Nice jump.
The main thing that sticks with me about this game is how much fun it is to have the game play tricks on you. For everything I’ve heard, SHODAN herself feels much less present through most of the game than I’d have expected, and while it makes the scenario feel a little less threatening than I’d imagined, it makes it much easier for her traps to actually work. It’s easy to forget about her while trudging through the labyrinthine Citadel Station in a way where her traps always manage to feel unexpected. And while I’m not good enough to have actually survived one of them (except the one I *did* anticipate because I’m just so smart), deaths are surprisingly non-punishing in this game, between the option to manually save anywhere on top of a really cool in-game checkpoint system. While SHODAN’s ‘jokes’ are always at your expense, it’s really hard not to laugh with her.
It’s also impressive how much it feels like an actual world. At the very least, it expects you to engage with it as if it is one - there’s a VERY funny little scene early on that you’ll probably hit if you’re a bit too trigger happy with stuff that you shouldn’t be pressing that drills the message in if you haven’t learned it yet. It’s not particularly obtuse in what it expects from you progression-wise - getting clearance for all the doors in the station and figuring out what the hell SHODAN’s up to - which means it doesn’t overcomplicate itself to be more than what it needs to be. There’s even a difficulty option that adds a timer to the game, which makes complete sense with the story (and sounds really fun to boot!).
It’s a bit rough round the edges, and I had my fair share of bruteforcing through certain sections and getting lost from missing very specific details, but it’s great - basically a crusty dungeon crawler wearing the skin of an FPS. It’s the sort of game where I know it’d have been incredibly formative if I played it as a kid. I’ve already got two more playthroughs planned (one with the timer, and one with classic controls - Enhanced lets you drop the graphing calculator control scheme and actually use the mouse to move the camera like a normal person). Glad I finally got around to it, and I’m super stoked to get to the games it inspired.
The main thing that sticks with me about this game is how much fun it is to have the game play tricks on you. For everything I’ve heard, SHODAN herself feels much less present through most of the game than I’d have expected, and while it makes the scenario feel a little less threatening than I’d imagined, it makes it much easier for her traps to actually work. It’s easy to forget about her while trudging through the labyrinthine Citadel Station in a way where her traps always manage to feel unexpected. And while I’m not good enough to have actually survived one of them (except the one I *did* anticipate because I’m just so smart), deaths are surprisingly non-punishing in this game, between the option to manually save anywhere on top of a really cool in-game checkpoint system. While SHODAN’s ‘jokes’ are always at your expense, it’s really hard not to laugh with her.
It’s also impressive how much it feels like an actual world. At the very least, it expects you to engage with it as if it is one - there’s a VERY funny little scene early on that you’ll probably hit if you’re a bit too trigger happy with stuff that you shouldn’t be pressing that drills the message in if you haven’t learned it yet. It’s not particularly obtuse in what it expects from you progression-wise - getting clearance for all the doors in the station and figuring out what the hell SHODAN’s up to - which means it doesn’t overcomplicate itself to be more than what it needs to be. There’s even a difficulty option that adds a timer to the game, which makes complete sense with the story (and sounds really fun to boot!).
It’s a bit rough round the edges, and I had my fair share of bruteforcing through certain sections and getting lost from missing very specific details, but it’s great - basically a crusty dungeon crawler wearing the skin of an FPS. It’s the sort of game where I know it’d have been incredibly formative if I played it as a kid. I’ve already got two more playthroughs planned (one with the timer, and one with classic controls - Enhanced lets you drop the graphing calculator control scheme and actually use the mouse to move the camera like a normal person). Glad I finally got around to it, and I’m super stoked to get to the games it inspired.
faea
4 months ago