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

[RepHope]

Meh. Lords of the Fallen was a pretty mediocre game. It didn't do anything particularly well. Honestly I think part of the appeal of the Souls series (besides "OMG SO HARD") is it's art direction which none of it's clones have really managed to equal.

Looking at this just bores me, what's supposed to be the appeal? Souls but Sci-fi?

 

[willdunz]

I feel like the only lesson other devs learned from Souls is: have a stamina bar and make enemies hit you hard.
That's it and nothing else.

 

[anus_pounder]

Lots of shit opinions abound, as per usual. I guess I'm the only one who enjoys content of a more cerebral nature.

 

[luj1]

Lots of shit opinions abound, as per usual.

And one that is shit squared.


I mean, calling this obviously infantile mediocrity "cerebral" in any way, shape or form, just to auto-simulate some kind of intellectual grandeur must be the next level self-indulgent cuckoldry.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Murk]

 

[cvv]

Honestly I think part of the appeal of the Souls series (besides "OMG SO HARD") is it's art direction which none of it's clones have really managed to equal.

This. It's not just the combat. It's also the level design, the art, the loot, the lore, the surprise and secrets and all sorts of other quirkiness.

LotF is what happens when you just mechanically copy the combat and think you have created a new legend. Surge seems to be another one of those.

Anyway, it seems people are plenty fine with just great combat, just look at the success of Nioh. This game has garbage level design, appaling loot, no secrets, surprises or quirks whatsoever and the art is a bunch of drab animu sprinkled with a handful of interesting tidbits. But because the combat is first-class people are happy. Whatever.

 

[Suicidal]

That's because in a game like this combat is the thing you're going to be doing most of the time. Personally, if a combat-heavy action game has great combat but mediocre everything else I'll prefer it to a game that has mediocre combat and good everything else. If I come to a new pizza restaurant that has amazing atmosphere, plays beautiful music and serves wonderful drinks but has shit pizzas, chances are I'll never want to go there again.

 

[toro]

The game was provided to a lot of streamers and it's currently spoiled on twitch.

The story, writing and voice-overs are abysmal, level design is bad (corridor after corridor) and combat is "same-ish" from start to end (except with different weapons).

Edit: Most enemies can one shot the player even with upgraded gear.

It seems that the world becomes a labyrinth and there is no map.

 

[waterdeep]

So it's a Sci-fi Souls clone set in a dull industrial setting without online PVP, character customization and different locations. Dead on arrival.

 

[cvv]

Is no PvP confirmed? Pre-release beta was very short, not much shown by streamers.

 

[Excidium II]

Is no PvP confirmed? Pre-release beta was very short, not much shown by streamers.

Yes.

 

[bataille]

These developers like to play it so safe, no wonder their game is about people wearing hard hats and other safety equipment.

 

[deama]

Combat looks neat, donno what u guys been smoking, but I don't want it!

 

[Excidium II]

The combat looked fine from streams, except for some attacks not being very well communicated/bosses doing 180.

Main problem I noticed is that upgrading gear seems very grindy.

 

[cvv]

From the first few hours the setting and lore seem low-talent fanfiction. Is getting any better later on?

 

[Excidium II]

It doesn't really seem to go anywhere.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Demon's Souls was great, but after Dark Souls (which was an unfinished cash-in) the series became stale and impotent (don't count Bloodborne here). It's a stinky corpse reanimated by autistic screeching of clueless fanboys.

Not only demon's souls was a good game by it's own, it brough back great memories of older action/adventure games like rune, severance:bod and heavy metal f.a.k.k. 2. It seemed like a revival of sort, but it turned out to be a death of a genre and desecration of glorious action/adventure genre past, since every third person action/adventure game with open level structure is considered to be a souls-clone (or souls-clone) now.

Having said that, it's nice to see a new action/adventure game of that style released. They improved greatly on what was lords of the fallen. Combat seems to be faster, it offers more options and depth, level design is more coherent, character system is lean which is more suitable for an action/adventure game than bloated systems of souls with tons of useless stats but not a lot of variety (since all you really need to do is chose a weapon and max stats for damage).

 

[Morgoth]

Woah people actually play this shit?

 

[toro]

... level design is more coherent ...

... level design is more coherent ...

... level design is more coherent ...

Streamer after streamer gets lost in the labyrinth of boring corridors. The level design is anything else than coherent.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Streamer after streamer gets lost in the labyrinth of boring corridors. The level design is anything else than coherent.

I'd say it's similar to system shock 2 level design. At first glance it looks like messy labirinth consisting of samey corridors, but the more you play the more you appreciate the work put in those levels. Then you start the level you may not know where to go or think that there is only one way to progress, but after you explore a bit you find out that there were shorter ways to reach the target much faster, you just didn't notice/thought it was possible before.

The samey look IS a problem. This is especially bad in enclosed areas.

 

[Achiman]

Sometimes you just want a game that isn't "dragons n shitTM" that is one of the main reason I'm picking this up. A different setting. And tbh, I can handle some corridors and repetativeness, it's not like I haven't walked through a hundred hours of darksouls-castle-setting by now.
I just hope it' has some good bosses, decent systems and a semi decent story/lore. Oh, and good combats.

 

[Chamezero]

5 bosses...

western dev master race

 

[bataille]

Dang, seeing how they've exhausted the 'armoured dudes with swords' theme in their first game of the series, I wonder what they'll do in the second one. Smelterlink shrine? The assembly lines fade? The era of old, unchanged oil? The lord of rusted junk?
So many possibilities.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Dang, seeing how they've exhausted the 'armoured dudes with swords' theme in their first game of the series, I wonder what they'll do in the second one. Smelterlink shrine? The assembly lines fade? The era of old, unchanged oil? The lord of rusted junk?
So many possibilities.

Obnoxious cringe-lore is From Software specialty. This game is made by DECK13, so you are sending your sarcasm to wrong adress.