SYNTHETIK 2

It's alright but not a game I can play for more than one or two runs at a time. There are a lot of elements of mechanical skill in the early game, but all of that goes out the window once you progress a few areas and trip over some gear. If you got good gear, you mop the floor with anything that shows up, and if you got bad gear you get mopped instead, and no amount of mechanical skill is going to do a very good job of offsetting that dynamic. Majority of your mid and late game performance is going to be decided by how overpowered the things you picked up are and if they sync up with whatever else your character can do. I get it, its kind of the hallmark of the genre. There are also a LOT of subtle systems that are tugging at the seams for attention when really it feels like just blasting things with a ♥♥♥♥ ton of damage is the best play. Like, for instance you have:[list] [*] Armor Penetration [*] Over-penetration [*] Round deflection/bouncing/fragmentation [*] Multiple ammo technologies (broad classes of ammo like AP, AM, Ballistic, Laser) [*] Multiple ammo types (subclasses of technology like AP pentrator, AP surplus, AP standard) [*] Buffs, Debuffs, and Status Effects (bleeding, radiation, etc) [*] Various mechanics specific to guns themselves (heat, rate of fire, recoil, dispersion while on the move, ammo capacity, ammo regen, free shot chance, extra shot chance, pellets fired per shot, ammo cost per shot, active reloads, etc)[/list] All of these things and more are potential effects that can come up from items, modifiers, or guns. That gives a ton of levers for the game to push around, but really i'd estimate that about 60-70% of these things don't really come into play in a significant way for most things. They're neat to know about, but not all of them are something you can really actively choose to exploit unless you start collecting multiple items or upgrades over the run that lend to the specific niche they're in. Most of my looping runs were just because I picked up something like the nailgun and an attachment option was the i9000 God Chip that can randomly make a pellet do 5000 damage instead of its usual 100 or whatever it does, so it instantly flattens most things. The action in this game is very fast paced and very lethal for the most part. You need to do a lot of cover hugging, a lot of forcing the AI to come to you, and a lot of stutter stepping to manage recoil and actually get accurate shots. The other problem comes from enemy AI pretty much being able to instantly flatten you if they stare at you for longer than two seconds while you're still, which only gets worse the longer the game goes on. The difficulty modifiers available are limited for some reason. I like playing against the armored enemies modifier, but for some reason I have a limited number of times I am allowed to play this modifier. I haven't found any information about where you actually get these modifiers from, or maybe that info is hidden in a submenu somewhere and I just haven't looked in the right place. But that brings me to this point: The UI/UX for this game needs a lot of work. The devs have recently made some improvements to it, but there are a lot of things missing and frustrating about the UI itself:[list] [*] Lots of menus like class selection or equipment selection will stay open until you make a choice, even if you go to a different menu or try escape. You have to click on one of the options instead of the game just deciding you don't want to change from what was selected and closing the menu. [*] I didn't even realize there were meta progression upgrades available until I had played several decently long solo matches and bought out literally all of them instantly. [*] There's a woman you can accept quests from (also for meta progression and to unlock some of the classes that are for some reason locked) and I also did not find her until I was well into the game. [*] You specifically have to turn in your quests to get your currency from them instead of them just auto-completing. Same deal for quests not just auto-starting... there's only five of them, they are entirely linear, there is literally no reason to make the player specifically go ask for them and specifically go hand them in like it would be interfering with something else to allow that [*] The in-game mod browser is abysmal. There's really no sorting or filtering besides the pre-existing filters they've set up.[/list] I only found out after about 50 hours that you can go into the armory of everything you've ever found and apply supply tokens to things to make them more likely to appear. As far as I was aware this wasn't even explained anywhere, I just hadn't decided to click on the button until that moment. I don't think it's a BAD game. There's a lot going on under the hood and they have a good core down... but it is not the type of game I can see myself replaying repeatedly as I've even started to recognize the layouts of maps in their entirety. I am mostly marking "not recommended" so this review has some chance of actually being seen by someone considering purchasing the game.

