Sundered (2017)

Writing this review belatedly so the game isn't as fresh in my mind but I think I can make do.

I can understand some of the other players' frustration with the mindless mobbing, but I found that I didn't mind during active combat (ie times when I chose to enter combat) : sometimes, the easy way is not the fun way. You have to make the choice of not settling yourself in a corner and repeatedly pressing the hit button. You have to decide to jump around, bouncing and slashing at enemies in the flashiest manner. And after 20 hours of it, I feel I can safely say that moving around in Sundered feels very, very good, and I haven't encountered another game that feels quite like it. Everything in this game is fast paced and dynamic, from the running, to the jumping, to the recovery period of falling from great heights. As an example, the physics of the game take the speed at which you move when calculating your floating speed when you launch yourself from a platform.

At times, Sundered feels almost like a bullet hell, and weirdly enough for me who doesn't usually enjoy bullet hells, I absolutely love it. There are zones where enemies spawn infinitely, which means having to weave between enemies and their projectiles and to pick your battles to get to the other end safely. And it's fun to feel like a slippery, punchy eel that could get swarmed at the wrong movement. The tension does wane a bit toward the end of the game where you have more health than you know what to do with.

The abilities you're given in the embrace the darkness route are pretty versatile and can often be used for combat as well as for movement, sometimes in unexpected ways; there were a couple of times when I reached places that weren't supposed to be reached until much later. One thing I'm on the fence about is that the new abilities you gain change the way you move, and this in an unreversible way. On one hand, it renews the gameplay and makes the areas you've already explored feel a little different. On the other hand, there were moves that I was frustrated to see go. Maybe a toggle à la Sharp Shadow Hollow Knight is needed for Sundered 2? (I'm waiting for it)

The plot? Didn't pay too much attention to it. The graphics? BEAUTIFUL animations, which is I think at least 50% of why moving around felt so good. The music? I can't remember, it's been a couple of months but... not bad I think?

Anyway. Good game. Just try it, see how it feels.

Walk, jump, slash, special attack, dodge. In the first hour of Sundered these five moves stayed the same. There are no other attacks or abilities (i think you unlock double jump later on), no items, no traits other than stat upgrades, nothing.

You go through rooms, destroy cannisters for cash and kill mostly the same three enemies. I encountered about six different types but usually it's the default enemy and the worm/bomb. The rooms are all designed for gameplay - they don't really tell a story or add to the worldbuilding (1-2 exceptions).

The gameplay is okay, except for the respawning enemies and the annoying lack of double jump/dash which makes wall-jumping kinda awkward. After an hour i encountered a boss, almost survived and after respawning and picking upgrades from the Path Of Exile-like skill diagram i looked at the map and lost all interest. I would have to go through the same boring rooms fighting the same enemies with the same slash attack i'd used all game.

Jotun wasn't particularly interesting either and it also had nice graphics and an interesting setting (on the surface). Maybe they should focus more on the gameplay next time.

I don't know why I don't play Metroidvania's more often. Everytime I do I end up enjoying myself. And this game is no exception.

I wasn't to sure about it at first as it has roguelike elements in it, but I decided to stick with it and I am glad I did. The upgrades upon death that you can add to your character makes it feel well worth the runs through the game.

All 3 "zones" of the game felt quite different from each other. You finish one and go into the other and feel like you're in a while new world to a certain extent. Especially the finally zone. And the art of the whole thing was just spectacular! Of this review was based on aesthetics alone it would be a 5/5 easy. I can't praise them high enough.

I was a bit worries that the gameplay would get a tad repetitive after a while, but to my happy surprise it never felt that way to me. Sure it was simple and not a lot to it but I constantly felt like I was getting better as you can jump off enemies after you hit them and get higher I'm the air and more tricks introduced as you continue on. And mixing and matching perks to my best advantage was fun to play around with. The bosses were just the right difficulty. You would die once or twice and sort of figure out a pattern and maybe level up a couple more times and come back a win. Except the final boss. That guy felt way OP to me.

And that's where I have my problem. Everything feels even and steady through the game. Die, get stronger, go back in to make it farther, repeat. And then you get to the end and it's just, die, die, die, die, die, die, die. The only reason I didn't quit is because I knew it was the final boss. But it felt way to much for what the rest of the game was.

