VERSUS: The Deathscapes

I came into Versus: The Deatscapes with a bittersweet taste after my experience reading through The Hero Project: Open Season, leaning on the statement that this was meant to be the last entry in the merge of these two universes. The first Heroes Rise trilogy was one the most exhilarating experiences in the CoG titles, and Zachary Sergi was one of their best authors. I expected a conclusion, blindly hoping for a satisfying payoff in the same level of skill the author had already demonstrated to be capable of. At some point along the way, he stopped focusing on making stories that stood on their own and began imprinting his world views and personal experiences into his games, to the culminating point of shoving them down people's throats. These games do not feel like stories to be experienced and molded by the player, but conversations with Zachary's inner psyche, so much so that he titles the entire grouping of them the "Sergiverse", after his name. While this was most prominent in The Hero Project and in the second installment of Versus, The Deathscapes was not an exception. While I took the time to express my frustrations (and pleasures) of playing through his most recent titles in detail on other reviews, this is not necessary for this one. This entry is more of the same: a bloated experience, riddled with inconsistencies, weak subversions used as clutches to not have to deal with consequences from previous choices, hypocritical characters taken for wise, silliness and seriousness mashed together, and extremely unsatisfying payoffs. This rushed story feels like a fanfiction-level of science fantasy for teenagers. Years of waiting, multiple playthroughs of various titles, perfect runs, achievement hunting... all of it as investment from the players in expectation of a finale that was worth it, and I did not get it. Ironically, the fact that every character and event in the story reflects a personality trait from the author turned out to be at times calming, for me, because it's possible to tell that Zachary has learned from criticism and gained experience in the process. It was pleasing to see his morality developed. But that is not enough, because I did not come to Versus looking for a conversation with a reflection of the author's mind or moral progress, I came for the conclusion of a major arc being set up over a long time, over many games, and when I got to the end... IT DID NOT HAPPEN. The game even had the audacity of telling me that my ending was not cannon. And the time for the "Heroes to Rise again" (the tie with stories from The Hero Project) never arrived either. Versus: The Deatscapes persists on mistakes that most CoG titles make, may not offer a satisfying conclusion as it was promised, and while it is an improvement in preachiness over the previous titles, it still falls short on many essential levels. As a game, it gives you a large variety of railroaded pre-destined paths, as most CoG titles do; but do not expect your choices, previous or current, to have meaningful consequences, and all stats serve only to classify and restrict you. As a story, it is a convoluted mess that is hard to feel attached to when everything is built towards fulfilling the author's personal quotas and checklists. Versus will tell you what your character knows to be the best, will spit on your face, may not offer you the promised conclusions, and will top it all by pausing the progression by offering spiritual teaching and microtransactional clutches for elements that, in other titles, are a natural given. While in frustration I will still scour the game for the "canon" ending (what a ridiculous thing for the final entry in a Choose Your Own Adventure game), I can safely state that I will never purchase and read another book from the author, and will more closely look for the various gems in the Hosted Games entries instead.

So I was super excited for this book, it was promised to be a great conclusion and crossover to answer the questions raised at the end of the Hero Project sequels. Alas, I was sadly disappointed with Versus: the Deathscapes for a few huge reasons. This game was called "the conclusion to the VERSUS trilogy" but in all honesty it felt like more of a build up to whatever is supposed to come next. It also promised a tie-in with the Heroes Rise series... but that never came and left me really disappointed, since I really only picked up Versus in the hopes of finding out what happens to my hero from the original Heroes Rise trilogy in the first place. I really dislike the Hero Project sequels to the Heroes Rise trilogy but I read them both for this same reason of following my original protagonist. Apart from this extremely unsatisfying finish and lack of Heroes Rise tie-ins, you spend 2 previous books building up relationships (and romances) with characters only to have most of them taken out of commission for the bulk of this story and you're lumped together with a bunch of people you hardly know (with a few exceptions). I found this very irritating, since I honestly didn't care much for the majority of the characters I was forced with for this book.

It seems to me like the author got bored of his original concept of the whole "stuck on a hunger games esque planet with a bunch of aliens", and in the end it rushes through events that had been building up since the first book. If the series had relied more on its first concept and skipped the hundreds of boring floaty dream-flashbacks that take up 90% of the books of characters you don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about then this series could have been something interesting. Furthermore I chose to stay neutral in the lackluster conflict of the second game and instead of giving that option its own path, you are thrust into one of the ideologies which potentially goes against your chosen romance option. In the second book, it's explained that you don't really have a choice in the matter which is incredibly ironic for a "choose your own adventure game". But none of that matters anyway [spoiler]since almost the entire original cast (including your romance options) are incapacitated at the start of the third book with only have a few scant lines at the end.[spoiler] This series is an inconsistent mess with awful pacing and such a disappointment from the original Heroes trilogy.

This is the conclusion to Versus series. Except there is no conclusion. Deathscapes mostly drops all plot threads from previous games. The politics from Trials, nah dropped. Romances, mostly absent. The scary abominate? Casually dispatched by the Villain. Also the books namesake area, the Deathscapes is present as extremely dangerous, then mostly casually skipped. Whats not skipped is the pseudo-philosophical babble introducing not one but two religions, that don't really matter after the introduction. Noticing a pattern? Everything in this books feels so rushed, shallow and meaningless. It should have been delayed by a year, so the author could flesh out everything. And last two crimes it commits are the absence of an conclusion of any kind and shilling a comic book at the end. The "ending" of this books set up a arguably more interesting event to come, think Mass effect one Sovereign and reapers, [spoiler] Vaccus being a scout and the real blot army approaching from the galactic void[/spoiler] . The problem being this is the conclusion of the Versus series. Meaning our character won't appear or will be minor npc with no personality or character in the follow up series. This alone makes three Versus books feel like prologue that wont ever be concluded. Also at the very end it shills a comic book, that continues the general plot or something, never touched or will touch it.

