I have been watching this title since the first trailers were revealed. Right away the world itself pulled me in with an aesthetic that harkened to one of my favorite franchises, but with a realistic looking twist. So when this became the co-op game to play, I eagerly agreed. Looking back, it started with a bang and for a while did everything I could hope for. But as I put down the mouse for the last time, the game definitely feels like it ends with a whimper, especially compared to that strong start.
Story: I am going to be honest, this is not a game that you are going to play for the story... not so much because it's not there, but because it's about as clear as mud. 100 years prior the planet Ingris, a well colonized world by mankind, was invaded by an alien empire known as the Vulgus and was nearly wiped out. However, not all hope was lost, this empire has it's own enemies who saw potential in the space-faring species under attack. Known as the Magisters, they chose to work with the humans, unlocking a gene in their genetic code to create super-soldiers who now make their stand against the menaces threatening the last surviving city mankind has on Ingris: Albion.
You will take the role of one of these super-heroes as they attempt to change course of this war through finding, acquiring, and using artifacts called Ironhearts before the Vulgus can. To explain what they are, Ironhearts are three powerful and ancient relics that were hidden by the Ascendants, an ancient people who were on Ingris before long before anyone else... and that's about all I could figure out, despite both looking to what the game was telling me and a few online sources for this review.
Things will evolve from here, though never really clearing things up and by the end of the initial storylines (labeled Pre-season), you will see the Ironheart arc completed, but it is clearly just chapter one of what could well be a big story waiting to be told as you start to change the direction of this war. Unfortunately I can not explain to much beyond this since I couldn't really give it much more time: I was playing this game as a co-op title with BookHobo (one of the gamers on my Discord server), and the most recent parts as I write this (seasons 2 and 3) seem to be mainly written as single player events... NOT what you play an MMO for.
My impression, however, is that the game expects you to either overlook the details you don't need in the moment to moment or look it up in online sources, refusing to explain much of anything.
4/10
Graphics: Simply put this game is drop dead gorgeous. Taking full advantage of what the Unreal 5 engine can do, this game will show you a ruined war-torn world of broken down ruins being reclaimed by nature. Strewn about it are relics of an ancient high-tech world with quasi-active ruins, alien structures and the futuristic city of Albion where the last hopes of mankind reside. It is all lovingly rendered to a the stunning level of detail one would expect from a current AAA game and looks absolutely amazing... and that's before you consider the other-worldly places which the game will hit you with early on and never leave far from your path as you play. Be ready for an absolute spectacle.
But all this would be nothing but pretty pictures if it wasn't populated, and to that end you can also expect a fittingly awesome looking set of enemies and friends, and all to great effect. The Descendants you will play as and along side with all look absolutely stunning, each taking a style to reflect the powers they bring to the table mixed with their personality, and before you are done, you will likely have a handful of personally picked choices to play as.
But I won't say the humans look photo-realistic. Rather, they are what I would call "game realistic." You can tell it's CGI, but it looks like everything could be a high-end CGI movie and to that end, fitting the level of detail in the world itself. Your non-human allies apply this level of detail as well, although outside robots that assist you I found this a little disappointing since it seems this is one of those universes where aliens are all basically human looking with either extra protrusions of some kind on their face and head and inhuman coloring/marking on their skin rather then anything especially creative. Still even these characters look cool as hell so I can't complain all that much on the aesthetic side of things.
And before anyone asks, no I'm not touching the "gooner gamer" complaint some will have about how the ladies can look. This is just not something I care about either way, but if they can sell pretty and revealing costumes to keep an already fun game going, God bless them for doing it. That is my take so if you want to get mad at anime women looking hot, you are talking to the wrong guy.
But as for enemies, I am a bit more split in their aesthetics. On the one hand, most of your regular enemies and even some boss encounters really start to look and feel like there are only a handful of types, so while they look alright, you see a LOT of the same enemies repeatedly. They just don't impress like the Descendants themselves. (Although the volume of them you can face off with at once is actually an impressive technical feat, not going to lie.) No the real stars here are the giants you intercept in order to prevent them from getting to Albion: the colossi.
These things are absolutely amazing behemoths to behold, ranging from organic and disgusting monsters that look like corrupted beasts to things I could only describe as cybernetic badasses that could give most FPS heroes more then a run for their money. These things are huge, highly details, incredibly well animated, and a spectacle all their own. Enjoy these encounters as I am pretty sure they were meant to be the centerpieces of this game.
9/10
Sound: Just like the visuals, you can expect a lot out of the audio side of this game as it takes the same AAA fidelity you see to your ears as well. However this also means we are continuing the trend of what is most important to hear as well as just about every game out there. So while the sounds of the world around you sound good, nothing really stands out this time to give it it's own flavor. You basically get the sound you expect as you whip out an energy beam to pull yourself to that impossible to reach cliff or the clatter of your machinegun as you mow down enemy after enemy. Yes it sounds right and yes that explosion will sound meaty enough, but absolutely nothing stands out here to really add to the world itself. That part of the world was completely in it's visual splendor (which admittedly was really good).
