Beyond Citadel

Don't be fooled, the gore isn't the fetish, the gunplay is.

Combine the gore and gunplay of Brutal Doom with the reloading mechanics of Tarkov and the story/lore of Evangelion and you have Beyond Citadel. Mechanically exceptional, with pretty great level design and enemy variety along with an atmosphere that is unlike any other game I've played. Not everyone will get a kick out of the excessive gore and sexual elements, but it makes for a very unique experience when placed against other boomer shooters.

Guns are smooth. Reloading mechanics you wont find on any other game. Basic story but with love. Every gun has its own mechanic: try fanning the revolver instead of default shooting, remember to ♥♥♥♥ it first so it has no delay, for example. If you treat it like a normal gun it feels bad: for that you have the scoped pistol. I like how the carbine pings after every shot and you need to put a bullet in. You can reload very fast spamming the R button, and if you ADS it chambers the next round automatically, same with the shotgun. Cute art style with doom-like gore. But the guns are what keep you in. Minimum specs are overblown. Runs like butter on any integrated iris xe graphics (100 fps for me).

Beyond Citadel improves on every aspect of The Citadel. The movement of the main character is improved, with double jumps, air dashes, and more. The enemies are improved from the first game, having them take cover and deploy grenades against you, as well as getting upgraded the more you kill each type. The combat mech is back, as well as two new vehicles the player can use. The weapons, for the most part, are an improvement as well, with more guns and more upgrades. It's somehow more violent, with wounded enemies possibly going for a sidearm to shoot you while wounded, or setting off a grenade to try to take you down with them. The game itself is longer, with amazing maps and locales, and the story is more fleshed out, and what a ride it is. Now, I had the game crash on me six times, and I had to configure a .ini file due to mouse input issues. And with all that, I can recommend this game, even at full price.

Gunplay in this game is good... that is what really sets it apart. Level Design - Decent, but nothing amazing. More open & vertical than most boomer shooters. Some nice gimmick sections. Some levels have a bit of aura but these are fundamentally 90s style levels. B Enemy Design - Decent, but nothing special. They're basically Quake enemies. Ranged potshot from afar while CQC enemies close and try to flush you out of cover. Later on the levels are more open and constant movement becomes your means of avoiding damage, which is a nice change of pace. B+ Weapons - This is what I'm talking about. All of the weapons feel great to use, sound design is great. And the gun-handling completely recontextualizes the B+ enemies and levels. A+ Sound Design - Great, almost too good considering how gory the game is. The sound of wounded enemies breathing still makes me a bit uncomfortable 3 hours in. The only problem with it is I can hear enemy movement through walls far too well. There seems to be no LOS check for audio, it's just a pure radius falloff. Still the dev did A-tier work with the sound. The enemies aren't engaging in a tactical ballet like FEAR enemies can be at their best. They actually aren't that dangerous until you screw up. If you panic, you end up with an empty gun in your hands, even though 1 headshot would end the threat, you didn't reload properly & the game doesn't do it for you like others. When you play perfectly, you take little to no hits. When you screw up, you take big damage or die. This is basically Receiver-lite gun handling. The extra operations allow the power level of the guns to be higher, because they ask more of you than in other games to access that power. There's a rhythm to the gunplay that just doesn't exist in so many other games, especially with the carbine and pump shotgun simply through the action of needing to cycle the gun manually. Gore is pretty over the top, it does have tuning settings but I left it default. Combined with the gory SFX, it makes your weapons feel even more powerful. And honestly, it's not a choice I would've made, but it is oddly compelling in a queasy sort of way I haven't felt since the phase of experimenting with gore & dismemberment systems in the 90s/early 00s with games like Soldier of Fortune & Jedi Knight. It's impressive that the dev could make me feel this way with only billboarded sprites and breathing sounds.

Honestly, this feels like a massive drag in comparison to the far less impressive first game which I've enjoyed to great lengths. 1. Gunplay feels awful due to the nigh-unintelligible thought to put anything remotely close to arma loading/jamming mechanics into a boomer shooter, which switching to traditional reloading mechanics doesn't fix fully as weapons still jam, lose ammo on quick reloads, some weapons like the assault rifle are worthlessly high on recoil, etc. 2. The author switched to making this a full-time gore porn franchise. I enjoy spice in my games quite a lot but the level of just....pornified logic for shoehorning just about every possible inch of exposed ass into the frame at intervals between a few seconds and a minute is just impressive. That coupled with the fact enemies loudly groan and moan endlessly unless you fully mangle their barely breathing corpses with three extra shotgun shells made even a weird freak like me uncomfortable. 3. Game runs like ass, the visual design and environments barely improved from The Citadel meanwhile. In other words, this has just been a disappointment. Wasted money.

