Revulsion

[h1] In A Nutshell [/h1] 🔵 [b] Pros [/b] + Well made, engaging mix between Old School FPS and Action RPG genres. + Challenging, fast and lethal combat requiring skill, but also knowledge in approaching enemies with the right equip. + Satisfying gun-play, with weapons being well diversified from each other, and generally well balanced. + Decently deep item crafting / upgrading mechanics, with new blueprints, gear to acquire and unlock progressively. + The constant risk of losing every gear piece and credits because of death adds even more challenge, in a dark souls fashion. 🔴 [b] Cons [/b] - Lack of a character attribute system or skill trees, limiting the Action RPG progression aspects to loot and gear only. - After clearing all the hand-crafted content (around 6-8 hours), players have to replay already cleared levels again, exactly the same as before, only with up-scaled enemy ranks. If I had to describe Revulsion to someone, i'd probably say it's a mix between Borderlands and Quake 2. On one side, there is a solid ARPG gear and crafting system in place, featuring color-coded loot of several qualities, crafting materials to acquire, and a lot of statistics to compare to determine what the most effective character build is. On the other, nostalgics will feel at home with low-poly, retro styled Classic FPS mechanics, reminding a lot of games such as Quake 2 or DOOM, both in style and gameplay, where high-speed strafing, mobility on the field and dodging heaps of bullets are the norm. One of the first good points to mention is definitely weapons feel, with each weapon having a very distinct handling to it, and also a very precise role on the battlefield: automatic shotguns are great for dealing with crowds of weaker enemies, as are flamethrowers, but for tougher single enemies maybe a railgun or rocket launcher would be preferable, always depending on the enemy's weaknesses to one of the several damage types. Killing enemies also holds its satisfaction, with ragdoll physics and dismemberment often resulting into piles of bloody chunks and corpses flying all over. A good mention should be made for the ARPG loot system, opening up to a variety of play-styles, it's just a shame also a character progression system and skill trees were not included, to deepen even more the class building experience. On the bad side, I have to say the overall style, even if reminiscent of old school games, feels a bit anonymous and without a definite style to it, but rather a mashup of different settings put together. The fact all stages after Level 25, or at least all of which i've seen so far nearing level 40, are recycled from the already seen stages, is something that disappoints. [u]Overall, Revulsion is quite a good title, succeeding in delivering the gameplay experience expected from this sub-genre of FPS/RPG mix, with some unique mechanics to it and its own style. Old school fps and ARPG lovers will surely like it, as I certainly did.[/u] [quote]Liked this review, and want to see more of the same quality? Check out [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/39323490]Tamaster's Review Archive[/url] to see all my Reviews in a single, convenient location.[/quote] [h1] In-depth Feature Analysis [/h1] 🎮 [b] Gameplay [/b] The gameplay of Revulsion is divided into Exploration, Combat, and Character Management. Stage layout in Revulsion is built into a classic FPS fashion, with generally intricate maps featuring many rooms filled with enemies, and a series of objectives to get to in order to unlock the exit and proceed to the next stage. During the main campaign, each stage battery is composed of 2-3 maps, which then becomes 4-5 once reaching Level 25-30 content and replaying them again, as procedural random levels are thrown into the mix. An handy and quite stylish 3D map is always available to keep track of objective, ammo, and collectible locations, but not enemies. Fast travel platforms are present in each level in many places, and act as Dark Souls' bonfires, allowing players to rest and eventually return to the Sanctuary, their base, to craft new weapons, put stuff into the storage, and generally sort out inventories and newfound gear. This though, will make all killed enemies also re-spawn! Character Management is quite deep in Revulsion, featuring slots for various body parts' armor, one for an healing item, a Special tool, and seven different lot for weapons, each with a specific arms category. Each piece of armor, depending on eventual upgrades and quality, will give different bonuses and even maluses, like greater armor for reduced movement speed. Weapons do not give passive bonuses, but instead feature different damage types, each specifically effective against certain types of enemies. At Sanctuary, players are able to store, scrap, upgrade and craft from scratch all types of gear, tools and weapons, using the crafting materials found in levels from loot, enemies. Keeping up with the current stage level and be "on par" with your gear levels is fundamental. 📖 [b] Story [/b] N/A 👊 [b] Combat System [/b] Combat in this title is fast paced and complex at the same time. Players will need to become adept at dodging bullets strafing all over the place as in any old school shooter, and at the same time calculate weaknesses and resistances of enemies based on their current gear, something that is crucial later on when enemies become lethal and very tough. It pays out to have varied damage types in the weapon load-out. Health and Armor are the main stats one needs to take care of, but also Action Points are a thing, needed to use special tools and acting as "mana", to activate Healing and Special tools, present in various forms with greatly different effects, from buffs, healing AoE, bullet-stopping walls, to time slowing. 💰 [b] Content & Pricing [/b] Priced at 15€, the game offers a very variable amount of content depending on how much a player is inclined to repeat already passed levels for the sake of grinding and becoming more and more powerful, until reaching Level 100 and the final boss. The hand-crafted content lasts until level 25-30 and is about 6-8 hours, after that random gen levels and repeated maps come into play, and not all may like that. Still, for this price, the game offers good quality content and lots of fun, so it's worth the price. 🔗 [b] Balance & Challenge [/b] Generally, enemies and weapons are well balanced, offering a good degree of challenge but also never being overpowered on either side (enemy or player's). As the game progresses, expect challenge to ramp up considerably. I liked how this game managed to equalize loot stats and player skill not making any of the two predominant. [h1] Technical Analysis [/h1] 🎥 [b] Graphics [/b] Low poly graphics that suit well the old school gameplay style. Some modern effects like physics are thrown into the mix. Generally pleasant but not really amazing to look at. 🔊 [b] Sound [/b] Average sounds and quite good soundtrack especially during battles and horde spawns. 🔩 [b] Performance & Stability [/b] Good overall, fps problems in procedural levels were fixed in a recent patch. [i7 4820K, GTX1080, 16GB RAM] 💻 [b] Artificial Intelligence [/b] Enemies as expected just follow and attack the player. Typical in this game genre. 🏠 [b] Quality of Life [/b] Functional interfaces and menus, but the game could use a more detailed tutorial on crafting and several mechanics. 🐛 [b] Bugs & Issues [/b] Nothing major to report. [h1] Conclusion [/h1] Revulsion is definitely a successful mix of FPS and ARPG, targeted to hardcore, old-school players mostly, and featuring a level of challenge not everyone is used to nowadays. Still, FPS veterans and RPG lovers will find plenty of fun in it. This product was reviewed using a free key provided by the Developers.

