The movement options in Sunset Overdrive are some of the best I've ever seen. Just moving around the open world feels fantastic, and the way your moveset gradually expands as you play is expertly done, making the wealth of movement options not seem overwhelming.
The weapon system is incredibly similar to that of Ratchet & Clank. The combat is never unfair, yet always challenging enough to be engaging and fun. Combining the awesome and unique weapon variety with the fantastic movement creates a fantastic game feel.
The games upgrade system is somewhat flawed unfortunately, it relies heavily on an amp/overcharge system which is mainly serviced by a skill tree (Yuck). I never really cared to manage these amps to closely nor pay much attention to my style gauge as the benefits just aren't that game-changing, or at least don't convey much power visually. This somewhat lacking system, fortunately, does not take anything AWAY from the game, it just lacks to really add anything meaningful in my opinion. The style gauge is a great idea to encourage combos and fluid movement, but, thankfully, you don't really even need the extra encouragement to play "correctly" as moving around the environment and racking up combos is prebuilt into the game's design, as if you just sit still and shoot, you will soon get beaten.
I also didn't particularly feel much encouragement or reason to invest in buying any more weapons, other than sheer intrigue. Especially considering some weapons are just direct upgrades to others, I think perhaps it would've been better if when reaching their final level, the weapons simply upgraded themselves similar to Ratchet & Clank, having a smaller weapon roster, each with a unique transformation. But, its not as if I'm saying all the weapons in the game are necessarily redundant, I just didn't really feel any need to actually purchase/use any of them, so maybe some more incentive or ease of unlocking could have been implemented. The challenge side missions which give you the weapons for a brief time did a decent job and intrigued me to go and actually buy them, and some Main Missions give you weapons also to somewhat mitigate this issue.
The Tower Defense missions and trap system was quite underwhelming for me, they feel quite mindless and chaotic. I suppose you could argue that the chaos of the waves is the appeal, but while it is entertaining to watch a bunch of enemies get blown up, its rather boring standing around waiting to just spam attack on tons of enemies, and the traps, I hardly even noticed or cared they even existed. They aren't "Bad" but they certainly weren't something I was looking forward to revisit.
A similar thing can be said about the brief flying segments, they're similar to the ship levels from Ratchet & Clank, but much slower and more boring. Nothing awful, but certainly nothing to be excited about.
The submissions are usually very good, although the "Find X item 3 times" submissions are a real drag. You are often tasked with finding some (Usually rather small) items within a circled area. These missions drag the gameplay to a halt and have you slowly searching an area to find this one specific thing, unless you get lucky and find it instantly, these missions are painful. Sometimes they are gracious enough to highlight the items with big blue glowing effects and a pulsating noise, other times, they just don't.
The animation for the cutscenes is fantastic. I struggle to think of many games nearly as expressive as Sunset Overdrive, in every aspect. The art design is spot on, with great stylisation not only in its cutscenes but also its world design, taking the somewhat generic "post-apocalyptic" city theming, and making a beautiful colourful world to style off buildings and hop across boats inside of. The design of interactive objects in the world is also spectacular, the collectables are integrated naturally into the world yet still clear to see, and objects you can grind and bounce upon are always made clear through colour/shape whilst still blending into the world. The overall art design of this game is second to none.
The writing is also top-notch, it takes a playful approach to the fourth wall but somehow succeeds in doing it in a way that isn't cringe-inducing / annoying. My only disappointment was the ending, it's quite abrupt, feeling like any other mission, especially considering other more climactic encounters throughout the game. Although this issue is somewhat remedied by the DLC, which has a much better Final Boss, even with that, the plot feels unresolved and isn't much of a satisfying "ending".
Aside from my few gripes, however, Sunset Overdrive is an excellent game which I would highly recommend to all.
The weapon system is incredibly similar to that of Ratchet & Clank. The combat is never unfair, yet always challenging enough to be engaging and fun. Combining the awesome and unique weapon variety with the fantastic movement creates a fantastic game feel.
The games upgrade system is somewhat flawed unfortunately, it relies heavily on an amp/overcharge system which is mainly serviced by a skill tree (Yuck). I never really cared to manage these amps to closely nor pay much attention to my style gauge as the benefits just aren't that game-changing, or at least don't convey much power visually. This somewhat lacking system, fortunately, does not take anything AWAY from the game, it just lacks to really add anything meaningful in my opinion. The style gauge is a great idea to encourage combos and fluid movement, but, thankfully, you don't really even need the extra encouragement to play "correctly" as moving around the environment and racking up combos is prebuilt into the game's design, as if you just sit still and shoot, you will soon get beaten.
I also didn't particularly feel much encouragement or reason to invest in buying any more weapons, other than sheer intrigue. Especially considering some weapons are just direct upgrades to others, I think perhaps it would've been better if when reaching their final level, the weapons simply upgraded themselves similar to Ratchet & Clank, having a smaller weapon roster, each with a unique transformation. But, its not as if I'm saying all the weapons in the game are necessarily redundant, I just didn't really feel any need to actually purchase/use any of them, so maybe some more incentive or ease of unlocking could have been implemented. The challenge side missions which give you the weapons for a brief time did a decent job and intrigued me to go and actually buy them, and some Main Missions give you weapons also to somewhat mitigate this issue.
The Tower Defense missions and trap system was quite underwhelming for me, they feel quite mindless and chaotic. I suppose you could argue that the chaos of the waves is the appeal, but while it is entertaining to watch a bunch of enemies get blown up, its rather boring standing around waiting to just spam attack on tons of enemies, and the traps, I hardly even noticed or cared they even existed. They aren't "Bad" but they certainly weren't something I was looking forward to revisit.
A similar thing can be said about the brief flying segments, they're similar to the ship levels from Ratchet & Clank, but much slower and more boring. Nothing awful, but certainly nothing to be excited about.
The submissions are usually very good, although the "Find X item 3 times" submissions are a real drag. You are often tasked with finding some (Usually rather small) items within a circled area. These missions drag the gameplay to a halt and have you slowly searching an area to find this one specific thing, unless you get lucky and find it instantly, these missions are painful. Sometimes they are gracious enough to highlight the items with big blue glowing effects and a pulsating noise, other times, they just don't.
The animation for the cutscenes is fantastic. I struggle to think of many games nearly as expressive as Sunset Overdrive, in every aspect. The art design is spot on, with great stylisation not only in its cutscenes but also its world design, taking the somewhat generic "post-apocalyptic" city theming, and making a beautiful colourful world to style off buildings and hop across boats inside of. The design of interactive objects in the world is also spectacular, the collectables are integrated naturally into the world yet still clear to see, and objects you can grind and bounce upon are always made clear through colour/shape whilst still blending into the world. The overall art design of this game is second to none.
The writing is also top-notch, it takes a playful approach to the fourth wall but somehow succeeds in doing it in a way that isn't cringe-inducing / annoying. My only disappointment was the ending, it's quite abrupt, feeling like any other mission, especially considering other more climactic encounters throughout the game. Although this issue is somewhat remedied by the DLC, which has a much better Final Boss, even with that, the plot feels unresolved and isn't much of a satisfying "ending".
Aside from my few gripes, however, Sunset Overdrive is an excellent game which I would highly recommend to all.