الصدق انب قرصنتها وخلصتها بس قلت لحظة! هذي لعبة ممتازة وشريتها دعما للمطور رغم اني مخلصها تطور وتغير كبير عن الجزء الاول الي كان يركز مباشرة على المواجهات بينما الجزء الثاني وضع عناصر اخرى وساهمت في تعزيز التجربه جانب إدارة الموارد: يمتلك اللاعب هيلث وستامينا ونسبة للجوع ونسبة الجوع اذا قلة فهي تؤثر على الهيلث بشكل مباشر حتى لو اخذت هيلث مرده ينقص لان نسبة الجوع منخفضه وفي المرحله نفسها الاغراض ما تختفي مما يجعل اللاعب يترك امور في المرحله ليس كل شي ياخذه لان مرده يحتاجه فلو هزمت عدو واعطاك هيلث فالخيار هو انك ما تاخذه لانك ما تحتاجه حاليا ونفس الشي مع الاكل اذا وجدت اكل فالافضل ما تاخذه مباشرة وتوفيرهم لوقت الحاجه لانه لو اخذت الهيلث مرده ينزل بسبب الجوع! التوفير وتحليل حالتك مهمين إستكمال لجانب إدارة الموارد: تقدم اللعبة موضوع متانة الاسلحة بشكل رائع الاسلحة هنا تتضرر مع كثرت الاستخدام واحيانا لاتعمل وتحتاج تضغط عليها لين تشتغل هذا يصير لك اذا متانة السلاح تضررت جدا ولم تصلحها باستعمال اغراض تجدها في الصندوق او مع تدمير الاعداء الميكا، هذا يضع مع جانب توفير الرصاص جانب اخر يفرض على اللاعب التنويع بين الاسلحه فاذا العدو بعيد هذا ما يبرر استخدام السنايبر بل يمكن تصيده بالمسدس او الرشاش خصوصا ان الطلقات يمديك تشوفها سواء طلقات الاعداء او طلقاتك انت وهذا يخدم جانب التمركز تماما دون ان يظلمك القتال: في هذا الجزء القتال اصبح اعمق ومتشعب اكثر ولايدمر جانب ادارة الموارد بل يعلي عليها ويفرض عليك التعامل مع البيئة دائما فمثلا هزيمة الاعداء احيانا ينتج عنها جثثهم واحيانا يعيشون ولكن يحتضرون لمسة مرعبه بلا شك لكنها ليست فقط شكليه بل تدخل في القتال مباشرة فاذا سمحت لهم بالعيش فهذا يجعل اصوات احتضارهم تتداخل مما يعيق سمعك احيانا عن الاعداء خلفك، كذلك يمكن استعمال جثثهم كدرع خفيف لك او للاعداء والاهم احيانا يناضلون لاخر رمق ويخرج العدو المُحتضر مسدس ويبدا يطلق عليك! واذا اردت التخلص من الجثث هذي فضربهم يقلل الستامينا ورميهم يقلل المتانه والرصاص مما يجبرك على التأني دائما معهم هل تستعملهم كدرع ام حان وقت قتلهم ثم التأني قبل الهجوم إستكمال نقطة القتال: تضيف اللعبة قتالات بالميكا والمركبات ولاتزال تحافظ على نفس اسلوبها فهذي المركبات ليست خارقة ابدا بل لديها حد معين من الرصاص كذلك يمكن تدميرها سواء مركبتك او مركبة الاعداء حتى الميكا نفس الشي، لذلك من الغباء الهجوم المباشر بهم لانك تعرض نفسك لخسارتهم وصعوبة الحصول على اخرى فالحل هنا هو تمشيط المنطقه تتقدم قليلا ثم تتسلل وتحاول التخلص من اكبر مجموعة ممكنه من الاعداء حتى لا يساهمو في تدمير مركبتك او تخلص عليهم رصاص لذلك القتال بالمركبات ليس امر خارق بل يحتاج موازنه بين القتال بالمركبات او القتال التقليدي الاعداء: تعيد اللعبة بعض اعداء الجزء الاول مع إضافة اعداء جدد بتاكيد وذكائهم الاصطناعي جيد، الاعداء هنا متنوعين فمثلا هناك عدو الزومبي تقتله ينفجر وتخرج منه مخلوقات صغيره تتكالب عليك لذلك يجب التفكير هل تقتلهم ام تهرب واذا قتلتهم فالحذر مهم لانهم اذكياء بتلاحظ بعضهم يهجم عليك وبعضهم يوقف داخل الجثث عشان ماتشوفه واذا قربت او ابعدت نظرك؟ هجمو عليك وغيرهم الكثير، اما البوسس هنا فهم ليسو مثاليين لكنهم يصنعون تحدي ممتع ولكل بوس فكرته الي مابي احرقها لكنهم ممتعين تصميم المراحل لايزال رائع وتوزيع الاعداء فيها احيانا ممتاز واقل شي جيد، التغيير بها ان المراحل ابتعدت عن تصميم المتاهات وقدمت مراحل موسعه وبعضها طويل كذلك تقدم تضاريس مثل الماء لتهرب إليه او المباني العالية للتصويب والي بيغزوها الاعداء اكيد لان التصميم رائع ولا يسمح لك تسوي الي تبي او تكسر اللعبة مجملا لعبة فيرست بيرسن شوتر بديعه للغاية لكن هل انصح بها؟ بصراحة ذي السلسلة موجهه للهاردكور في تصنيف الشوتر فاذا انت ماتحب الشوتر اساسا فلا اجد داعي لتوصيتك بها لانك لن تقدرها على اي حال، لكن اذا كنت محب للشوتر فبلا شك ذي تجربة ممتازة جدا وفريده في عالم البومر شوتر المكرر

