[quote]This review is provided by [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41901794/]The Gilded Maw[/url] - A Dungeon Crawling steam group, and this video game was provided for free through the Steam Curator program.[/quote]
[h1][u]Synopsis[/u][/h1]
[i]Get To The Gate[/i] (GttG) is a first-person predominately single-character rogue-lite dungeon-rpg with turn-based combat/movement developed by Maximan. The game is listed as “UKNOWN Steam Deck Compatible” by Valve. However, it does have controller support, and through personal testing, found it worked on the Steam Deck (LCD Version).
[h2][u]Verdict[/u][/h2]
I enjoyed my time in GttG, to a point. It’s relatively short, occasionally funny, and initially suited for a beginner to the genre, with just enough depth to avoid being too simplistic. The hand-crafted puzzles and level design are nice, with a surprising amount of verticality, if a bit under-utilized. What really brings it down is the third act when it shifts play styles, many of the boss fights feeling under-developed, the high-end indie price point, and a lack of replayability. The vast majority of time was spent getting achievements that wasn’t particularly enjoyable, and wondering whether or not my run was bugged. Closing thoughts in comments below.
[h3][u]C.R.A.W.L. Review[/u][/h3]
[b][u]Character[/u][/b]
Maria, as a character, is a common trope of the isekai genre; blind-sided by fate, forced to adapt in a fish out of water scenario. She’s not a hero, but an average person that just wants to go home. The motivations are simple, direct, and used as a way to comment on more associated tropes. She is provided to the player as is, and her progression is a set of binary decisions that tend to not matter as much as they should.
Health and Mana pools can be expanded through tokens, as the game lacks an experience system. Many of the weapons and shield choices present themselves, but a lack of necessary encounters requiring choice doesn’t exist. They can be upgraded through components of incremental upgrade qualities, ending up with a choice of gold or silver; gold giving magical damage to swords and reduce magic drain shields, while silver gives vampirism and a recharging overshield to your health. You can mix and match, but being unkillable in the later parts of the game override the benefits of reduced magic drain or slightly more damage. The result of this, unfortunately, is a case of going auto-pilot when it comes to developing the character. The only thing you need to focus on is upgrading gear to the next tier.
[b][u]Realms[/u][/b]
When it comes to environments, the game has roughly three main variants in store; open city sprawl, caves, and underground dungeons. The first is where the player will find themselves the most, as they come to grips with the game, and it’s quite pleasant. However, just like with the amount of environments, the amount of music to accompany these areas is quite limited, and could’ve used either one or two additional songs for each. There are some off shoot areas the player gets to explore as side quests, such as a library which also acts as a hedge maze.
The one major downside of the environments is that despite a lot of railings found throughout the game, they are not OSHA compliant, and Maria will walk through them, often to her death. There are far, far too many doors that look like they can be opened or unlocked, but are actually decoration. While I appreciate the lack of a map, when attempting to go for completion, it can be difficult to know exactly where we can tread without taking a leap of faith, even with the ability to swivel the camera.
[b][u]Adventure[/u][/b]
The areas of the game aren’t too massive that it becomes an issue, but it can be difficult to know if you’ve truly explored everywhere sometimes. Many locked doors, or tough opponents, act as both soft progress blockers, and hard progress blockers, naturally guiding the player along the correct path. Through environmental mastery, many additional avenues will open up as shortcuts to newer areas, which reduces the stress of exploration. If the player dies in a combat area, the game reloads the last time they were in the hub, with all current exploratory progress wiped, along with the loot. More harrowing, as the player enters combat, magic depletes at a turn-by-turn basis, and doesn’t regenerate. It can be replenished by destroying crystals or slaying magical enemies later on however. At first, this won’t be much of an issue, but long voyages means running out of mana to heal, solve puzzles, or teleporting back to home base.
GttG does have quite a number of rudimentary puzzles, with a few repeating. Throw three levers to progress, or activate tiles by walking on them, and occasionally mixing different movement puzzles together in a sequence event. Early on, targets can be hit with magic spells to open gates, and later, some puzzles require opening gates at intervals to let projectiles through, of which follows the turn-based logic. There’s a very clean growth in complexity to puzzles as the game progresses, building upon pre-established knowledge.
[b][u]Warfare[/u][/b]
Combat against foes is a straight forward affair. Both the player and enemies will respectfully take turns either moving, attacking, turning, and for the player specifically, swapping between sword and wand. It’s often a death sentence to take on even a few enemies at a time. The best strategy is luring them over traps to wear them down at the early game. Later parts of the game, corners and doorways/single pass hallways becomes the dominate strategy. With magic draining per round, depending on the enemy, it’s better to get into a melee confrontation. If they’re too tough, spam magic from afar, as they will take multiple hits before closing the distance, or teleport back to base instead of perishing when low on mana.
Within the areas can be found mini-bosses that offer up unique challenges that can break up exploration, and are a nice distraction. At the end of every level are boss encounters. The first boss seems daunting, but it, like all future bosses, has a major flaw. That being the player can just ignore the mechanics, and spam spells. At points and later in the game, GttG will play with the idea of a party-based JRPG combat system where the player gets to control other allies, but all they can do is attack. It’s fine, but it does slow down the game substantially, and isn’t all that fun. The final boss can feel tough, but with the reflecting damage shield, can be tanked until the second phase.
Overall, the bosses aren’t very exciting, and while the mini bosses offer up more interesting approaches, they can be crushed quite quickly. It’s far more engaging to clear rooms of enemies.
[b][u]Loot[/u][/b]
All loot is in service of player progression. You need to find components like iron or magic orbs to upgrade or enhance equipment. In order to upgrade, you need gold, which can be found in chests, out in the open, or dropped from foes. Tokens found out in the wild to boost health and mana pools. The game gives you multiple versions of the initial sword to upgrade either down different paths, or place a magic orb into the it to gain the benefit of weapon-only arts like a forward dash to jump from roof to roof top. There is a second sword that does more back damage, but it’s not that great to have for the majority of the game. The shields you’ll encounter offer some choice, but when you discover the one that deals reflective damage, the choices end. However, this shield has a tendency to sequence break during the last few segments of the game, specifically the JRPG sections and the final push toward the gate vs wisps. It’s sufficient loot that works with the short run-time, but can be a bit lackluster when everything very quickly boils down to a couple of choices, and lacks any flair.
