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Steelrising


Maryokutai
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I don’t really contribute much these days but I’d like to make an exception for this for one reason or another. Steelrising was developed by French studio Spiders, which you may or may not have heard of before. They’ve done a lot of B-Tier RPGs that showed some promise but it was always blatantly obvious that they were hamstrung by budgetary limitations and on tight schedules. Greedfall was their first foray into the big league. It wasn’t perfect, but in the void that appeared in a post BioWare era it was the next best thing. Steelrising, despite the quick turnaround (IIRC announced in 2020) seems to continue with the upwards trend and is a game that IMO can very comfortably sit next to the games that inspired it.

 

Namely Souls. Personally, I can’t draw a lot of comparisons between the pioneer and the copycat as I only ever played Demon’s Souls (the original) so I’ll have to judge Steelrising as a game and not a Soulslike. The setup is that you’re playing as an automaton during the height of the French revolution in a “slightly” altered setting that sees Louis XVI use mechanical soldiers to suppress the revolutionaries. In good old Assassin’s Creed fashion, you, of course, come across every important player from that era and unlike Souls the story isn’t told cryptically throughout the environment but actively via dialogue and cutscenes. It does take some liberties though – Vaucanson for example, who in reality didn’t live to see the Revolution, is an important part of the backstory as engineer/inventor.

 

While you’re guided through the rampaged city of Paris by these French noblemen you’re facing off against automatons that are left patrolling the areas. With high damage output on their side (not so much on yours), and an endurance meter (cleverly described as an overheating-limiter so that it makes sense) combat rewards patience above all, but how you approach it varies greatly depending on the weapon equipped. Because actions such as blocks or parries aren’t tied to your basic moveset but linked to your weapon. You can only block and not parry with a halberd and while the chainball doesn’t give you any defensive maneouvers at all, it makes up for it with its range and the ability to channel elemental energy through it and inflict debuffs (frost, fire or electric effects that are extremely powerful but are tied to a limited resource, think ammunition). There’s also a levelling system with different attributes and you can equip mods and strengthen weapons, the whole deal.

 

Leveldesign is relatively classic by which I mean that you fight forwards and forwards and will occasional come across a door you can unlock for a shortcut. Checkpoints work like they do in Souls, as in they refill your health potions but also respawn defeated enemies. I don’t want to spoil anything but in a sort-of Metroid kind of way certain bosses unlock movement upgrades for Aegis (your character), which give her access to previously unreachable areas. It has a really good flow and even if you only get the chance to play for 40 minutes you can usually make solid progress.

 

The reason for that it is that yes, it’s not that difficult. I’ve died here and there (one boss really kicked my ass) but if you find a weapon with good range and make clever use of the elemental attacks, this isn’t nowhere as punishing as I remember DS being. It’s no walk in the parc, but it’s balanced in a way that forces you to pay attention but also leaves frustration out of the equation, which for me is the best balance for this kind of game. It also introduces an alternate difficulty (those French heretics) that allows you to configure certain numbers, like damage dealt and received. Haven’t tried that because I think standard is fine for everyone with a bit of controller experience.

 

In what is an increasingly rare scenario, it also runs on Spiders proprietary engine. Greedfall already demonstrated its versatility by looking excellent on last-gen while also allowing the developers to quickly put out a quality/performance mode patch for current-gen and even though Steelrising might not look mind-blowing in any way, it features some decent art-direction (I really liked the rolling priest automaton that attacks you with a holy bible attached to a grappling hook) and runs at an almost perfect 60fps in performance mode, which I think is the way to play.

 

I’m roughly 10 hours into the game so far and my next stop is the Palais du Luxembourg (maybe I’ll feel at home) and I think it’s excellent. Again, I can’t put it next to fan-favourites like DS2 or Bloodborne because I haven’t played those, but as a standalone experience, I really enjoy the combat, the flow of the gameplay, the setting. Oddly, despite being developed in France and being set in the same country, there’s no French audio. I actually wanted to play it like that for authenticity reasons, but the short exclamations (Mon Dieu!) are usually pronounced correctly, so they at least picked some fitting voice talent.

 

So, yeah, I’d recommend it. It’s flying under the radar quite a bit which is a shame, because like I said this is the game that should, and maybe still manages to, put Spiders on the map as one to watch.

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