However, the audio effort seems to be a lot more in the music then anywhere else. Fully orchestrated as you expect, the music is appropriately thematic. It never forgets this is a war story where the fate of the few humans left on this planet after a century of battle depend on your actions. It's dark, moody, and intense... and yet you can hear the glimmer of hope your actions might give your kind despite it all. It can also shift tones to give you a sense of just how alone this colony is, letting the more sullen tones of this environment seep in.
But orchestrated isn't quite right either, as the musicians chose to let the game's science fiction notes take hold in their instrumental choices, too. Yes the classic instruments you would expect an orchestra to have are there and make up a lot of the meat the music will offer, but you will get more synthetic notes mixes in, that touch of the machine a lot of the world itself clearly has, and it mixes incredibly well with it: to the point you don't even realize it's there as often as not (but that could sometimes be how much noise the battle raging is causing). Even as while I listen to it on it's own for this review, I find myself sinking into it, remember moments in the game itself (not so much cutscenes as the gameplay) and appreciating these tones as we go.
And then we get to the voice acting, which for once I can't call the strong point here. Yes, it's done well enough, but again, nothing here stands out, at least for the right reasons. I found myself listening for the content, but rarely caring about the character behind them as they conversed with me (your own Descendant is silent). If anything I found most of your interactions to be with characters who were either a straight up stereotype (INCLUDING several Descendants you will get to play), annoying, or just uninteresting. This, like the story, is definitely not the strong suit, leaving all the real strength in the audio design to the music backing the game (which again is awesome).
6/10
Gameplay: When you boil it down, First Descendant is a 3rd person looter shooter which will take you globe-trotting across a decently sized world map to complete various missions: both in your quest log and just found along the way. These missions tend to be simple things like "defend points A B and C" or "eliminate the enemy" with some full on level or boss encounters along the way, but don't let that deceive you into thinking it's a boring rinse and repeat game. There is a lot to it, both in the variety of combat and the underlying systems to customize your Descendant of choice.
Right off the bat, the game will give you a single player introductory mission in which you will play as one of three Descendants defending Bunny as the duo search out a recently uncovered ruin to find the first of the three Ironhearts. This will be used to introduce the combat setup of your chosen character. Each one has their own set of stats and special moves which will make playing them unique to each other. For example I picked Axel, a giant bulk of of a man hidden behind a tough metal armor and a bull-shaped helmet, and all his powers reflect his defensive nature. As each was introduced, I learned to put up temporary walls I could shoot through but the enemy could not, a sphere to do the same from all angles, and an ability to basically propell myself towards the earth in a stomp and cause an earthquake to hurt and knock down a group of enemies: a lot of fun to use while I played him, and looking over his move sets, I found out certain combinations could charge them to make them even more powerful.
But it was the second one you get by storyline quests that I absolutely found myself adoring playing as, and that's the speedster herself, Bunny. Basically Bunny's entire gimmick is to keep moving as unlike Axel, she had a "static" meter which builds up as long as you don't stop moving around: the faster you move the faster it charges, and if you stop long enough, it rapidly depletes. Add to this a static ball of energy that electrocutes everyone close enough and literal energy wave that repeats based on how much you are moving (both with a strength based on how high that static charge I mentioned is) and a beam weapon that basically lets you fire a constant round until you run out of that charge, and this static is incredibly important to her. Her last (first?) move lets you boost it fast by using your stamina to run. The result is one character who plays like a tank eating or sluffing off damage with ease and another who's whole goal is to be the ballistic missile with a high-current payload to unleash in the middle of the crowd: two completely different ways to play anything... and that's only two of the many possible Descendants the game will offer you before you are done... well kinda.
You see, The First Descendant is also a free to play game, which means they want you to buy things while you play. And no before you even think it, you do not have to buy any of the Descendants in the game: they can all be earned. Nor does it make it exceptionally hard to do as you might expect. What it does is make it look far more confusing then necessary in most cases. To gain a Descendant generally you will have to find the four parts needed and setup the research to unlock it some X hours later (real time, not in game). Anyone who has played Warframe will be familiar with this process. As you complete missions, you will find they offer you a chance to get the parts you need as rewards, even if where you might find each one seems random.
However the game is generous enough to point you to which ones offer the parts you need if you have already completed them once so you can grind your way to getting your choice character, which depending on your luck, could take many tries (as we found out when BookHobo was doing this to unlock an achievement). Of course if you don't want to grind you can always buy ingame currency to just outright buy one you want to play. But even that isn't necessary if you are just a patient player who is enjoying yourself instead of grinding. There is a mail system which offers you goodies from time to time. Before we were done, one of those goodies was a box that opening let you choose a new Descendant to just "have" on the house, so while this whole setup is designed to be confusing and encourage the impatient to just drop a few bucks already, it isn't as predatory as free to play games can often be.
