played it in exploration mode cause I remembered hearing the game was way too frustrating on survival mode and that was one hundred percent the right choice

kinda slogged at first but eventually feel into a good rhythm, and then eventually got way too hard even in exploration

honestly kinda wish the game didn't have any combat, buuuuut despite all that I just loved the atmosphere, as cliche as it is

Juegos como Below nos invitan a plantearnos qué tipo de vacío tuvo que revelar Dark Souls en el corazón de les jugadores para que se lanzara toda una escuela de roguelikes inspirada en su modelo. Below cumple, a nivel superficial, con todas las expectativas: exploración de tierras desconocidas y abandonadas, cercanía siempre amenazante de la muerte, y un mundo hostil e indiferente al que no nos ata nada que no sea el deseo de controlarlo y (spoilers para el final) acabar con él.

Below cumple con todas las marcas prototípicas del Soulslike, pero añade un par de elementos que lo diferencian radicalmente. El primero es que los controles y el combate son mucho más sencillos, mucho más cerca de un Zelda que de otra cosa. Con ese esquema, la sensación de peligro se ve menos acrecentada por los enemigos y más por las trampas del mundo, que se sienten verdaderamente crueles y malintencionadas de un modo que la premeditada y controlada indiferencia de los Souls nunca evoca. El segundo es que, cuando morimos, uno de nuestros compañeres/descendientes ocupa nuestro lugar de inmediato. En los niveles más complicados y severos, esto da a Below una capa de gestión cruel sobre mandar a tu gente a morir mientras recoges los fragmentos almacenas las armas más potentes. Ni siquiera Darkest Dungeon te invitaba a ver a tus avatares de una forma tan inhumana.

En resumen, diría que este juego es muy logrado, pero frustrante de un modo que no termina de conectar conmigo. Irónicamente, el elemento que más me desconectó fue la necesidad de grindear para la última sección de la mazmorra.

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Games like Below invite us to ask what kind of void did Dark Souls reveal to players so that many roguelikes would try to fill it in later years. It superficially meets all the expectations of the genre: exploration of unknown, desolated lands, the looming closeness of death, and a hostile and indifferent world that means nothing to us except how can we control it (spoilers for the end) finish it.

Below checks every proverbial Soulslike checkmark, but has a couple of elements radically set it apart. The first is that the controls and combat are much simpler, closer to Zelda than anything else really. With those mechanics the sense of danger is incentivized less by enemies and more by the traps, which feel truly cruel and malicious in a way that the Souls titles never attempt to evoke. The second is that when we die one of our companions/descendants will take our place. In the more difficult areas, this gives Below a layer of cruel management vibe about sending people to their death while you collect the shards and stash the better weapons. Not even Darkest Dungeon invited you to view your avatars so inhumanly.

To sum up, I would say that this game accomplished everything it set out to do, but frustrating in a way that didn't connect with me. Ironically, the element that turned me off the most was the need to grind for the last section of the dungeon.

It kind of feels like this game was designed by an alien that has only ever played one video game (and that video game was Dark Souls)
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I cant actually figure out who the audience for this game is supposed to be. Its not for the roguelike audience, cuz the randomized elements dont extend to the player character. Its not for the survival audience cuz this game is extremely punishing on the action side of things. Its not even for Souls fans cuz the game wrings your neck over resource management. The games way too long to be this austere yet demanding of an experience.

Some thoughts:

- I think the only purely positive thing I can say about Below (and I wouldnt be the first to say it), is the Art Direction and Atmosphere are on point. This includes the macro things, like the smooth crisp “Geometry-Norwegian” graphics style as well as micro things - like when youre in a cave full of scrambling weird dudes but some of the weird dudes dont scramble on the ground. They stand up, stay at a distance, regard you with some sort of cautious intelligence, respond with some kind of comtempt for you killing the scramblers. Its pretty convincing. Many things were probably inspired by Dark Souls here but the attention to detail with the setting might be the one they interpreted correctly.

