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.
v
v
v
v
v
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.
-
>>> 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.
-
>>> 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.
-
>>> 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.
-
>>> 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.
-
>>> 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.
5 Comments
@Fauxscerf
I think so, yeah. A "merely okay" game, not necessarily a game without merit but a game Ill probably never talk about again except to reference something bad I think it did.
Which part do you find questionable? That a 3.5 feels like an inaccurate rating to assign to that feeling or that I feel 3.5 stars about the game in general?
I think so, yeah. A "merely okay" game, not necessarily a game without merit but a game Ill probably never talk about again except to reference something bad I think it did.
Which part do you find questionable? That a 3.5 feels like an inaccurate rating to assign to that feeling or that I feel 3.5 stars about the game in general?
the mystery of the three and a half stars is solved by both of you looking at each other's rating patterns
@_YALP
I preface this by saying that my reaction stems from a grand total of 20 minutes with BELOW and it's more of an observation on the tone of the review ending up in a three-and-a-half stars rating which to me spells "pretty good" but I guess we all rate games differently. I would've been interested in you detailing the ways in which the game did manage to make its survival/hardcore elements compelling - I think it was vehemently who wrote a small piece on this game that essentially put it on my hard drive a year ago and this reads diametrically opposed to his assessment. I liked your insistence on the game's ego, ppl rarely go for it.
@ebrl
Such is the way of life.
I preface this by saying that my reaction stems from a grand total of 20 minutes with BELOW and it's more of an observation on the tone of the review ending up in a three-and-a-half stars rating which to me spells "pretty good" but I guess we all rate games differently. I would've been interested in you detailing the ways in which the game did manage to make its survival/hardcore elements compelling - I think it was vehemently who wrote a small piece on this game that essentially put it on my hard drive a year ago and this reads diametrically opposed to his assessment. I liked your insistence on the game's ego, ppl rarely go for it.
@ebrl
Such is the way of life.
@Fauxscerf
In this case I think its a matter of "I thought this was gonna be a 5 star, it had every opportunity to be a 5 star, Im so bummed out."
And tbf its just the ratio of pain to pleasure thats the issue here - Id put up with how punishing the game is if I was shown some really cool shit way more often. Im not gonna enjoy myself if all you wanna show me is something "kinda cool" 10 hours from now, know what I mean? Doesnt mean it wasnt kinda cool tho, credit has to go where its due.
In this case I think its a matter of "I thought this was gonna be a 5 star, it had every opportunity to be a 5 star, Im so bummed out."
And tbf its just the ratio of pain to pleasure thats the issue here - Id put up with how punishing the game is if I was shown some really cool shit way more often. Im not gonna enjoy myself if all you wanna show me is something "kinda cool" 10 hours from now, know what I mean? Doesnt mean it wasnt kinda cool tho, credit has to go where its due.
Fauxscerf
5 months ago