Ultros is at its core a Metroid-Vania but it doesn’t quiet follow a lot of the core mechanics that you’ve come to expect from the genre. Ultimately it excels at its presentation being one the most beautiful games I think I have ever played; the sound design is fantastic and the visual language is breathtaking. Unfortunately, Ultros is held back by a few odd mechanics and lack of clarity in its requirements of the player.
The first few hours of gameplay and exploration are honestly some of its best. You wake outside a crashed space pod in a hallucinogenic strange world with no direct and merely a puddle to view yourself in. Your only immediate option is to venture out into the organic depths below you and hope to make sense of what is going on. This is when you will be introduced to the games narrative and one of the few character that seem to be lurking in this ship of some kind. The narrative is present in written format where other characters will talk at you and you can see reactions from the players sprite. The story is generally quiet intriguing but seems to lose focus throughout the game. I had a general idea of what was happening but some of the characters and hidden lore seemed a little random or to vague for me to understand on a first playthrough.
The premise is some kind of time loop where you and everyone else is stuck re living a moment while a big ball creature (Ultros) grows in the middle of the ship. Almost ever character has no idea they are in a loop with the exception of one who seems to remember you after you progress the story. I believe there are possibly 2 or more endings to Ultros but unfortunately, I wasn’t particularly satisfied with the outcome I received.
The core objective seems to be killing or reviving 6 of these mummies that are linked to the big ball thing but I’m not really sure why. Once one of these mummies has been slain you go back to the big ball and the loop restarts with some dialog and cool visuals beforehand. Your options are to either slay all the mummies and end the game or once they have been killed bringing some kind of organic tether to them which will cleanse them in some way. Ultros expected you to figure out that this is an option purely by trial and error which could very easily be missed. I do like that this allows the player to pick if they want to put the effort in for an alternative ending but it becomes beyond tedious and for a smaller game there are very little resources online to help.
The exploration in Ultros is similar to your average Metroid-Vania but less focused on upgrading manoeuvrability and unlocking shortcuts. This became one of the first major problems I had with the game, it took so long to get anywhere fast and it was quiet exhausting to explore new paths. Instead, you are encouraged to use seeds that will grow into different kind of plants / trees providing vines to swing on or platforms to jump on. In concept, this is a really cool idea and it defiantly had moments that were quite impressive. However, some plants will take a time loop to fully grow meaning you are not able to use the new “shortcut” until you progress to the next loop. Similarly, this also became a problem when you are not sure what plant to grown where or you do not have the correct seed available to grow the required tree.
The previously mentioned tether that unlocks the alternative ending requires a strong knowledge of what plants to grow and paths to take. This is because you will be leading a tether from 1 area of the map to another in a plant-based daisy chain. Unfortunately, after a few hours of trying to figure out how to make this chain, the slow movement speed and lack of clear direction made me quit this endeavour and instead get the “bad” ending.
Initially while playing Ultros I was quiet impressed by the combat and encouragement to play well and with variety. The system they use rewards new combos and variety by giving better rewards based on how well you perform in combat. There's a mix of different doges, backsteps, stealth attacks, parry’s and much more which was initially quiet exciting. You unlock these moves and other abilities by leveling up your skill tree from eating a variety of grown fruits or carcases from the enemies you kill. However, the skill tree is very limited and you will quickly be maxing everything out as the consumables are also your healing items and there is a lot of them. I believe this is intentional though as when a loop is completed you will be returned to 0 skill points and no weapons as if you just restarted the game. Unfortunately though you can mitigate this almost completely, as with the use of additional hidden skill points found in the world this will keep any chosen skill permanently unlocked. This then feeds into another problem where you become either to strong in combat or you use a skill tree ability where most enemies will completely ignore the player; this allows you to waltz on right past them completely ignoring all future combat.
As I think back on my time playing Ultros I feel honestly more disappointed about what could have been than what has been. The beautiful visuals paired with some great combat ideas and an intriguing set up for a story sounds like a recipe for a brilliant game. But unfortunately Ultros just doesn’t deliver in the execution and that makes me really sad. I hope the small team continues to make games and refine their craft as there’s absolutely passion poured into Ultros and I would to see what’s next from the studio.