- The balance however, is incomprehensible. If the design of the game was a text, it would be written in some ancient Babylonian language. Im gonna break this down into finer points to try and articulate this wicked weave of bullshit.
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>>> Areas are way too large for a game that sends you back to the beginning of the island every time you die. Even with shortcuts unlocked, it adds alot of tedious travel (and therefore increases the punishment) to the process.
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>>> The crafting process is essential to your ability to survive the game and the size of the inventory makes this incredibly unsustainable. You will have a hard time holding on to everything you need and you will have a hard time recouping the cost of spending items - especially if you still end up dying.
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>>> The game had the balls to have survival mechanics in a world where you die in 4 hits. Your hunger and thirst drain empty every 5 minutes and you cant cook (craft with food) just anywhere. Everyone hates this, everyone exclusively recommends doing Exploration Mode but this doesnt get rid of the temperature component either.
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>>> The UI is simplistic (pretty) but incredibly aggravating for a crafting system where you need to heal or eat often. “Trial and error” means submitting to the tedious process of dying, respawning and then recouping more than you otherwise actually need to.
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>>> On top of all these base systems, the game is just a shithead. Tons of traps to complicate your survival prospects, for some reason they put a suicide run segment where you have to finish a gauntlet before freezing to death only 1/5th of the way through the game, they will starve you of essential resources (not figuratively essential either) for entire floors. There is a segment that represents an entire 20% of the game where combat is a guaranteed way to get killed and sent back up to the top. Some people call games like Dark Souls unforgiving but this game actually desires to spite you.

- With all that being said about the design, the game also has the balls to necessitate players re-explore every area to truly acquire all the items needed to complete the game. This isnt some optional true ending type shit, you need to fumble through the game twice in order to beat it at all. Luckily, fortunately, blissfully, if you made it down to the bottom once you likely have created enough stability for yourself that going through it again isnt as big an ask - but Im just floored by the ego on this game.

- The juice isnt even worth the squeeze. There isnt any real sense of reward for persevering in Below. I get the feeling someone at Capy played Dark Souls and went “Ahh yes…. mysterious….” and then made a game that was nothing but Vague. But that vagueness spoils the game, making crucial systems cumbersome and diluting any sense of achievement (cuz your reward is more Vagueness). Dark Souls “delayed gratification”, it didnt “delete gratification” - and this sucks so much more because of how unrestrained Belows sense of punishment is. Youre hit twice as hard for half as much and that sucks.


Minor Thoughts:

- Why does this lil mfing guy wake up and get up so slow? You have to suffer his slow ass wake up animation twice every time you go to the Dream Room (once when you enter and once when you exit), why did they do this? Why do they hate Gamers? Why do they hate me?

- I think this game expects you to care about the world way sooner than you actually have incentive to (a big no-no). BUT. It does get cool eventually.

- Why are all the cutscenes so slow? Why is everything so mfing slow??

- Damn the ending sucks.

Never seen a game sabotage itself so hard. For every good idea, there are three bad ones. Gave up on the 18th floor where everything is pitch black, and I was being stun locked by the increased enemy count. The lack of shortcuts from the 14th floor to the 18th was the tipping point for me.

The most frustrating thing is that there's an extremely well realized atmospheric adventure/exploration game here, but it's buried deep beneath a bunch of very (artificially) punishing mechanics that keep poping up at every floor.

"Worries go down better with soup than without it." This is a Yiddish proverb. I am told, at least; my relationship with Jewish culture is a little messy. But I think of this saying often. Soup holds a kind of venerated position in Ashkenazi cuisine. Kreplach, matzo balls, mushroom barley, all that. It’s a staple. My dad, who provides my Jewish half, ironically, doesn’t enjoy soup much. He finds it boring. But the simplicity of a good soup is often it’s appeal. When we say “soup”, what do you think of? There are cold gazpachos and hot and sours, of course, but I think most of the time we think of hot, salty broth. The soup is clear but heavy, simple but filling. Soup is a potent food when it comes to meaning; it immediately conjures care, home, nourishment, warmth. Soup is hot, soothing, healing. Bad times with soup are better than bad times without soup.

