The Surge

jooka said:

After watching most of Cohh's play through Im gonna be holding off for now. Definitely going to have to pick it up down the road at some point

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Leadsalad said:

I don't understand the number on overcharging items around the world.

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• Graphics: Great optimization. Ran steady 60fps on 3440x1440p max settings (no super-sampling). Ran into a few instances of dropped frames, but it was real quick. Game would crash occasionally and dump memory completely, locking video rendering up completely, but I could still hear myself dodging, swinging, or enemies smashing my face in. I hear it's just as good on consoles, and for those w/ ps4 pro, it runs at a steady 30fps for quality, and steady 60fps for performance (source was Digital Foundry).

• Combat is fun and rewarding. Unique and 'chunky', which is a good thing, but if you played lords of the fallen, you can tell it came from the same team. The energy system adds a fun meta, and the limb system is fun/satisfying. Animation cancelling was the only thing that I wish was in it. Some animations lock you in and typically ends up w/ you dying. Guess it's conscious design, but still could be annoying. Overall combat wasn't as refined as souls but much improved over LotF. The alternate versions of killing bosses is a nice option, but w/ only 5 bosses, just isn't enough.

• Difficulty: Comparing this to the most recent Darksouls game - I'd say this was by far harder. I didn't skip trash though. I know a lot of people are doing that, and I have to ask why are you even playing at that point? If you're skipping, it's almost like a 3d platformer, where you're just dodging 'environmental' hazards a la trash packs. It's hard to compare to DS1 because for me (and most) it was the first, and as such I don't feel its a fair comparison. Of course you're going to remember DS1 being the hardest game ever made. A more direct comparison in terms, due to combat speed, animations, etc., would be Bloodborne, to which I'd say this is still harder, assuming you're fighting trash. However, BB's expansion still takes the cake for the most challenging content (IMO). Bosses are mostly a joke in the Surge though.

• Weapons: There are 5 different weapon types. I stuck to 2h and staves.However they're all good and satisfying. Every single type is viable for any situation. This is one thing I think they did well. They all look cool and there were quite a few weapons in the game considering its length

• Level design: I was impressed w/ the level design for the 2nd, 4th and 5th levels. The 1st and 3rd levels felt extremely short & small. But for 2, 4 and 5, If you were to reskin it in a souls world, w/ sprawling landscapes and cathedrals it would be just as good. I was constantly finding new places, and going back opened up some interesting stuff.
  Spoiler

  For instance, after getting your security rig and discovering the board is all dead, you can go back to R&D open one of the security doors, overcharge the conduit , which queues the speaker system to say that all exhibition doors are now open. If you were to just ignore what the speaker system says and carry on, you'd miss out on finding one of the better staves in the game

• Story: Meh. I've beaten twice. Still don't really know what's going on. Can't expect it to have Miazaki level of amazingness. They tried, by making things real ambiguous, and filling in with audio logs. Maybe I just don't critically think about the stuff enough. Let me put it another way. In Souls/Bloodborne, the environments and lore are what kept me pushing forward. Looking at the scenery for insight, or inspecting every item's text, which kept me Always wanting to explore further. The combat and shortcuts is what kept me moving forward in Surge.

• Length: Here's where I was most disappointed. I put in roughly 45 hours, but that was over multiple playthroughs. Just when I thought the game was starting to ramp up, it ended. Was a total of 5 levels and 5 bosses. Just not long enough for 60$. I'm a slightly above average Soulsborune player and this took me 20hours. I'm sure it was 10hours for some. I feel the length of the game had more to do w/ some annoying trash packs, and dumb one-shots, than it did actual content. For 60$ it just wasn't meaty enough.