- boomer shooter - supreme gunplay - optional gun autism - everything is STILL teal - marathon and relics - endings suck - lots of ryona (gore can be disabled tho)

Oh man...this game was a trip! Beyond Citadel is a retro style FPS by doekuramori. It is the sequel to the game "The Citadel". I have not played the first game myself. Gameplay is very visceral, very satisfying. The game can be played in a slow and tactical manner. You can lean around corners and slowly pick off enemies one by one. But going in guns blazing and circle strafing around the levels should be fairly viable too. I personally took things pretty slowly but I can see great potential in rushing through the levels. I've done a bit of that when replaying previous levels for collectibles. Speaking of collectibles; each level got one hidden piece of artwork for you to collect and also one character upgrade. A lot of the artworks are quite ecchi, a lot of eye candy. There is also a bunch of additonal pieces of artwork when you turn off the nudity setting in the options. The character upgrades increase various stats, like your movement speed, health, stamina, etc... The level design is pretty good. This game doesn't suffer from one of the biggest pitfalls I have experienced with other retro FPS. Unlike some other games I've played, the maps do a pretty good job at leading the player around, I never felt completely lost. There is a pretty good variety of levels too. A bunch of vehicle sections also shake up the gameplay a little bit. Initially I was a bit put off by the fact that you are basically mutilating cute anime girls for most of the game, but I got used to it. There is a gore toggle in the settings, but I honestly think that the extreme violence is just part of the experience. Another great thing is that things such as spent casings, blood, etc... stick around for a few minutes if you tweak your settings, so you can really see the carnage you've caused. There is a great variety of enemies, from basic fodder enemies to very tanky (arguably too tanky, but I did play on hard difficulty) elite type enemies. Their AI is fairly basic but I don't think people play games like this for sophisticated enemy AI. The game only got one massive issue in my eyes. I've had crashes somewhat frequently. I usually have them upon loading a level so I never really lost any big amounts of progress from it. The soundtrack is alright, there aren't any standout tracks in my opinion. I do quite like the main menu's piano theme, but that is the only song that comes to mind. I've had a great time with this game and eagerly await doekuramori's third Citadel game. Thank you for reading!

Awesome game with Doom-like gameplay and ng Evangelion atmosphere Many interesting weapons with alt-fire modes, good gunplay Vehicles many types of enemies