A psychedelic surrealist metroidvania that tries to do a lot of new things in combination with a stark and vivid art style. While I was initially excited to delve into the game I quickly found myself bouncing off it.
The art style is probably what stands out most about the game and granted it is beautiful, with vivid colours and creative animations all blending biology with technology. Unfortunately the game lacks an understanding of contrast. There is so much detail and colour that it's difficult to tell what is foreground vs. background. Interactive vs. inert. The visual language games have - colours that communicate qualities and mechanics, sparkles and particles that denote interactivity - all become lost in this haze of overwhelming colour and movement.
The combat itself is trying to stand apart in a few ways. Your first sword has very short reach and you are encouraged to pull off a combo with minimal repeated moves - though it doesn't specify what actions count as repetitive, and this early on I only have two attacks so it seems obtuse to demand variety. Equally the combat is very rigid with a dodge-and-counter approach that requires you to learn to 'dance' with each foe - learning the patterns in a very structured way that feels at odds with the ultra natural and flowing world. The limitations end up feeling like enemies have a 'correct' way to be killed in spite of your options.
The skill tree also feels very messy. Killing enemies rewards food items (portions of their body) and the quality depends if you killed it 'elegantly' or not. Food items fill some amount of the four bars that represent your nutrition, and these bars can be emptied to learn new skills. It's a nice idea albeit convoluted, with quantities being very imprecise so you can't plan ahead (maybe I'm being too rigid now). In the first hour I unlocked maybe 5-10 of these upgrades but they were for small granular things I hardly noticed or for features I hadn't even learned to use a 'normal' way yet so my choices didn't feel very impactful or meaningful. Not that the upgrade tree seems to have any coherent structure either.
In the same way my first hour of play didn't feel like I was really accomplishing anything. Part of this is contrast again - the signal to noise ratio on all of the dialogue is mixed. Everything is intentionally obtuse and seems to be style at the expense of substance, you just vaguely understand that someone needs to be killed because they're preventing you from leaving. Even item descriptions are surrealist contradictory nonsense - things 'taste of time' and 'smell of Elysium'. Part of my attraction to the game was that it seemed to have a detailed and cohesive alien world to learn about, but it feels more like everything is being made up as the artist goes. The detail is there because it looks cool not because it's functional, the writing is flowery nonsense because it sounds cool, not because it means anything.
In conclusion, I get the feeling Ultros is a result of inexperience. Not that it isn't an impressive looking game - but the level of presentation betrays a lack of fundamentals. There are essential game design elements that are missing or roughly hewn, it's not unplayable but certainly sets up some expectations that miss the mark. I'm sure some folks will get everything out of this they want, but for me it just hit all the wrong buttons unfortunately.
The art style is probably what stands out most about the game and granted it is beautiful, with vivid colours and creative animations all blending biology with technology. Unfortunately the game lacks an understanding of contrast. There is so much detail and colour that it's difficult to tell what is foreground vs. background. Interactive vs. inert. The visual language games have - colours that communicate qualities and mechanics, sparkles and particles that denote interactivity - all become lost in this haze of overwhelming colour and movement.
The combat itself is trying to stand apart in a few ways. Your first sword has very short reach and you are encouraged to pull off a combo with minimal repeated moves - though it doesn't specify what actions count as repetitive, and this early on I only have two attacks so it seems obtuse to demand variety. Equally the combat is very rigid with a dodge-and-counter approach that requires you to learn to 'dance' with each foe - learning the patterns in a very structured way that feels at odds with the ultra natural and flowing world. The limitations end up feeling like enemies have a 'correct' way to be killed in spite of your options.
The skill tree also feels very messy. Killing enemies rewards food items (portions of their body) and the quality depends if you killed it 'elegantly' or not. Food items fill some amount of the four bars that represent your nutrition, and these bars can be emptied to learn new skills. It's a nice idea albeit convoluted, with quantities being very imprecise so you can't plan ahead (maybe I'm being too rigid now). In the first hour I unlocked maybe 5-10 of these upgrades but they were for small granular things I hardly noticed or for features I hadn't even learned to use a 'normal' way yet so my choices didn't feel very impactful or meaningful. Not that the upgrade tree seems to have any coherent structure either.
In the same way my first hour of play didn't feel like I was really accomplishing anything. Part of this is contrast again - the signal to noise ratio on all of the dialogue is mixed. Everything is intentionally obtuse and seems to be style at the expense of substance, you just vaguely understand that someone needs to be killed because they're preventing you from leaving. Even item descriptions are surrealist contradictory nonsense - things 'taste of time' and 'smell of Elysium'. Part of my attraction to the game was that it seemed to have a detailed and cohesive alien world to learn about, but it feels more like everything is being made up as the artist goes. The detail is there because it looks cool not because it's functional, the writing is flowery nonsense because it sounds cool, not because it means anything.
In conclusion, I get the feeling Ultros is a result of inexperience. Not that it isn't an impressive looking game - but the level of presentation betrays a lack of fundamentals. There are essential game design elements that are missing or roughly hewn, it's not unplayable but certainly sets up some expectations that miss the mark. I'm sure some folks will get everything out of this they want, but for me it just hit all the wrong buttons unfortunately.