So far so good ! I only played six hours and enjoyed every minutes of it. Revulsion is surprisingly fun and challenging, to sum it up fast i'd say it's a great indie doom/ rpg/ rogue like. The gameplay is great, graphics are nice, the rpg elements are well implemented, with lots of body parts, skills you can upgrade. There's a good ammount of weapons, every weapons i acquired so far felt really good and sick to use (you can also upgrade them). Some levels are pretty huge and high tier ennemies can be really tough to defeat. You will have to progress carefully, be patient and precise if you don't want to die repeatedly. Like some rogue likes if you die you lose some gear but you can recover it by looting your own stuff. The only things the game might be lacking imo is a true story, a better ui (in game ui is basic but at least works correctly), more ambient music would have also be nice. Just like Project Warlock it's unbelievable the game was made by only one person. Well done TheCastle. Highly recommanded !

Amazing. I'm just 4 hours in but I've had a great experience. It's like playing Diablo 2...but FPS with guns. 1) Monsters aren't horrible bullet sponges that never die, but are still very challenging. 2) Items are more in-depth than what you may think. Armors have affixes/different boosts. 3) Huge range of different gun types which is a MASSIVE plus for an FPS ARPG. 4) Fun level design 5) COOL music!!! Action sequences have awesome guitar rifts and rhythms. 6) Just like an ARPG, play any level you want repeatedly to farm. However, the game isn't grindy. So far the only caveat I would say is the initial conditioning to the graphics style, not a big deal. You get used to it.