I hate saying this, because the game has amazing bones. I bought this for my steam deck, and the performance and controls were abysmal. Coop is also messy. The reticle is finicky, even with extensive tweaking to the sensitivity. The controls never feel right, even with the ability to rebind. I tried several setups and nothing felt intuitive or good. The performance on deck also leaves much to be desired. A lot of slowdown and stuttering, and it looks a bit washed out. Lastly, I tried playing coop with my friend and it would just crash or not work at all. I had to return it. I could not justify my frustration I will repurchase this should controller support and performance ever be optimized. The dev has the capability: just look at what a masterpiece the OG Synthetik was.

There's a core of a good game in here - but it still feels like they are still trying random things and see what works without really having a plan and iterating on it. In the year in which they want to release the game. There are effects and concepts in the game that have been introduced after years of early access - and still feel like someones first draft of a concept. Recent updates... ...changed camera zoom and FOV - in a top-down shooter, after *four* years. ...introduced a strange barely functional 'mail reward' system from the mid 2010s ...flashbanged you when hovering over an item in the interface. That's just some picked cherries. Thes errors get fixed or at least mitigated eventually - but it's so weird that they make it into a major update in the first place. All the while bosses still miss basic sound effects and mechanics. And the worst part is that this sloppiness can be found in the gameplay as well. I'm re-iterating myself. In the end: I'm wary whether they can deliver a consistent, finished product. So test it for yoursef, but be wary.

this ♥♥♥♥ is ass.

I'm sorry I love the game but constant hitching and performance so bad it crashes the entire Steam client with it is crazy work

Look, Gamer™. You could run on over, and spend 40-80 dollars on a mid-ass game, or you could play one of the most satisfying rogue-lite games in the genre. This title genuinely rewards skill mastery and tactical gameplay in a sea of auto-aim, ghost-train dross. Super-ChatGPT wants to kill the world, and it's up to you to stop it. Go in, get killed, hike up your diapies, and do it again. Slam a can of Mountain Dew and use the power of anime to kill everyone around you with their own bullets while an electric guitar hypes you up. Explode a cop by teleporting inside him and then become "The One", slowing time, leaving enemies nearly helpless inside the temporal quagmire. Unleash the power of Satan from any instance of damage that isn't directly from a trigger pull. Kill yourself with a radioactive 12.7mm anti-materiel round that ricocheted off the opposite wall. Turn a single dead enemy into a horde of active gun-drones that will square up to anything. Get griefed by an influencer's turret. These are fairly entry-level interactions, and the game only goes up from there. If that isn't enough to at least pique your interest, I'm not sure what will.

Could you do something to improve the performance ? I can play games that look much better than this one, but here I'm only getting between 10 and 20 frames per second. Plus, this game lacks dynamism, which is really a shame. for now i can't recommand this game.

Trash performance, my GPU and CPU are cooking even though my PC exceeds recommended system requirments.

Surprisingly difficult. In-run upgrades are meaningful and enjoyable, however they need more variety. Roguelite, out-of-run upgrades are almost non-existent. All classes feel varied and unique. Shooting feels good, the headshot, spray deviation, and heat mechanics all add substance. Weapons don't necessarily feel balanced correctly (I feel as though some lower rarity weapons are quite a bit stronger than their high tier counterparts), however they do feel unique enough to warrant each player having their own preferences. Difficulty modifiers feel challenging and aptly rewarding. Enemy variety isn't massive, but they all have extremely clear visual language and are distinct enough to be very fun to engage with on a gameplay level. Zero issues with visual clutter or performance issues. The UI needs a passthrough for clarity; for example, Pulse Kick and Seismic Impulse (two abilities on the Demolisher class) say they remove "additional plating". In the tooltip, Seismic Impulse states it removes 2 plating, while Pulse Kick doesn't say how much it removes. Similarly, the description for Pulse Kick has a plating icon next to the word, while Seismic Impulse does not. These small discrepancies are everywhere. Another example: you can purchase something that adds a perk to your weapon; however, if you have 4/4 perks, it replaces one, without warning, without saying it will do so, and without choice as to which one. Outside of this, the actual UI design is, uh, clearly made in Unity (derogatory) Another bit of feedback: the end run screen should let you hover your abilities, perks, weapons, etc., to see their total uptime, usage amounts, kills, accuracy, etc.

Cant the robits