In Below, knowing how to make a good soup is essential. After all, it is a game filled with worries. Soup will save your life. Each time you make it to a campfire, you get the chance make more soup, something that will carry you further into the depths. I won’t go as far as to say that the campfire feels like home. It, like your own little character’s life, is fleeting, and trapped in a dungeon. You constantly grow hungrier, thirstier, colder; you are creature of temperature and appetite, and you must abide by your bodily needs. That decay is a constant that defines Below. While you may know where the next campfire lies, you never know what lies between you and it. You have to be weary of each step and prepared for each sword swing. But for a moment, when you’re next to the fire, you can stop, breathe and nourish yourself. The campfire is an opportunity to replenish your supplies. To take a breather. To warm your bones. To make more soup.

There is a tragedy to Below's legacy. Generally, folks have seemed to be either underwhelmed and annoyed with it. It had been in development for over 5 years, announced during the bright and hot summer at E3 2013, and it was released in the cold winter nights of 2018. As it lead up to release, I got the creeping sensation that it was going to flop. And I think I was right. In an interview with Newsweek, Kris Piotrowski (Creative Director at Capybara Games) said “It's very important for there to be some people who make something very specific. And maybe you're not going to like this. But somebody else will fucking love it.” I think it is pretty clear that it will be divisive from it’s first moments: the first thing you see in the game is a long, slow zoom on a single little ship in the ocean, for several minutes. For me, I adored every moment of this crawl, but I think others will immediately shut the game off.

I’ll call it an unsung masterpiece for a specific reason: there are underrated masterpieces out there that I love a lot, but Below doesn’t even really have a ride-or-die fanbase. It released to tepid praise and hasn’t had a second wind. Part of the issue is that Below lacks a lot of character. That’s not to say it is not impressive. It is visually stunning to look at: the tilt shifted camera, the muted tones, the geometric geography and architecture. And the sound design is some of the best I’ve encountered in I think maybe any game. No, the issue isn’t a lack of presentation, but a lack of flair. There are so few discernable qualities. There aren’t any memorable characters, no flashy boss battles, no unique settings. Even mechanically, there is little that stands out about Below. I can give you the high level pitch, of course: it’s a procedural death labyrinth with survival elements. But will that pitch actually sell anyone on the game? I doubt it.

Which is a shame, because despite that lack of character, Below is expertly crafted and pretty beautiful.

If I had to use one word to describe Below, it would be “dread”. Every single surface of this game is covered in dread. Each sound, each inch of dirt is both beautiful and eerie in the same breath. Below’s environment is incredibly dark, often necessitating the use of a torch or the lantern. The game is set to a distance from your player character that dwarfs them; there’s this tilt-shift effect that makes everything seem minuscule. I found myself hunching over (more than usual) to squint at the darkness surrounding me. Shadows cast against the floor, the glowing eyes of beasts, prey in your periphery. The soundtrack by Jim Guthrie often sounds less like music and more like the groans of the earth itself. And if it’s not an ominous hum, it’s a somber, thoughtful ambiance, the wind brushing through the grass and the waves crashing on the shore. Sounds echo through the caves, scrapes of stones and trickles of water, the chitters and growls of something hunting you. You crawl into dark, terrible and ancient sepulchers, lined with death and sorrow. The distant scrapes and dark corridors become a canvas on which to paint your deepest fears.

Every time you die, you hear this sound. It’s a strange, sinister bellow, a deathly horn. And when you respawn, a new wanderer drifting onto that same rainy shore? That same haunting bellow sounds. As if to say, “This will happen again.”