The first few hours of gameplay and exploration are honestly some of its best. You wake outside a crashed space pod in a hallucinogenic strange world with no direct and merely a puddle to view yourself in. Your only immediate option is to venture out into the organic depths below you and hope to make sense of what is going on. This is when you will be introduced to the games narrative and one of the few character that seem to be lurking in this ship of some kind. The narrative is present in written format where other characters will talk at you and you can see reactions from the players sprite. The story is generally quiet intriguing but seems to lose focus throughout the game. I had a general idea of what was happening but some of the characters and hidden lore seemed a little random or to vague for me to understand on a first playthrough.
The premise is some kind of time loop where you and everyone else is stuck re living a moment while a big ball creature (Ultros) grows in the middle of the ship. Almost ever character has no idea they are in a loop with the exception of one who seems to remember you after you progress the story. I believe there are possibly 2 or more endings to Ultros but unfortunately, I wasn’t particularly satisfied with the outcome I received.
The core objective seems to be killing or reviving 6 of these mummies that are linked to the big ball thing but I’m not really sure why. Once one of these mummies has been slain you go back to the big ball and the loop restarts with some dialog and cool visuals beforehand. Your options are to either slay all the mummies and end the game or once they have been killed bringing some kind of organic tether to them which will cleanse them in some way. Ultros expected you to figure out that this is an option purely by trial and error which could very easily be missed. I do like that this allows the player to pick if they want to put the effort in for an alternative ending but it becomes beyond tedious and for a smaller game there are very little resources online to help.
The exploration in Ultros is similar to your average Metroid-Vania but less focused on upgrading manoeuvrability and unlocking shortcuts. This became one of the first major problems I had with the game, it took so long to get anywhere fast and it was quiet exhausting to explore new paths. Instead, you are encouraged to use seeds that will grow into different kind of plants / trees providing vines to swing on or platforms to jump on. In concept, this is a really cool idea and it defiantly had moments that were quite impressive. However, some plants will take a time loop to fully grow meaning you are not able to use the new “shortcut” until you progress to the next loop. Similarly, this also became a problem when you are not sure what plant to grown where or you do not have the correct seed available to grow the required tree.
The previously mentioned tether that unlocks the alternative ending requires a strong knowledge of what plants to grow and paths to take. This is because you will be leading a tether from 1 area of the map to another in a plant-based daisy chain. Unfortunately, after a few hours of trying to figure out how to make this chain, the slow movement speed and lack of clear direction made me quit this endeavour and instead get the “bad” ending.
Initially while playing Ultros I was quiet impressed by the combat and encouragement to play well and with variety. The system they use rewards new combos and variety by giving better rewards based on how well you perform in combat. There's a mix of different doges, backsteps, stealth attacks, parry’s and much more which was initially quiet exciting. You unlock these moves and other abilities by leveling up your skill tree from eating a variety of grown fruits or carcases from the enemies you kill. However, the skill tree is very limited and you will quickly be maxing everything out as the consumables are also your healing items and there is a lot of them. I believe this is intentional though as when a loop is completed you will be returned to 0 skill points and no weapons as if you just restarted the game. Unfortunately though you can mitigate this almost completely, as with the use of additional hidden skill points found in the world this will keep any chosen skill permanently unlocked. This then feeds into another problem where you become either to strong in combat or you use a skill tree ability where most enemies will completely ignore the player; this allows you to waltz on right past them completely ignoring all future combat.
As I think back on my time playing Ultros I feel honestly more disappointed about what could have been than what has been. The beautiful visuals paired with some great combat ideas and an intriguing set up for a story sounds like a recipe for a brilliant game. But unfortunately Ultros just doesn’t deliver in the execution and that makes me really sad. I hope the small team continues to make games and refine their craft as there’s absolutely passion poured into Ultros and I would to see what’s next from the studio.