1/2/2024 0 Comments Othercide end of turn delayYou play a series of around 7 or so synapses, or levels, on the way to a boss confrontation. Thankfully, there is a lot of depth to the combat system, some of it welcome, some of it not so much. ![]() Combat is of course the main drive of the game and plot was always going to be secondary. That first mother level really sold it, but when you actually get started you are super weak, and there is an intensely hard early game to get through. For all its complexity, it gave me nothing back. Without these essential life rafts, I quickly lost interest in my units, my motives and the game itself, and drowned in a dark birthing pool of confusion. I’m confident I would have enjoyed it had there been characters to invest in, and a plot rather than confusion to guess at. It’s one for those who like to piece lore together. So, the premise is great, it’s just hidden under a lack of explanation, and sporadic unconnected bursts of esoteric information. But they are character-less voids, birthed to be soldiers, without personality, individuality, or charm. They are decked in cool black and white gothic battle dress, with red scarves that float above them almost like the strings of a marionette, and they have names like Peace, Joy, Chastity, and Temperance. These mute young women, birthed as adults are born completely capable of wielding weapons and fighting. Instead she draws these clones I suppose, out of the stark black waters of a super-creepy birthing pool. The Mother reawakens, immortal in some way we must presume, but now unable to take physical form. We will come on to the battle systems in a moment, but the point for now is that the Mother is massively overpowered, you have no trouble killing a lot of creepy plague doctors, but then you are overwhelmed and killed by the Suffering. As you start the game you run through a tutorial of the turn-based battle system, using the Mother as your single unit. The Mother is a being outside of time, a red woman with intensely strange birthing powers. There really is nothing you could call a plot. I’m piecing together here from a series of unconnected flashes of explanation, from the voice of the Mother herself, decrying platitudes about evil and ruin, or the few times the Suffering or one of his minions says anything of note. He just was, just is, and you need to stop him.Įnter the Mother, and her Daughters. I could not work out any motive, revenge story or anything driving the Suffering except pure evil. It sounds good, because I’ve jazzed it up somewhat. The people have fled or locked themselves inside while the abominations walk the streets, spreading their corruption and grotesquery. A force of freaky creatures has come through to our world from the Othercide, led by what I think is a young devil child called Suffering. Instead of steampunk though, this is more plaguepunk, riffing on a few aspects of Victoriana and creepy enemy design built around mutations, patchwork sackcloth and tentacles. ![]() Othercide is vaguely set in the early 1900s, a world of cobbled streets, trains and the industrial revolution. We start with what might lose you the easiest. Is that enough to make it more than just flash? Don’t believe everything you are told. Now that’s not to say you are Bruce Willis and time is your bitch, but there are some interesting turn manipulation mechanics here. Well, under all the flash, Othercide is a roguelite turn-based strategy game, with a massive emphasis put on manipulating the turn timeline. We know that style will only last so long, before a game must perform and have a tight gameplay loop that consistently brings you back. Style comes and goes, but substance will always mean something. Othercide has a lot of striking gothic design there’s the noir colour scheme, the greyscale warrior girls who look halfway between nun and schoolgirl cosplayers, their flashy weapon poses, the sack-face boy and his creepy army of hook-masked plague doctors (they are so in right now) and dogs with tentacles coming out of the heads. Adult me can still be swayed by a smart Black, White and Red colour scheme. Adult me knows better, and though I can still appreciate their visual style, they hold little in the way of good plotting, or emotional depth. Teenage me thought the Sin City movies were the bomb, and that there was real substance to those stories too. Immortalised in the two Sin City movies, noir with a splash of blood catches the eye and makes for something that always looks cool. Black, White and Red has got to be the coolest colour combination of all time.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |