Review Mazinkaiser 4/5 · Feb 9, 2019
The Void - A Struggle To Live
There's a reason The Void can't be perfect. The reason it hides below a GOTY, even below Pathologic, is that it's just too unforgiving. Ice Pick Lodge took the desperate survival of Pathologic and created a chaos where resource management is key in a world where that resource lives and dies much too quickly. It got some difficulty mods later, …
There's a reason The Void can't be perfect. The reason it hides below a GOTY, even below Pathologic, is that it's just too unforgiving. Ice Pick Lodge took the desperate survival of Pathologic and created a chaos where resource management is key in a world where that resource lives and dies much too quickly. It got some difficulty mods later, which very much heighten the experience.
Now onto the good. The Void is an unforgettable world, populated by strange and wise Sisters and terrifying and greedy Brothers. The surrealism of each chamber is on point, with ambient music that worms into your head and never fails to catch on. The world runs on Color, a resource that comes in seven flavors, each with their own effect (defending the realm, defending yourself, speed, gardening, etc) as you gather them as Lympha, refine them through obtainable hearts, and cast them as magic Nerva.
Spells are drawn on the screen and although there are some duds (nobody ever uses Sleeper), it's surprising how handy some of them can be. Shields, targeted and homing golems, bait for fireflies and underground dwellers for color gathering, magnets for objects - The Void has the most realized system for drawing spells of any game I've seen.
As for resource gathering, with more tweaks in your favor this process would be quite enjoyable. Color is constantly shuffled out of your hearts till the very end, so it's necessary to track down plants of color in the void, enrich trees, and mine deposits. There are plenty of ways to gain color but the time limits and random placement of colors keeps you thinking and keeps your moving. On top of that are the Brothers' tendency to hoard and steal color, and eventually must be destroyed. It's an incredibly difficult challenge at its default difficulty, and might not be the most enjoyable without knowing exactly what to do from the start.
Despite that, this world is ripe with exploration. Speak to the Sisters, learn their secrets and listen to them for the secrets of the Void. And then - choose who to ascend. These characters and ideas are incredibly rich and worth playing through at least once. That said, it's probably best to mod the difficulty a bit to avoid frustration - else you'll be looking at a lot of unwinnable situations.
