From the guys who worked on Bulletstorm, ah no wait, yes the guys who made Vanishing of Ethan Carter. Yes, and just ten years after that, they've brought us this dark, crazy, energetic fantasy FPS about hunting witches, and it's kind of dope. Like in almost all aspects.
This game plays like Destiny, combat and gameplay mechanics feels smooth, enemies are everpresent danger if not cannon fodders for the next big thing. I really had a fun time just taking on hellspawns of a powerful witch in every expedition. They all have something to say, if not the main story, of course. Plus, these guys worked on Painkiller before they left People Can Fly.
If you want oozing atmosphere, you got it, crazy fun gameplay, check, some bits of storytelling and world building, yes kind of there. I am aware this game has been in EA over a year, but now that it has arrived in Steam from Epic, I'd thought I give it a try.
If you want to pick your preferences for abilities, here's your class choices. The last one's if you're a real glutton for punishment. I chose the Butcher out of Hunter, Slayer, Shadow, Saint, and Penitent. He's stronger with faster healing and more stamina. As his stats would tell me.
Not every of these classes are balanced at a point, each of their stats work to particular playstyles, as further driven by other factors like Arcana, weapons, spells, and such. Like, it's not fully realized till some hours later. Where I have to farm Witchfire crystals, do research for new weapons and abilities, and ah, some other checklists probably for story reasons as well.
There's a nifty tutorial cave starting in my hub, I'm given a dummy to practice on, and understand combat in its simple form. Guns do heat up, so there's the heating to worry about, but after getting enhanced, heating up really might increase the damage factor.
In every expedition, there are enemy placements and danger levels, as well as excavation for like tombs, monuments containing history, treasure boxes which some are locked and need minions killed for the key, and eventually other ways to interact to provide insight into its world. World basically just involving our witchunter, and the threats he faces. Pretty lonely, if you catch my drift. My hub also has areas locked behind certain criterias, you know, progression locks.
If I want to get stronger, I have to prioritize on few things; fighting as many of those witch spawns as possible to farm witchfires, find items that also replenishes my healing potions needing brewing, and then there are researches to do unlocking newer weapons, spells too. Yeah, this whole time I've been using a basic auto machine gun. It's alright, yet feeling anemic.
Do check your map where the enemies are, as it is easily to stumble upon them and get surrounded, there are distinguished waves based on danger levels. More worse means you're in for a real fight. Enemy A.I. are pretty intelligent, they'll go around and find ways to maneuver me.
And as agile as I can be, I have limitations. Killing more enemies means increased stamina, and better focus, which resets if I take damage. Dodging takes way more stamina, and once I'm depleted, I become a slog. Each wave kill gives a floating crystal unlocks Arcana, which is like bonuses from attributes to passives. Crazy stuff like increasing damage from lower health.
So if you're thinking "hey, this looks easier to do". Yeah, not like the atmosphere wasn't scary, unsettling, despite having multiple ways to know where the enemies are, always coming close to dying. Which I did, resulting in me losing my witchfire crystals and half the items I've collected. I can retrieve those back, provided I don't die again, pretty souls-like.
Yet I have to, after clicking on two researches for a shotgun and rifle, I repeated my expedition on the same map over and over. Those witchfires were spent on ascending, so I couldn't keep them all the time. And man, I got stronger, my main gun got enhanced finally.
You know, I wanted brain-dead fun, some mythical figure telling to save the land against forces of evil, not a game that's lore deep, so spread out with the way it tells it, and asks a lot out of me to do. What I mean by that is, you're going to have to look for the story to know what it is about.
Also, this whole time I've been playing on one island called Island of the Damned. Outside the map design that stays the same, enemy wave placement changes, portals to go back as well as the chest locations. Like I said before, rely on the map to know exactly where to go. Stronger enemies reward more witchfire, and well, other things. Also, ammo is limited. So stock up or find munition boxes.
Oh, where does the real gameplay begin? Get your weapons and spells, then you definitely will. Took me around 2hrs to get there, and another hour to finally clear the island tower. I was up by 5 levels, and at this point, the game got too easy for me. Yet, I still put myself in dogfights, especially thanks to the enemy design. There's your grunts, brutes, and casters. Oh no worries, there's more.
Same types but stronger and scarier will come, I've even faced these quadrupedal types that blow up gas when taken down. It can get claustrophobic if the situation isn't handled, the environment is good for improvising or fleeing, but it all boils down to skill and how stronger I've gotten.
I've only unlocked the light spells to do help with my situation. The frost one can literally freeze enemies for a couple of seconds, that is useful during heavy fights. Unfortunately, my brother's PC ran out of storage to record that before I could show it.
After clearing the tower, I did get another spell where I can cast fire. But ah, I was more excited about the new island to try. There are so many things to unlock in the hub, including a ritual circle, hidden areas to unlock something called Gnoses. That new island was the other requirement as well as 12000WF to progress for Gnoses II.
Lastly, to put, I want to apologize about how lacking in comprehension this is. This game takes a bit too long to get things going. Plus I moved out of my house, back to the capital, so I used my brother's PC to play this. I never got around to talk about its production value, like, my god they did take their time with this. I was scared at playing first.
Now I can visit the Scarlet Coast and see how even scarier that place is. Early access titles like this have quite a lot of work, but it did make me want to keep playing after getting the hang of it.
