US Saturn Release #010 - Robotica
Played on a real American Sega Saturn with the Fenrir ODE
I could easily write this off as a poor doom clone, but there's definitely something in here that is done right. The controls are surprisingly great and the gameplay itself has plenty of opportunity for strategy, but the loop of gameplay itself is very flawed in the sense that it gets boring really quick.
Most of it is you walking around randomly generated levels finding a key and a door to get to the next one, shooting a lot of the same enemies and waking corridors that look the same. There's a couple of little stage varieties like dark stages or levels where you have to take down certain targets to progress, but it really doesn't change enough for the game to suddenly become fun.
Additionally, the game tends to slow down a lot and has a relatively small draw-distance even in lighten stages. However, the low draw distance can make the game more atmospheric when you're struggling. It becomes a bit of a tense survival game, which is admirable.
So it's kind of mixed. There's plenty here to admire and plenty to potentially make this entertaining for you, but for me, there's not enough for this to be really enjoyable at all. It would be worth picking up if it's cheap, but otherwise you can skip it. It's very meh.
6/10
Played on a real American Sega Saturn with the Fenrir ODE
I could easily write this off as a poor doom clone, but there's definitely something in here that is done right. The controls are surprisingly great and the gameplay itself has plenty of opportunity for strategy, but the loop of gameplay itself is very flawed in the sense that it gets boring really quick.
Most of it is you walking around randomly generated levels finding a key and a door to get to the next one, shooting a lot of the same enemies and waking corridors that look the same. There's a couple of little stage varieties like dark stages or levels where you have to take down certain targets to progress, but it really doesn't change enough for the game to suddenly become fun.
Additionally, the game tends to slow down a lot and has a relatively small draw-distance even in lighten stages. However, the low draw distance can make the game more atmospheric when you're struggling. It becomes a bit of a tense survival game, which is admirable.
So it's kind of mixed. There's plenty here to admire and plenty to potentially make this entertaining for you, but for me, there's not enough for this to be really enjoyable at all. It would be worth picking up if it's cheap, but otherwise you can skip it. It's very meh.
6/10
A game that honestly has been forgotten about very unjustly, "Robotica" (or "Daedalus," depending on one's region) has killer app energy and frankly deserves more recognition and praise even today for its innovative aspects.
The graphics are absolutely incredible for the Sega Saturn. It shows off what the system's 3D capabilities were (even though it's more of a "stacked 2D," mixing polygons and sprites like a lot of first-person games were doing at the time), the controls are tight and easy to accumulate to, and the soundtrack is memorable and eerie. Overall, the presentation is pretty top-shelf as far as the era was concerned, and I'm shocked it wasn't pushed more in advertising for the system as the game to get alongside the Panzer Dragons and the Virtua Fighters. It's absolutely worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as those classics.
The game is essentially a mech warrior game mixed with a on old-school first-person dungeon crawler in the style of an Ultima Underworld (though obviously not as in-depth). People refer to it as a first-person shooter, but that's pretty inaccurate. It also sets the player up for disappointment because it places unfair expectations upon what the game is going to be.
What "Robotica" actually functions as at the end of the day is a dungeon-crawler Rogue-like with mech suit fighter trappings. You can shoot guns as one of the elements of your arsenal as a mech character, but that isn't your only function. You also have booster rockets and bombs, among other additional gadgets built into your suit, and you can cycle through them at the press of a button. Your health and shields are separate from the fuel you need to power these additions, and so that fuel effectively functions as mana, with the extra mech trappings being the spells.
As stated earlier, this is a Rogue-like. There is no save system, and each new game has randomly generated dungeons and enemy placements, ensuring a new experience with every playthrough. For the early 1990s on a home console, that's incredibly ambitious. But it also happens to be tons of fun. The movement is slow and deliberate, since you're playing a mech, which is another reason it's a disservice to the game to call it a "shooter" in the traditional sense. The game is much more about exploration of all the labyrinths and looting the enemy drops, with the slower pace ensuring that the player has the chance to make strategic choices of traversal and attack. The depth and ambition of this game cannot be understated--especially for the time and venue it was released in.
If you're looking for a Doom clone for the Saturn, this game will disappoint you. But if you're open to experiencing the game on its own terms, you may end up having an absolute blast.
The graphics are absolutely incredible for the Sega Saturn. It shows off what the system's 3D capabilities were (even though it's more of a "stacked 2D," mixing polygons and sprites like a lot of first-person games were doing at the time), the controls are tight and easy to accumulate to, and the soundtrack is memorable and eerie. Overall, the presentation is pretty top-shelf as far as the era was concerned, and I'm shocked it wasn't pushed more in advertising for the system as the game to get alongside the Panzer Dragons and the Virtua Fighters. It's absolutely worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as those classics.
The game is essentially a mech warrior game mixed with a on old-school first-person dungeon crawler in the style of an Ultima Underworld (though obviously not as in-depth). People refer to it as a first-person shooter, but that's pretty inaccurate. It also sets the player up for disappointment because it places unfair expectations upon what the game is going to be.
What "Robotica" actually functions as at the end of the day is a dungeon-crawler Rogue-like with mech suit fighter trappings. You can shoot guns as one of the elements of your arsenal as a mech character, but that isn't your only function. You also have booster rockets and bombs, among other additional gadgets built into your suit, and you can cycle through them at the press of a button. Your health and shields are separate from the fuel you need to power these additions, and so that fuel effectively functions as mana, with the extra mech trappings being the spells.
As stated earlier, this is a Rogue-like. There is no save system, and each new game has randomly generated dungeons and enemy placements, ensuring a new experience with every playthrough. For the early 1990s on a home console, that's incredibly ambitious. But it also happens to be tons of fun. The movement is slow and deliberate, since you're playing a mech, which is another reason it's a disservice to the game to call it a "shooter" in the traditional sense. The game is much more about exploration of all the labyrinths and looting the enemy drops, with the slower pace ensuring that the player has the chance to make strategic choices of traversal and attack. The depth and ambition of this game cannot be understated--especially for the time and venue it was released in.
If you're looking for a Doom clone for the Saturn, this game will disappoint you. But if you're open to experiencing the game on its own terms, you may end up having an absolute blast.