Below is a difficult game. At times to a fault; there are a few death traps in there that are genuinely cruel. You’ll die a lot, and it’s a big part of the experience. You play not as a single adventurer, but dozens of them. Each death is final, and you play as a successor to the poor doomed soul who met their end in the caverns below. Below is an incredibly slow kind of difficulty. Combat is a deliberate, punishing affair. Sprinting through a room will often lead to a swift death. Your inventory space, too, is incredibly limited. You have sixteen slots for food and sixteen for materials. Personally, I am an inventory hoarder. I will maximize the use of every pound I can carry. But Below, in its limitations, has liberated me from this curse by forcing me to get rid of anything I truly don’t need. Any slot with an unneeded stick or stone is taking up space that could be taken by arrows or bandages. Be careful what you pack. Often you may die because you didn’t have enough materials on hand. Many deaths are deaths by attrition. Many players, I imagine, are going to feel these deaths are overly punishing. I certainly did, at times. But I also recognized that it was core to what the game was doing. It is an easy mistake, I think, to assume Below would be better if it wasn’t a Roguelite. There are lots of games like that nowadays, where the proc-gen structure seems more to be a mechanic on a dart board rather than a deliberate choice. But Below, really, can only be a Roguelite. Because structurally, it isn’t about beating the game. Having to delve even deeper with each death just to make progress can be intimidating. You’ll often lose a lot of materials, too. You can find your body with its wares still on it, now only a dry skeleton. How long has it been? Months? Years? I couldn’t say. But only take what you need.

At its most tense, Below’s dungeon crawling is either a desperate sprint or desperate struggle. On certain floors, you’ll sprint like your life depends on it, because it quite literally does. At the same time, you’ll have to be careful to dodge attacks or not to trigger any traps. So these marathons begin to ebb and flow from trepidation to a frantic sprint. At other times, Below puts you up against the wall. You feel surrounded, outmatched, overwhelmed. I wanted to flail in retaliation like a wild animal had leaped up against me, please, God, anything to get this thing away from me. But you have to be patient. Put up your shield. Wait to parry. Dodge their attacks. At these times, you need to be careful and patient, but also keep moving. Your hunger and thirst aren’t going to slow down. No matter which of these modes you end up playing in at a given time, Below’s most suspenseful moments are at the middle of a tug of war between a need to rush and a need to be as careful as possible. There is a specific area in the game (Floor 14 onwards, for those who know the game) that is genuinely one of the most dreadful levels in any game I’ve ever played; every single time I step foot in that place, my heart starts pounding, a frantic and desperate crawl through the darkness, pulled between the tension of needing to go slowly but needing to go faster. It’s dreadful. But I persevere. I make it through. Eventually.

Success in Below is not overcoming a mountain. It is about going deep down. There is no dragon in Below. No corrupt king, no great sea serpent, no devils or demons. There is nothing here for you to conquer. There are maybe one or two things I would call “boss battles”, but the biggest obstacles in Below are impossible to even scathe. Below is not a game about accomplishment. It’s a game about mastery. The game teaches you almost nothing about how to play; most mechanics have to be discovered by the players. And if you make it far enough, you begin to realize the goal is not descent, but the collection of these items called shards you discover with your lantern. And suddenly, it clicks into place. Succeeding in Below does not come from a single fell swoop, but a series of knicks. It comes from a series of successive runs. You stand on the shoulders of a thousand dead wanderers who you will join soon enough. By the later hours of Below, your player character(s) will not become any stronger. But you have learned so much. You know where to find the materials to make bombs, or how to make bandages, or how to get to the deepest pits of the island in only a few minutes. You begin to realize that you actually don’t lose much with each death. Sure, you might lose a hefty sum of crystals, or a stockpile of arrows and bandages, or a piece of gear you were saving, but there are ample ways to farm materials, and you can always find that gear again. Your goal is not to descend deeper, but to collect these shards with your lantern. And acquiring those shards is far less about slaughtering and spelunking, and more about knowing and understanding the cave systems of this island. You gain mastery, gain an understanding, of the world of Below. You find comfort in the little rituals you develop, of going and gathering picking supplies and hunting for materials, of making soup. It is a game about, despite all the insurmountable dread, finding a way forward anyway.

Again, there’s little I can say that will sell you on Below. There’s no big twist or hook to pull you in. It is just a nearly-perfectly designed game. Like a good soup, Below doesn’t look like much on the outside. But it’s a product of profound craftsmanship. It’s a stew of mechanics which compliment eachother precisely, a perfectly balanced mixture. And maybe once you’ve taken a spoonful, you’ll find that you think it’s a little boring. But give it time, pay close attention to it, understand it’s balance, and you might find that it grows on you, and you can recognize it as a rich and masterfully made experience.