The Surge - "sci-fi Dark Souls" from Lords of the Fallen devs

[Arnust]

Surge 2 discussion following at http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/the-surge-2.120310/

 

[Arnust]

The first two look a bit silly, but the latter is pretty metal. The weapons must be the pictured.

 

[anus_pounder]

Pure detected.

 

[Arnust]

 

[Hoaxmetal]

Got this in Humble Monthly and played for 5 hours straight, p. fun.

 

[Harry Easter]

Got this in Humble Monthly and played for 5 hours straight, p. fun.

I agree. It also works on older machines (my laptop is six years old and there's no lagging. Great!).

The only thing I didn't like is the twist with

Spoiler

the A.I. trying to destroy all humans on earth.

The game didn't need that. Cut it out and this is a story about humans failing to live up to their high expectations and now shit is going crazy. Should've been enough. Curious if they will work it in part 2.

 

[Arnust]

Hmm... As I saw it, there was no AI other than the lady "helping" you. The "other thing" is naught but a big lump of personalities glued together by pain and nanites. And if you mean the Utopia/Resolve conundrum, it was all on the humans' side. Unless I'm getting it wrong, and you mean something else?

 

[Harry Easter]

Hmm... As I saw it, there was no AI other than the lady "helping" you. The "other thing" is naught but a big lump of personalities glued together by pain and nanites. And if you mean the Utopia/Resolve conundrum, it was all on the humans' side. Unless I'm getting it wrong, and you mean something else?

Good question. It's been a while and I might misremember it. I will take another look.

 

[The Decline]

Is it worth a play?

 

[Arnust]

Is it worth a play?

There's a demo on steam with the first area of the game (actually a pretty meaningful chunk), you could check that out.

 

[Shackleton]

Is it worth a play?

Personally, I really liked it. I picked it up for a few quid in some sale and played it through once, with the theme park DLC and enjoyed it. Put it down after that and never thought about playing it again, but it was good for 36 hours.

I was wary at first because I got bored with Lords of the Fallen after 8 hours or so, but the Surge was much better imo. Preferred the sci-fi theme, preferred the combat and the level design. The bosses were a bit of a let down, but not enough to kill the enjoyment.

Be prepared to disengage your brain though, the lack of guns makes zero sense and they don't even attempt to handwave it away. You'll know by now if you enjoy this style of combat it and it's consistently enjoyable throughout the game if you do.

Buy it if you're bored with Dark Souls but miss the combat/levelling and want a sci-fi themed version of it with worse (and much fewer!) bosses and no PvP.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Dark Souls is basically the Doom of console action RPGs at this point. I tried The Fallen the other day because it is like 4 bucks and i got sucked in instantly. Those games are basically like the Doom clones of the 90s. Not as good as the original but still addictive because the formula itself is addictive and they do a decent job replicating the style.

 

[felipepepe]

Is it worth a play?

I think it's the worst of its kind. You're much better served with Lords of the Fallen, NioH or even Nier.

The Surge is just too damn repetitive, with almost no enemy or weapon variety and some of the worst boss fights in history.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Is it worth a play?

I think it's the worst of its kind. You're much better served with Lords of the Fallen, NioH or even Nier.

The Surge is just too damn repetitive, with almost no enemy or weapon variety and some of the worst boss fights in history.

Are there really no ranged weapons? I've heard that all you get is a shitty drone.

 

[Rahdulan]

Is it worth a play?

I think it's the worst of its kind. You're much better served with Lords of the Fallen, NioH or even Nier.

Is it? I've heard so many people rip Lords of the Fallen a new one for being too clunky, slow or whatever their wording was in the moment. I got The Surge through Humble Monthly and "SF themed Souls" has kinda piqued my interest.

 

[felipepepe]

Are there really no ranged weapons? I've heard that all you get is a shitty drone.

Yup, no ranged weapons.

Is it? I've heard so many people rip Lords of the Fallen a new one for being too clunky, slow or whatever their wording was in the moment.

Yeah, speed-wise the game is on par with Dark Souls 1, and the heavy builds with large weapons are much slower than in any other Souls-like game, but you can play fast:



Lord of the Fallen's biggest issue is that the quality drops severely after the first half, but I think the first hours with the game are extremely fun. Cool-looking enemies, fun areas and lots of secrets and optional challenges.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Are there really no ranged weapons? I've heard that all you get is a shitty drone.

Yup, no ranged weapons.

Well that's dumb. I mean, you set the game in the future, and you don't give your player a cannon? That's some bullshit.

 

[Shackleton]

Are there really no ranged weapons? I've heard that all you get is a shitty drone.

Yup, no ranged weapons.

Well that's dumb. I mean, you set the game in the future, and you don't give your player a cannon? That's some bullshit.

What I find really weird is that they don't even put anything in there like 'We don't allow guns in the complex because of the <insert bullshit>"

They could have come up with something that would make some sort of thematic sense, but no, we're just expected to not ask the question. It's not the sort of game where the plot or setting stands up to any sort of critical scrutiny though, so check your brain at the door.

 

[felipepepe]

The lack of weapon variety is truly horrendous. Lords of the Fallen had 11 weapon types, which is way less than Dark Souls, but you could at least still use them 1-handed + shield or 2-handed. So it's almost like 22 playstyles. NioH has 7 weapon types, but each has 3 different stances.