The game also does this for weapons as well, at least some of them. Most of them are readily available to pick up from enemies you kill as you play, but you will only get so far using these drops. Rather if you want to really build up your weapons, you will need at the very least to use the workshop where you can sacrifice another weapon to it, granting it the sacrifice's level and boosting it's stats... and while this may seem pointless when you can just pick the next higher leveled weapon from the next tougher enemy you fight, this starts being serious when you reach those weapons you have to build like a Descendant: the ultimate weapons. When you build them, they always start at level 1, but gain a LOT more power per level then any other weapon you could just pick up, making them live up to their name, especially as they reach max level (100). And I could be here forever going over all the various additional ways you could expand your weapon and Descendant's power, but this is a review, not a manual. So instead I will go to the last major way you get: the module systems.
Among the plethora of loot that destroyed enemies will spew across the battlefield, you will also find these modules which you can pick up and collect: and you will want to, as your Descendants and weapons will have an array of slots each to place these modules in to customize their stats and behavior: basically mini-upgrades you can slot into place to enhance and tweak your loadouts with.
Now you can't just slam these modules into anything as you see fit. Instead you will find they basically are either for a Descendant or weapons based on their ammunition type. To use them simply select the module you want and attach it to the slot you want. There is a little bit of strategy to this as each weapon and your Descendant also has a limited Module Capacity: a number of points the total value of your modules can not go past and not only do stronger ones need more points, but matching (or mismatching) types to the right slots can decrease (or increase) this cost as well, changing just how much is really available to you. But don't worry if you are not sure what you want to do here. The game DOES offer you an automatic mode where you can let the game advise you for what you wish to equip. Furthermore as you get more module points for this, there is a place to upgrade the modules you like best to further enhance everything to your taste (or as expected for a series of side-missions.. yes the game will teach you everything if you pay attention to it).
So for all the background systems, how does it actually play? In a word, tight. When you get to combat everything is fast, responsive, and feels absolutely right to the style of the Descendant you chose, making for one hell of a fun time when you are playing. However, I do have to bring up the late game here.
Simply put the pre-season (original game) and season 1 are absolutely sublime and an awesome co-op looter-shooter to spend your time with... however once you get past this, Nexon seemed to lose interest in the co-op aspect, making more and more of the story portions single player only, which frankly defeats the point of this game if you ask me. It was about this point where we walked away, but after almost 40 hours of having a great time for free? I don't think there is much to complain about here.
8/10
Bugs: Once again we have another game that pretty much ran very well. I won't say perfect if only because I found a few issues along the way. Nothing was game breaking, but it became obvious when the development team wanted to move on.
- Unreal 5 Micro-Stutter: There is no kind way to say it, this game suffers from the same issue that seems to plague most of this generation of AAA gaming: Everyone is using Unreal 5 and either the engine is too heavy for current hardware or no one knows how (or is willing to) optimize it properly. (I lean towards the latter argument.) Now that isn't to say its a terrible experience. Quite the opposite as the game brings everything to life EXCEPTIONALLY well. However, you will pick up on tiny hitches as you play that just seem to be part of life in the Unreal Hellscape we know today... at least until you've played a few times and before the next driver update forces the game to redo it's shaders. There is a reason a lot of PC gamers hate this engine.
- Why the HELL IS IT IN KOREAN? Ok ok, I know, this is a Korean MMO, but hear me out. There will be times you will get an icon on your screen to give you more detailed information about what you are dealing with... and you would EXPECT a team of professionals to make sure the popup window that you get when clicking that would be in the language that version of the game is. Nexon did not, and you can imagine my confusion the first time I clicked it and got (effectively to me) moon runes rather then the more information I could read that I expected.
- They stopped caring at the cutscenes: The absolute final moment when Bookhobo and I decided we were done and would just complete his trophy hunt was during one of the late-game cutscenes. We were being debriefed about one of the colossi fights we had just taken on, only for the game to NOT complete the cutscene, but to end it with a blacked out screen and the text for the character we were talking to in the center. If the developers couldn't care past this point, frankly why should we?
Digital Rights Management: This game is only found on Steam, using it as DRM. However it is worth noting this game also uses EasyCheat for an anti-cheat program as well.
Source: PC Gaming Wiki
Score: Would I call this a flawless game? ABSOLUTELY NOT. It is fast, it is fun, and I think most combat junkies will enjoy themselves during their time with it, but it is clear that since it's launch, Nexon has put their priorities elsewhere and the later game suffers, both in quality/care of cutscenes and just how much is actually kept to be multiplayer like the game promises.
In the end, though it is definitely worth your time to go to Albion for a while and enjoy yourself, especially as it won't cost you a dime to do so... unless of course you basically want to treat that price tag as a tip to the dev team (which is exactly how you should see it if you ask me).
7/10
System Requirements:
- AMD FX 8350 or Intel Core i5-3570
- 8 GB RAM
- AMD Radeon RX 570, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050Ti, or Intel Arc A380 (4GB VRAM)
- Windows 10 20H2 (64-bit only)
- 50 GB Hard Drive space
System Specs:
- Ryzen 7 (5700X) 3.4 Ghz
- 32 GB RAM
- AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT (8 GB VRAM)
- Windows 11 (64 Bit)
No comments:
Post a Comment