding, and even game streamers with their bloated PC machines are complaining about the drop in fluidity.
Work
As you’d expect from a massive free-to-play online RPG, Early Access’s biggest challenge is the balance of a number of systems. Some characters are noticeably weaker (paradoxically, this includes the aforementioned warrior, whose armor is simply not as effective as the energy barrier or agility of other professions), some end-game builds, on the contrary, kill the final bosses in the game with one shot. blow. Loot is in most cases weaker than the goods offered by in-game merchants (you buy with in-game gold earned in the game), on the contrary, the stat that increases the search for items is too strong, so players prefer it on their equipment rather than defense or offense. The ending feels more like a concept or placeholder for a large and elaborate campaign, although it has extraordinary depth and potential. The penalties for dying in the endgame are too harsh, you will lose access to a given location and most of the accumulated experience (this problem does not apply to the campaign).
Despite the above, I liked the game in this Early Access version much more than the competing “ready” games. I took three characters to the endgame and was always amazed at how interesting and different the gameplay was for them – each time it felt like I was playing a new game. The heavy emphasis on more precise movement and higher difficulty means you’ll have to pay much more attention while playing than in similar games, and like the souls genre, it makes you take each new location and enemy much more seriously. with a higher dose of adrenaline and emotions, especially in the battle with one of the great local bosses. The audiovisual treatment, including again great music, enhances the great experience of the game, and I was actually quite interested in the story, which I’m really looking forward to in the full game. The full game doesn’t have a set date yet, but can be expected sometime in 2025. But personally, I will be very happy to return to the game even before that, if in the meantime the creators add another character to the game. try or another interesting update.
Source :Indian TV