The Surge has... 5 weapon types. And they can only be used in one way. That's just fucking lazy.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

And then there's bloodborne, which has that trick weapon mechanic AND you can pair it with firearms.
Pity its not on PC though

 

[Arnust]

I really don't see how would The Surge be any worse than LOTF. Except style preferences ruling over liking generic overdesigned fantasy over industrial. The level design is way better, the world design is miles better, combat and movement are less sticky and responsive while not completely dropping the slower pace. Sure, there are half the weapon categories. But they're all equally useable, have more moves and combos (SLIDE ATTACK FOREVER BOIII), and they're all subject to their speed and actual stun being quite drastically altered. It seems to be like it's actually way faster than people make it out to be, because you can decide where you stand in the spectre of defense, speed, damage and a "poise break". In LOTF, you try telling me that anything besides the swords/sword style weapons that all share moveset and only change in stats (yes, Surge also hadn't a very varied moveset pool even if every one still had its own, but it outweighed that by removing a lot of filler items and having an actually solid upgrade and loot system). Considering that the final boss can regen health faster than you can actually deal damage to him... I agree that I would have liked it if The Surge had a system more similar to one of the few of LOTF'S unique and fun ideas, that being the hand cannon you're given at almost the very start, which while I'll never understand how was it supposed to charge, it still was absolutely fucking badass and had a decent amount of fire modes (not counting the versions unde the better magic gems because why the hell would you use those). Not neccesarily replacing drones outright, and it shouldn't have been neccesary to shoot at some random doors you're never told that's youre supposed to do that to.

All in all, while it's arguable in a bunch of aspects, I really cannot see that. Sure, Surge may have less bosses and weapons and often lack that content. But it's also way less saturated with filler, it's overall shorter and is pretty much just a more refined version of it. I'll be sure to check out Lords of The Fallen 2 when it comes out and will expect that it hopefully does an even bigger leap in quality than The Surge did, and the same thing for the latter's sequel.

Are there really no ranged weapons? I've heard that all you get is a shitty drone.

Yup, no ranged weapons.

Well that's dumb. I mean, you set the game in the future, and you don't give your player a cannon? That's some bullshit.

Apparently literally nobody here has played around with drones...

Yes, they aren't "a gun". But they might as well be. There's plentiful sinergies you canmske with them, and even if you don't have the energy to spare so you can't deploy them you can just save charges. Its damage is dictated by the MK level of your weapon added to the implants and set bonuses.

The first can deal damage at infinite range without miss, the Concussion drone can knock EVERYTHING down and ragdoll them a fair distance, the pull one isn't very good because it's esentially the same as concussion, and the Flamethrower and Flare drones can easily one-shot normal mobs and will work wonders against the lategame nanite enemies as they're all more vulnerable to heat. The rest are passive so alternatively you can just have the Kinetic Shield on at almost all times.

They could have come up with something that would make some sort of thematic sense, but no, we're just expected to not ask the question. It's not the sort of game where the plot or setting stands up to any sort of critical scrutiny though, so check your brain at the door.

I'm not sure if a megacorp would just leave shotguns lying around when they have a factory making virtually infinite versions of this fellow

Added to the army of other security robots between drones and three-legged fuckers, with a backup paramilitary force. The former would already do it considering that even today, automatized security and military drones are quickly becoming cheaper and more attractive than the old alternative. Rig-powered Melee weapons are also seemeingly better served for actually dealing with militarized rigs. Yes, the work ones aren't for the most part, but workers are implanted if I don't misremember, and seem to hardly be considered a reckonable threat for the above. Added to that, it could really just be that this setting just eventually stopped developing and using man-mounted weapons, considering that the situation of the planet hasn't lead to armed conflict but rather an already nigh apocalyptic resurce scramble.

And well, of course it can also just be that it's a hack and slash and they thought they wouldn't bother to still put bows/guns but have them be absolute dosghit (Souls says hi). I'll agree that they really could just have dedicated some audiolog to an excuse, of course.

...I've kind of ranted, haven't I. Well, in my defense I've said this once or twice so it was one of those chill podcast postings.

EDIT: I forgot how much of a technical fucking mess LOTF was. Every time I had to load LOTF, I had to change a setting, then force quit, then delete a save, then load up again and change the setting again, all that for the basic feature of getting voice subtitles, see what I'm actually picking up, see damage numbers, and maybe most importantly, being able to interact with things in the level period as no prompts mean no interactions, the godawful screenshake turning on and off apparently at random and almost as many settings as WH40K Fire Warrior...

 

[The Decline]

Okay, I might pick it up on a major sale if only because it's the only Sci-fi Souls clone.

 

[Mastermind]

Is it? I've heard so many people rip Lords of the Fallen a new one for being too clunky, slow or whatever their wording was in the moment.

dodging is more situational compared to souls so a lot of souls players have trouble adjusting. less margin for error and quickly uses up stamina (although it's been a while since i played it). if you try to dodge everything you'll get raped.

 

[Arnust]

Last DLC. Apparently may be able to wear hats.

 

[Wunderbar]

RDR2 killer.