So that's pretty much it! Overall I definitely enjoyed myself. It was a fun game that I'm glad I played. And I liked it enough that I'm probably gonna be playing more Thunder Lotus games going forward.

I'm a little late to the party on this one. As a promotional thing for Sundered, the devs gave out their earlier game (Jotun) for free on Steam. I played Jotun, and it was so underwhelming that I avoided Sundered entirely; perhaps it wasn't the best promotion strategy? Regardless, I picked up Sundered during the Steam sales. It's a Lovecraft-themed metroidvania with some rogue-like elements, so I figured it would be difficult to screw up that formula.

The first thing one notices about the game is the original art style and atmosphere. There are many Lovecraft-inspired games, but I haven't seen any of them capture the surreal cosmic horror aspect so well, apart from Bloodborne. All of the environments are beautifully hand-drawn, and all of the monsters and bosses are frame-by-frame animated and coloured in a beautiful manner reminiscent of Akira or Ghost in the Shell. The game is gorgeous, but they also somehow managed to retain this beauty and visual coherence within the randomly-generated levels. There are 3 main zones in the game, and each one has its own individual style, atmosphere, monsters, bosses, music and unique platforming challenges.

The game is pretty, but my initial fear was that there was too much focus on the visuals, and the gameplay would suffer (possibly the downfall of Jotun). Surprisingly, the gameplay and movement are really well-designed and silky smooth. I could draw a lot of comparisons to Dead Cells, and after playing a lot of it, I found that the movement felt much more free and acrobatic in Sundered. There's a giant skill tree with unlockable skills, and perks that one may equip, in a pretty standard metroidvania manner. Double-jump, grapple hook and other skills allow one to access deeper into the world and reach tougher areas and bosses. Though I think the crowning achievement of this game is the innovative map-generation technique, which sets it far apart from games like Spelunky or Dead Cells.

Every time you die in Sundered, the map re-shuffles and you're presented with an (almost) entirely new set of challenges, sections to navigate, hidden treasures and so on. However, instead of killing off your progress, you get to keep all your currency/souls and all your skills, so you become more powerful through each death. Furthermore, the map isn't entirely random. Key areas (like boss arenas, story nodes, central landmarks and passageways between zones) remain in the same locations; it's one the spaces inbetween which are shuffled. I thought this was really clever. It makes the world seem always familiar but never boring: you're never lost, you usually have an objective in mind, but it's never repetitive to get from A to B because there are always re-shuffled challenges during the inbetween sections.

One might raise a complaint about the lack of enemy varieties in the game: there are 3 main areas in the game, each has maybe 4 enemies, meaning only around 12 "mobs" in the game (not including bosses). But I think the game makes up for this with the attention to detail of each enemy with their animations and individual behaviour. If I had to raise a complaint about the game, it would be the enemy spam. Unlike in metroidvanias, enemies aren't actually placed throughout the level: they spawn in on a timer. Every couple minutes a gong will sound and a wave of enemies appear from offscreen. It usually works quite well, except for some flying enemies which can move through walls, trolling you with projectile attacks from offscreen. Other times literally hundreds of enemies will spawn at once which isn't a fun mechanic (especially in the early-game), removing all skill from the experience: you're basically just spamming dodge or attack buttons or running away. You can't really do much when you're being attacked from all directions. I think it would have been better gameplay if they introduced stronger enemies instead, allowing you to actually dodge their attacks.

Sundered was much better than I expected. As you progress through the game you really feel so much more powerful. You start off as a weakling, terrified of certain areas, but by the end you're smashing your way through the most fearsome enemies and bosses with crazy Cthulhu powers, it gives a really satisfying sense of progression. Once you unlock the cannon, even the spammed enemies aren't too much of an issue and it's actually satisfying to slice through hordes of enemies, Dynasty Warriors-style in the late-game. This game (especially early on) is very difficult and punishing and you'll die a lot, but that's part of the experience. I've drawn a lot of comparisons here, but this game feels quite unique, and it's worth experiencing even just to witness the incredible animations and the unique interpretation of cosmic horror. If you're a Lovecraft fan, or if you enjoyed Hollow Knight or Dead Cells then I think you should definitely check out this game. :)