Sundered Preview

This game... I have been playing this game for three weeks now, I think. I've barely scratched the surface. Granted, I only have two days spare per week to play it, but after an hour of getting my ass kicked I find myself just too mentally drained to continue. All that being the case, I fucking love this game.

Take Dark Souls, or Salt and Sanctuary with graphics influenced by Transistor or Jotun, add a hack ‘n slash ‘n pray combat system and some Lovecraftian motifs and you have, as far as I've experienced, Sundered, a new indie platformer by Thunder Lotus available on PC and soon PlayStation 4. To be sundered is to be parted or divided from something, and seeing as every attempt at progression in this game tears another part of my soul from me, the name definitely fits. I haven't even discovered any semblance of a plot or narrative YET, but I can sort of make the connection in my head.

The game uses procedural content generation (PCG) to generate enemies, loot and maps. With every respawn the loot and enemies have been randomised, but the maps only begin to change after a certain checkpoint. I discovered this, much to my frustration, when trying to reach a specific point and finding out that every time I tried I was navigating an entirely new path toward it. You can forget about taking your time to get there, as well: stand still for too long and enemies will hone in on you in the hundreds, and by “too long” I mean a few seconds. You really have to move quickly. The combat style, as far as I've discovered, is your garden variety hack ‘n slash; equipped with a bitchin' sword and a big ass gun, Sundered doesn't weigh you down with overly complicated fighting mechanisms. In all seriousness, however, the simplicity here is somewhat forgiving, at least at the beginning. You're swarmed with so many enemies of varying degrees that having to deal with combos might prove to be a little too much for some gamers (me). With all this in mind, I really haven't progressed very far and I haven't quite figured out the skill tree, so a less casual gamer might discover a greater complexity to the combat.

In its pre-alpha stages, the game leaves you with little more than intuition, there is a graph for DualShock controls and you can remap keyboard and mouse controls if you wish, but other than that you're basically on your own. That's another thing that I found a little odd: you can use a DualShock controller to play the game on your PC, but you can't use any other wired controllers, and unless you have impeccable hand/finger dexterity, you're going to struggle with the keyboard and mouse. I understand that Sundered will be released on the PS4, but unless Thunder Lotus want to alienate a large variety of gamers, making the game compatible with a wider range of controllers for the PC is a no-brainer. I don't mind so much that the game leaves you to figure most of it out by itself, but objectively I can see this being an issue for some people. As of yet, I have no information about whether investing points to unlock perk slots (the only thing I can do with the skill tree at the moment) is even worth it, or will unlock skills further on. I have a glowing, purple sword icon with a “1” next to it above my stamina bar, and I have no idea what that's for. It took me a while to realise that the vases and containers around the levels were more than just decorative. Overall, I think there should be a little more information available in the game, about the game.

The graphics are, for an indie pre-alpha game, awesome. The game is truly beautiful, I mean, there's not a lot of variation for level design, but as you rush through them so quickly you don't really mind. Plus with the general theme of the game, you can imagine there wouldn't exist much variation in reality. Well, as close to reality as this can be considered. The one gripe I do have is the monster design. This is an area that I would have expected the artists to get really creative. For one, there is SO much room to be creative here, you have a very rich world of inspiration, both contemporary and historically, I mean, come on, monster design is super fun. For another, they're the main source of interaction you have in this game: 85% of what I see when playing are the monsters, and if you have four different types that only change in colour throughout level progression, it gets very stale.

I'm hoping that I'll see a greater trove of nightmarish ghouls as I get further, either that or when the game is officially launched. I mean, you can't have a Lovecraft-inspired aesthetic for your game and be creatively stingy when it comes to the staple of that aesthetic. I was sort of hoping the game would look a little more like Sword and Sworcery but hey, Sundered is still beautiful. The detail of the character is impressive: they're tiny but you can still see rips in their cloak and buckles on their legs. The colour palette is vibrant and yet at the same time organically soft. The artist clearly knows how to pair shades and patterns to evoke a certain mood or make the scene pop in just the right way.

There are a few goals, some of which I actually can't tell if I've set myself, or if they were heavily implied by the game. Either way, from what I've discerned you have to progress as far as you can without dying, so a little bit like those game shows in which contestants tackle obstacle courses until they fail or reach a checkpoint. During these runs, another goal would be to gather as many points as possible by vanquishing foes or breaking a vase to upgrade your shield, health bar, attack, etc. Which can't be stacked, by the way, once you head out onto the levels they're gone. Lastly, it's finding out what lies beyond these levels, what's behind that gate? What is this behemoth guarding? Why am I here? The reward to your progression becomes the next level of progression, and it seems to continue on like that forcing you toward an existential crisis. This is a game you can't overcomplicate by thinking too much about the point of it all. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't, but it's much more fun if you just focus on the task immediately in front of you. I think that's called mindfulness. 

To sum up, Sundered looks like an extremely promising game come its release. With zero glitches, few criticisms and engaging content in its pre-alpha stages this rough around the edges, stunning and infuriating platform RPG is one I thoroughly look forward to playing in its full glory, and I'll most certainly be continuing through the alpha and beta stages. If you're a casual gamer, a perfectionist or you don't have a lot of time on your hands then this might be a game to miss. Everyone else, get ready for what could be one of the best indie games of 2017.