After only a few levels I knew i was in love with this game. The level of difficulty and feel of gunplay are pitch perfect in my opinion, It runs like a dream on max settings, and the deep roguelike systems are addictive as hell. While the somewhat basic visual design was a point of hesitation when looking at the promotional media, in game it is both charming and a great fit for the style of play. The modular look of the game fills me with hopes that in the future a level editor will usher in endless levels of content considering I already know my thirst for this game will be endless. This game should fully satisfy both action-roguelike and classic shooter fans in equal measure. Here's a list of a few features that stood out while playing. Fun and detailed ragdoll effects with dismemberment. A classic system of accuracy simulation as seen in the original Deus Ex and Rainbow 6 made more action friendly. Tons of loot, with a full diabloesque inventory. Destructable environments. Hit location based damage and effect. Hit them in the head for more damage and a chance to stun.

I wished i could give Revulsion a neutral review. On one hand the game gave me my money worth with guns that feel and sound fun to use (except for the railgun which feels and sounds far to weak), enemies that react satisfying to the impacts and a admittedly interesting crafting and upgrade system. The atmosphere is thick and interesting to start with (though i immediately shut of the music, which just helped the ambient track to shine even more). However, coming the 7th hour of my 10 hour playtime the game became more and more repetitive. The Areas blend over into one with the same monotone assets being used over and over, The enemies sorely lack variety and the bigger they get the less impacting is their design with some of them becoming rather comical then creepy. The last kick is then delivered when the same base enemies get scaled up and reused. The drab and dower atmosphere constantly stays the same level design wise and makes the player long for a chance in tone, either in some levity or in getting deeper in to the dark areas. Due to the leveling system, which in itself is not a problem, the game also soon turns into a massive grind forcing the player to play the same areas over and over again. That is okay the first two times but every so often there comes a single barrier that forces the player to grind for resources to upgrade blueprints and then grind resources AGAIN to build the weapons from these blueprints. The costs for the blueprint upgrades and then the weapon crafting soon shoot up exponentially which requires even more grinding of the same areas. Another problem are the way the enemies animate and react. Every enemy immediately turns towards the player as the player sees them, no matter the distance. And due to their not exactly excellent animation and physics enemies, even massive ones turn on a dime and hurl their projectiles at the player. This makes the posited run and gun gameplay style not really that feasible either (at least with the solider class) since enemy projectiles are really REALLY fast and if the weapons they use does permit it, hit you near instantly. This gets even worse every few levels since the player will meet ONE enemy they simply can't survive due to a lack of stats. You can be prepared and tactically strong enough and still there will be one enemy with incredibly fast movement and two hit kill damage, sending the player back to the grind to upgrade and level up the armor and weapons. There is a so called Endless Dungeon mode which was probably thought to alleviate the problem a little but which in the end runs into the same problems just a little worse. When i play Revulsion i can TASTE the potential. There is a great game underneath a lack of variety of weapons and monsters. A bit more polish, more voxel art assets and more use of complimentary contrasting colors and the game could have been a bit more. Most of all it makes me wish i could program and tickle such a game just a little bit further.

Revulsion is a blocky homage to old school shooters like Doom, where the story is "Here's a gun, go kill things", and the levels are big and easy to navigate. The environments are bright, the style is fun, and the sound effects really pop from the speakers to let you know what's going on. I played this game when it was very early Alpha and absolutely LOVED it. Then, everything changed because the dev thought it was too easy. The difficulty became brutal, and the gameplay became hugely unbalanced and very repetitive. The novel unusual levels of the early alpha became warrens of grey metal, and I stopped playing it for almost two years. I came back to it periodically, would start a new game, but always ended up battering my head off an unkillable baddie, and left it again. ... Then I saw that the game had changed again, so I tried it... And this time I found that the design had completely changed once again, back to a little more like what it was at first. The levels had been restructured, the progression was far more balanced and the boss fights / zombie rushes were far more manageable and suited the player level WAY better. I've just played through the first three levels in the new format, and I found the game FAR more approachable. Some of the Dark Souls elements have been toned down, and the enemy difficulties have been nicely balanced. The levels, while still a little samey in places, are now simpler and have nice clear paths through them, so you don't need to have a photographic memory to work your way through. The crafting system is still a bit borked IMHO.. The costs for things are a little skewed, which leads to huge rewards for things due to the points inflation... But it's not horrible... All in all, this is a really well crafted game now, and feels really good to play. You should definitely get this and plough through. The UI is still a little amateurish, but don't let that get in the way of a really good, satisfying shooter in the same vein as DooM.

