Sundered is well within my top 50 games of all time, possibly even top 25. A game that has few flaws and even fewer equals.
Sundered is a metroidvania. You play as Eshe, a woman wandering a wasteland when she finds what she’s looking for, an underground military facility containing all sorts of eldritch secrets. Someone messed up, and brought something greater than us into this world, and we all suffered for it. You will either end that suffering, or become the arbiter of it.
There is very little dialogue in this game, all of it is done by the things/s beyond the veil of reality, who speak to you in a deep, raspy dialect. The tale the monster spins to you is one of human ambition and folly.
In an effort to consolidate more power, the humans of the Valkyrie Base connected with a different fold of reality and accidentally merged it into their current world. There are three main areas to the game. The first is Valkyrie Base, filled to the brim with lasers, moving platforms, and mechanical enemies. The second is the (not so) Holy City of Eschaton, an area teeming with corruption, monstrosities, barriers, and tight hallways. The final area, and the one I have slight issues with, is The Cathedral, a platforming and maneuvering heavy area filled to the brim with damaging miasma, flying enemies, and ancient tech.
These levels are beautifully crafted, take a look at the pics, each map has that amount of craft and attention put into it, same with the animations. It’s a true feast for the eyes. The sound design, especially for the creatures in the Holy City, can be quite tedious at times, and grating at others. Though the soundtrack isn’t as strong as the rest of the game, the theme for the main character, also titled “Eshe” is an incredible standout and well utilized within the game. I have it on all of my writing playlists.
I had a really good time with the first two, but the third map, The Cathedral, easily accounted for the most amount of deaths and frustration throughout my playtime. It all came from a specific potion that you have to platform your way up through as the damaging miasma rises, but due to the procedural generation of the game, the platforms/route aren’t always made clear or sometimes even reachable, and in this section, a single mistake means getting put back at home base, then trekking all the way back to this one section again. Also, the final boss for this area was some nonsense.
Sundered excels as a Metroidvania primarily because it understands progression perfectly. Moves and upgrades are paced out well throughout the game, and the game gives you many places to utilize your new abilities, keeping those “AHA” moments coming right up until the end. Unlocking a new ability via the ability shrines on the map will also unlock a new area of your extensive upgrade tree. The upgrades to your base stats is very rewarding, upping your power, stamina, shield, and health through filling out nodes in the tree. You’ll also be attaching perks to your character here which often offer a bonus or alterations of one stat at the cost of another, i.e. Get 5% of your health back on kills at the cost of health elixirs dropping 75% less.
The three factors that up the Metroidvania experience in Sundered are the mobs, the procedural generation, and the corruptions/resist mechanic. Every time you die, you’re brought back to the meditation platform where you can upgrade your stats and attach new perks to your character. When you head back out into the facility, the core rooms (ability rooms, crystal rooms, boss rooms, barrier rooms) stay in the same location, but the general layout between those rooms changes. The routes will always be familiar but never the same, like reality is warping more and more each time you’re brought back from oblivion.
Second, and my personal favorite, the mobs. The enemies in Sundered actively hunt you, often in groups. It can be nonstop at times, especially in the Holy City. This provides a decent challenge at the start of the game, and a power fantasy towards the end of the game. Keep in mind, the constant flood of enemies is a good thing only because the game gives you the necessary tools to handle it from the get go. Your movement is incredibly fluid, Eshe moves like a breeze and hits like a hurricane. Dodge through a group of enemies, cut them down from behind, wall run up to a flying enemy and combo them, slam back down into a tougher enemy. Combat is such a high point in this game, it’s used for multiple puzzles i.e. use gongs to call in multiple flying enemies so you can use the air combos to move your way up the map, literally climbing through attacking, incredible. It can take a little bit of time for your combat skills and stats to really get going, but once it does, it’s great.
The third and final highlight of the game combines two vital aspects, story and gameplay, and does so seamlessly. Finally, a game that shows instead of tells. It’s a metroidvania, so you collect new abilities as you explore the map, which then recontextualize other portions of the game, allowing you to access new paths, levels, and more abilities, it’s only ever building upon itself. You get these abilities from giant golden ability shrines found throughout the three different maps.
Each of these areas have multiple mini bosses that you either fight in a specific room or will actively hunt you throughout the map, and each area has a main area boss. Defeating three mini bosses will net you a 1 of 3 crystal fragments, while defeating the area boss will net you a full crystal. Each area has a single crystal fragment hidden somewhere in the level as well. You must defeat all three area bosses before you can move on to the final boss.
These crystals are the most important part of the game. Here’s where the “Ludo-Narrative Harmony" comes in. Each crystal is a fragment of the God who’s now inhabiting this world and granting you your powers. When you get a full crystal, you’re given one of two options, take it to one of the many ability shrines throughout the world, which are now glowing with a sinister purple energy, or take it to the single Valkyrie Forge deep within the base.
Taking it to the forge will destroy the crystal and net you a good chunk of points to upgrade your stats, unlock portions of the upgrade tree that would be unavailable to you otherwise, and the vital ability to equip a fourth perk, rather than the default three. Taking it to one of the ability shrines will allow you to pick a single ability to evolve and imbue with power, a token of your enslavem- AHEM - Devotion. Using the crystal on one of your abilities will vastly improve it. For example, if you upgrade your shield, there’s a high chance that when it breaks, it will erupt in a circle of damage around you. Double jumps will allow you to glide, wall running becomes available much sooner than a resist playthrough, the Valkyrie Cannon becomes a laser rather than a ball of energy that hits way harder the longer you hold it down. It’s free real estate, until it comes to your soul, of course. Power comes at a price.
The final boss and ending are determined by either embracing the corruption or resisting it. No spoilers, as you should see it for yourself, but my one remark is to commit. There are three possible endings, the first you’ll get if you mix what you do with the crystals, or if you don’t find all of the crystals. The other two endings are dependent on destroying every crystal or corrupting yourself further through every crystal.
Each ending is great, and the bosses you fight for both the Corruption and Resistance endings are the cherry on top, each demanding you use what you’ve learned to the fullest extent. Easy 5/5, the easiest one I’ve given out in a while, and a stellar addition to the Lovecraftian genre. Thunder Lotus has easily won a fan for life, and while I’m not emotionally strong enough to play Spiritfarer, I will gladly buy At Fate’s End day one.
