While visuals are not the most important thing to me when it comes to games, it's hard for me not to be blown away by Sundered's hand-drawn visuals. I decided I just had to play it to see if the gameplay was as good as its visuals. I was originally going to purchase a physical copy from Limited Run but alas I missed my opportunity, so instead download it from the PlayStation Store.
Duck in plum sauce. I have always been sceptical to try it, not because I don't like duck or that I have anything against plums. I just don't like my main courses to be sweet, it's why I have never really like sweet and sour sauce. However, one evening I was ordering food and thought to hell with it, I'd give it ago. I was not disappointed, the plum sauce worked so well with the duck and I'm already looking forward to trying it again. Playing Sundered I found myself asking was this I write to hesitate or was it going to be a surprisingly tasty experience?
Story
The story has you play as Eshe, a woman wandering through the desert when out of nowhere she is pulled in the world below. Upon your arrival, a mysterious entity offers you their abilities to help survive the harsh environment and promises more if you help it. As you progress through the game you will find out there were two groups, the Valkeries and the Eschatons. The Valkeries were all about science and military might, while the Eschatons were a religious cult that used a Holy Stone for guidance and worshipped The Elder One. The world was dying and both sides had different schools of thought on how to 'save' it.
The story is interesting, and you will get to find out more about both groups and what part you will play. There are three possible endings to unlock depending on what you decide to do throughout the game. Overall a great story that had me wanting to know more.
Visuals
The hand-drawn art used in the game looks amazing and helps in creating a dark atmosphere. The enemies all look different from mechanical enemies to wraith style enemies. There are three very distinct looking regions, which helps it feel varied especially when you are going to be traversing through them a lot.
Overall it's hard to fault the visuals, sometimes hand-drawn animations in games can have a tendency
to provide a soft edge in an otherwise dark game. However, in Sundered it helps in creating a dark and horrific world.
Music
The sound in Sundered is dark, moody and even horrific. Playing the game there were moments where I felt tense for no other reason than the music. The score is created by Canadian film composer Maxime Lacoste-Lebuis. He has worked on films, documentaries and games including:
Civilization, The New Great Game, and Jotun.
The score runs at around forty-five minutes. It is rare for me but this is one of these scores where I had no favourite tracks because they were all fantastic. It is one that seamlessly blends with the other elements of the game to help create a memorable experience.
Gameplay
Sundered is a Metroidvania style game, there are enemies aplenty and just when you think you've pushed them back you get attacked by a horde. The gameplay can be chaotic at times and initially, it was almost overwhelming, but quickly I grew to like it and the challenge it provided.
Similar to Metroidvania games you will not be able to access all pathways straight away. As you progress you will find new powers ups, which later can be upgraded further with dark shards, should you choose to. There is a skill tree which I really liked as even when dying I felt a sense of progression as I could spend my experience points to power myself up.
There are multiple bosses in the game that vary in difficulty, in most cases it only took me a few times to defeat them. I think though they would be a whole other challenge on the insane difficulty but I'll save that for my next playthrough. My favourite boss was Dominion Boss (Xea' Sh' Kaebt), the fight was intense, tough and when I did defeat him there was a great feeling of accomplishment.
Overall a fantastic experience that I really enjoyed from beginning to end.
Final Thoughts
So, after almost twenty hours playing Sundered how did I feel? Awesome! Sundered is the first game I've played this year and I'm really glad about that. The story is interesting and dark as are the visuals and music. The gameplay is chaotic, intense but also a lot of fun. A great game that I have no hesitation giving 5 out of 5