Probably the most enjoyable loot and shoot game I've ever played. For me, this sort of game is made on the basis of its moment-to-moment core game-play loop. For many people, the endless dopamine drip of randomized loot is all it takes to carry a game, but I am not one of those people. This is why I can't stand Borderlands and I like this game a lot (that and the incessant Reddit-tier meme humor, which this game mercifully lacks). This game feels nice to PLAY before you get into the equipment, crafting and loot (of which there is plenty). Movement and gun-play feels a bit like a cross between Counter-Strike and Quake. Mind you, that is a loose comparison. Unfortunately, no bunny hopping or strafe jumping is possible, as far as I know. You have a movement penalty for weapon accuracy that resets pretty much instantly when you stop moving. This means that it is possible with certain weapons to counter-strafe much like you would in CS, though you still aren't as accurate. You do have good accuracy in the air, which is nice. There are a wide variety of weapons and most of them are enjoyable to use. Maps generally follow a pretty old-school FPS design philosophy, They are sprawling and complex. You have to collect a set of objective items to unlock to exit from the level. It also features randomized level layouts which are what I would expect from that: a lot of modular stuck together randomly. They very quickly start to feel familiar, but there is enough hand made content that this isn't much of an issue. There are a wide variety enemies, but nothing particularly unique. Zombies that walk towards you for a melee attack. Fast zombies that do the same. "Heavy" enemies with mini-guns, grenade launchers, and rocket launchers that walk slowly toward you and fire. Soldiers with pistols, machine guns, and shotguns. And so forth. They all work pretty well, though some enemies very easily lose track of you, which is easy to exploit. The art style, sound design, and music are adequate, but not particularly memorable to me. Overall, recommended for people who like more old school FPS mechanics and wouldn't mind some loot management and crafting on top of that.

Buried somewhere in here is a good game. Key word buried. Floaty shooter w/ very rough presentation that may possibly be worth a look with a sale and great patience. Neither of which I believe should be required for a purchase.

This has been quite a welcome surprise. While the UI and menus are janky and rather poorly done - the gunplay, progression, and loot all make up for it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not rushing out to my friends demanding they try this out but I do think for the price it is worth it. Even without a discount, it is worth the $10 bucks. Doom/Quake + Borderlands would be a pretty accurate combo. Gunplay feels very similar to Doom or Quake, while the missions, progression, and loot all remind me of Borderlands or even Hellgate: London (a Diablo-inspired FPS). All of course being styled in voxel-form. Much like Doom, it even has secret areas (with treasures) that can be discovered along the way. This exploration component is something I wish we saw more of. (Shout out to the modern Shadow Warrior for doing a stellar job of this) One thing that is notably absent from Revulsion is a compelling story, backstory, or even any meaningful lore. There is no narrative or story to speak of. I think if something more had been added, along with better UI and menus, this would have been a far more popular title. The menus and map/mission selection mechanic are all bizarre and puzzling design choices. My hunch is the developer strongly lacked experience in UI/UX design. Starting off can be pretty challenging. You start off very weak and it can take a while before you populate each gun-slot with an actual weapon. Once you do though, you begin to better understand what strategies can be applied in order to better progress and to better destroy your foes. $10 feels a bit high, but if you can get it for $7 or under - I'd say get it!

Ah, it's an odd one. There's much to like in this game, but I was always just short of actually enjoying myself. The visuals do nothing for me, there's too little playstyle customization, and for once - not my usual complaint - the game turned out to be too hard for me. I just couldn't progress at some point. But really, this is a close one. I'm giving it the thumbs-down because I just about don't feel like picking it up again, but somehow I suspect that there's not that much missing to change this.