WRATH might still be in Early Access, but there's a lot to say about its excellent art, its daring rationing of saves, and it's deceivingly poor level and enemy design.
I say deceivingly poor because the guns, levels, and enemies feel so good -at first- that you might not notice on higher difficulties. Enemies are visually interesting and ferocious. Levels are lovingly detailed, daunting, and intricately brought to live. The weapons are unique, clear to use, and generous with their screen time (you'll be using all of them often). As far as first impressions go, Wrath does well.
However, the actual play of these levels starts to fall off pretty quickly. Levels a huge and detailed and feature many interesting nooks and crannies, but are surprisingly linear. There are swooping, looping, serpentine paths through most levels, and the game will make you traverse them in their entirety. There are many sections where the player will travel a great distance, fight hordes of monsters, and spend many resources to ultimately move only a few feet forward. The player's progression speed relative to how much danger they have to go through is very slow.
Despite having quite a few lovingly rendered and presented enemies, Wrath relies on only a small handful, and how these enemies get used is surprisingly boring. Wanna jumpscare players? Heretics. Wanna force high-risk close-range situations? Heretics. Wanna snipe the player from far away? Heretics. In combination with poor enemy pathing logic and an over-reliance on enemy groups (Heretics and Stricken usually appear in groups of 3-5 and 1-3, respectively, despite their large threat and resource cost), it feels like 20%-25% of enemies in Wrath simply wait by a corner for the player to walk through before mauling them. Enemies are well suited to their level locations for killing the player, but not necessarily for a fun and interesting game experience.
Both of these problems are compounded heavily by the game's limited save system. I respect the absolutely gigantic balls needed to publish such a system, and I think Wrath's Soul Tethers are one of the better executions of limited saves. Giving the player so much control over their ability to save allow players to choose what fights, what checkpoints, and what landmarks matter to them. And Soul Tethers aren't really that rare either, so it rarely feels like it's impossible to save.
The issue with Soul Tethers (other than the standard accessibility issues of not being able to exit the game when needed) is that it amplifies play-session length. The large, meandering levels fade into grueling slogs when the player feels that they're not allowed to stop. Soul Tethers can only be regained by making more progress, so a player's only way out of having to play is to continue playing. Players don't make slow, footdragging progress to objectives, players make slow, footdragging progress to getting to move on with their day. Players don't get ambushed to death and lose progress, they get ambushed to death and lose all the work they didn't even want to do in the first place to leave. Soul Tethers exaggerate Wrath's main issues because they add extreme risk and stakes to every single fight the player engages in.
I will say that the levels are absoultely beautiful. I haven't seen boomshoot crunch combined will genuine level detail in such a unique and complete way before. If anything, Wrath's gigantic and inspiring levels make play feel like a genuine adventure. The colossal challenge presented to you feels daunting to face, but not insurmountable.
Given that Wrath's issues are deeply built into its already huge (and I'd assume complex) levels and core mechanics, I doubt the issues I have with it will improve by the time this game is out of Early Access. But, Early Access is Early Access, so time may tell a different story. I guess we'll see.
I say deceivingly poor because the guns, levels, and enemies feel so good -at first- that you might not notice on higher difficulties. Enemies are visually interesting and ferocious. Levels are lovingly detailed, daunting, and intricately brought to live. The weapons are unique, clear to use, and generous with their screen time (you'll be using all of them often). As far as first impressions go, Wrath does well.
However, the actual play of these levels starts to fall off pretty quickly. Levels a huge and detailed and feature many interesting nooks and crannies, but are surprisingly linear. There are swooping, looping, serpentine paths through most levels, and the game will make you traverse them in their entirety. There are many sections where the player will travel a great distance, fight hordes of monsters, and spend many resources to ultimately move only a few feet forward. The player's progression speed relative to how much danger they have to go through is very slow.
Despite having quite a few lovingly rendered and presented enemies, Wrath relies on only a small handful, and how these enemies get used is surprisingly boring. Wanna jumpscare players? Heretics. Wanna force high-risk close-range situations? Heretics. Wanna snipe the player from far away? Heretics. In combination with poor enemy pathing logic and an over-reliance on enemy groups (Heretics and Stricken usually appear in groups of 3-5 and 1-3, respectively, despite their large threat and resource cost), it feels like 20%-25% of enemies in Wrath simply wait by a corner for the player to walk through before mauling them. Enemies are well suited to their level locations for killing the player, but not necessarily for a fun and interesting game experience.
Both of these problems are compounded heavily by the game's limited save system. I respect the absolutely gigantic balls needed to publish such a system, and I think Wrath's Soul Tethers are one of the better executions of limited saves. Giving the player so much control over their ability to save allow players to choose what fights, what checkpoints, and what landmarks matter to them. And Soul Tethers aren't really that rare either, so it rarely feels like it's impossible to save.
The issue with Soul Tethers (other than the standard accessibility issues of not being able to exit the game when needed) is that it amplifies play-session length. The large, meandering levels fade into grueling slogs when the player feels that they're not allowed to stop. Soul Tethers can only be regained by making more progress, so a player's only way out of having to play is to continue playing. Players don't make slow, footdragging progress to objectives, players make slow, footdragging progress to getting to move on with their day. Players don't get ambushed to death and lose progress, they get ambushed to death and lose all the work they didn't even want to do in the first place to leave. Soul Tethers exaggerate Wrath's main issues because they add extreme risk and stakes to every single fight the player engages in.
I will say that the levels are absoultely beautiful. I haven't seen boomshoot crunch combined will genuine level detail in such a unique and complete way before. If anything, Wrath's gigantic and inspiring levels make play feel like a genuine adventure. The colossal challenge presented to you feels daunting to face, but not insurmountable.
Given that Wrath's issues are deeply built into its already huge (and I'd assume complex) levels and core mechanics, I doubt the issues I have with it will improve by the time this game is out of Early Access. But, Early Access is Early Access, so time may tell a different story. I guess we'll see.