Being a sin collector, I was set to go off serving a higher purpose taking those out who were evil. At least that's what I thought I'd be doing. Instead, it seemed I was going around being shady and constantly letting my one big-name target escape. While constantly dealing with game bugs.
The primes of the game sounded fun at first. This game is, however, an early access game and frankly, it’s got some work cut out for itself to become something greater. There were some elements I enjoyed and others I could not run fast enough away from.
The game starts you off on a little adventure where you get to learn the basics. Items in this game are a bit strange. You end up having things like weapons you find that you can use. You also find items that are considered contraband.
As far as the contraband items go which for the most part seems to be anything related to technology. I’d find strange things from keyboards to headphones. If you don’t end up getting killed and lose them. You are supposed to be able to use them to upgrade certain types of weapons.
The issue ended up being like a few systems in this game. When I went to upgrade a weapon that qualified. The system itself would not upgrade the item. I get it that the game is in early access and all that. It however seemed like getting far into this game where you can’t even make basic item upgrades was going to be a progression issue.
From a visual standpoint, this game excluding characters looks amazing. I found myself often exploring around even after any objective I had completed in an area. From exploring the dirty streets of small towns to the underbelly of the town’s sewer system. I found myself rather enjoying my surroundings.
It’s clear quite a lot of detail into different areas was put in. Some areas even felt almost overwhelming at times with all the little details and objects in them. It’s also clear some performance work is needed on that front. I would sometimes hit a slight hiccup went going into more object-heavy areas.
My biggest gripe has to be when re-entering an area. Things like destroyable objects, doors, and even enemies will reappear. While I am for one an enjoyer of NPCS that respawn. It seems to be the game save system itself is not set up right.
Don’t get me wrong. I love being able to re-loot the same chest over and over again for experience gains, contraband, and possibly even weapons. That however seems to not be ideal with how quickly I was able to gain quite a lot of levels exploring the game opening chests.
There would also be areas where NPCs would not respawn. In other areas, they would. This seemed from my point of view yet another bug the game needs to work out. It was not simply a certain amount of time passing in the game for NPCs to respawn but certain areas seemed to not have a save system working taking that into account.
That was even more apparent with questing in this game. I’d finish off a quest. Then I'd go back to an NPC who I needed to engage with to progress further along. Just for that NPC to make me go through the same dialog as the prevue quest before the system realized I had already completed that quest. I’d then be able to just move back onto the quest I was currently working on.
This got rather annoying any time I got killed in an area. I’d run back and be stuck needing to do sometimes some or all of a quest. Sometimes I'd just need to do one object in a quest line before the system would update to my current progress. Other times I felt like I needed to repeat everything.
When you get killed there is supposed to be a gravestone that spawns at the start of the area you got killed in. Sometimes it was there other times it was not. Sometimes relogging fixed the issue.
Sometimes I'd get all my items back when looting me gave. Other times it seemed like I had lots of everything I was carrying. While it’s true the inventory has a slot to put an item into to “save it” from dropping. You can’t equip for-use items in your save slot. That just seems a bit silly. As I would want my best weapon to be saved if I got killed.
the combat system itself is quite limited for an ARPG. You get a couple of weapons. Along with having one power spell equipped to use at a time. Any “boss” fights I'd encounter during the early game became like child's play after facing it once or twice. Also, rather repetitive.
I did at least enjoy how quickly you could move around in the areas that are currently unlocked. You open up a map at certain post signs in the game. You then move your character piece around the map trying to avoid random encounters that also move around. While also trying to get to the next point of interest you need to investigate.
For the most part, random encounters seemed to want to avoid me more than I was trying to avoid them. Perhaps that was due to the difficulty setting I was playing the game out on just to see how the game was. I for one did not mind it as was not being constantly forced into random battles just to move a few squares over on the map.
As far as the storyline went. Instead of being some badass sin collector, it seemed I was just someone who kept failing upward. It did not seem like I was collecting a lot of souls unless I was just randomly killing people on the streets for having done past “evil” deeds after scanning them. Meanwhile, the big job I was hired to do kept escaping at every turn. Leaving me rather bored with the story after a while.
I get it that this game was in early access when I tried it out. There were just so many issues with the game that after a few hours I stopped playing. It was not hard because of the difficulty of the game but due to the bugs and broken systems in the game itself.
While this game has some kind of potential to be something someday. It seems to be quite far away from that point. To the point, it’s kind of odd they were even sending out review keys.
I considered holding off on writing anything about this game for the time being. Hoping to check back months later when more things were fixed. It seems like the content deadline I have is not anywhere long enough for the amount of work and polish I believe the game needs to occur. Perhaps one day I'll check it out again. That however will not be for quite some time.
Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Sancticide.
Disclosure. This review was written while the game was in early access.
Disclosure. A review copy of the game was received for free.