I wish there was a way to make a neutral recommendation. I'm sure some people will love this game, especially if they loved the first two - I'd say it's worth paying the money to find out. My objections below are quite personal and I'm not sure how many players will share them. They revolve around the romance subplot; if that's not something you're interested in, my review can be safely skipped, but fellow romance junkies may want to read on. Mild spoilers ahead! I did enjoy the first two games and the first bit of this one was just as interesting. Unfortunately, it started to fall apart when [spoiler]my chosen love interest - the one my character was finally starting to develop a real relationship with - disappeared for what felt like most of the story[/spoiler]. It then [i]completely[/i] fell apart when [spoiler]that chosen love interest turned out to be someone else entirely, someone I didn't want to romance at all[/spoiler]. I don't know if this happens with all the romance options or I just got unlucky, but in any case, it was very disappointing and killed any motivation to finish the game.

Game was very disappointing and leaves you on a cliffhanger with no satisfying conclusion.

I loved the sense of being thrown into a whole new world in Book 1, and enjoyed the thought of learning more about the mystery and characters of Versus. Book 2 enhanced my fulfillment of the series by turning it into a story of intrigue and politics, where it wasn't just about beating stuff up, but about simply surviving against something more massive than your puny mortal power or comprehension. ....I feel like book 3 took all that suspense and character development and shoved it out the window. I was fine when half of the cast was put on the bus, since I understood it was a chance to develop other characters. I liked how the stakes were raised, even if the tonal shift was a bit abrupt. I just felt let-down by the pay-off. All the investigating, politicking, and careful character choices were rendered moot. I mean, it's a game. It was always going to be moot, but it would've been more fun getting to that point if the ending had been satisfying. It was not. And now I'm disappointed -Not mad! "Disappointed." The reveal of the mystery also felt a bit anticlimactic. It's a five-dollar text-based game. You get words worth your money, but the narrative kinda collapsed towards the end when most challenge or meaning to your choices fell off the window sill. If I had to name the main downfall; it would be the large number of exposition dumps where things could have been spaced out more, maybe involving more character dialogues. That's what I always liked about Zachary Sergi games. Not just the world, but the characters. Character-building was what Book 3 lacked.

FInally, it is the end of the Versus Series, I liked initial Heroes Trilogy by the author. It was greatly written, so I got into this series. Firstly, kudos to the author for the extensive world building and character backgrounds. Unfortunately, for me it was a lot gibberish mumbo-jumbo that was tedious for me to replay past games and refresh, this was an issue of other spin-off series as well. The summary recap was good enough. World building aside, the core story is actually [spoiler] You an alien must work with other aliens of same galaxy must find galaxy savior to beat alien from another galaxy and be new galaxy superheroes [/spoiler], too bad there is alot of new gameplay and character infos thrown in consistently to enjoy the story. Lot of character development written nicely but way too deep to be cared for. Romance subplot is almost none. I bought this just to know the ending of the series. Gameplay, the motivation and final choices are very good too. Buy only if you are a fan of the author's "universe". BTW, only get the hint DLC for simpler choice making, others irrelevant to gameplay experience. 6/10 Versus: The Deathscapes from SergiVerse

I really enjoyed the first two parts of the series, but the last one was really boring. The third one was full of lots of boring battles, messy plot, and less romantic scenes than the first two, to be honest, I have no interest in Who Dhanthik is, and he runs through it to the end

I think there’s only a handful of games that has impacted me where my reality has been shifted to absorb this change; With this game now becoming another one, I have to write a detailed review that emasculates just how much I’ve learnt about myself and connected with characters from this novel. First and foremost, we must take into consideration that it took the author 5 years to complete the final book which I believe waiting for, was worth it. However, some spelling mistakes and bugs do appear erratically; less than 10 mistakes altogether which is tolerable considering it is a 30k worded game after all. One thing new readers must be prepared for is that with every book, an overhaul of changes come into play, either in the stats screen or in the direction that the game is headed. It was clear here compared to the previous books that things were very linear. With a plethora of things going your way for once, it was an unusual change from the first two books, seeming much... easier. I definitely understand why this change had to have happen with the direction this particular book went, it allowed the final confrontations that was slowly building up from previous books to finally reach the climax. The fights felt surreal and vivid, I could fully immerse myself in the environment laid out for me to play with and the fact that I had pure emotions such as disdain, empathy, appreciation and more, for most characters in the game showed that the character building was breathtaking. The main part of this game, which I personally believe to be the most enlightening and main strength of the book was the concept of spiritual awareness. I have grown and evolved to understand the true power within one self thanks to this, with the concept faced against organised religions often similar to the religions in our own society. From the game/novel giving you the endless opportunities to reflect upon oneself and thy ethos rather than forcing you to pick a choice based purely to benefit you story-wise, you were made to take your time to question what makes you, not the character, authentic. This revelation allowed me to understand what it meant to be human, to have everything you believe in challenged, and yet embrace this change to evolve. I commend the author (Sergi) for creating a detailed multiverse where lives are intertwined within each other even on the most minuscule scale and I definitely plan to continue reading his future works; To have the capacity to allow readers to personally learn and evolve alongside the main character on this journey, to understand we are blessed to be imperfect and to embrace this beautiful curse, is great. The only negative that I had was regarding romances as it felt much linear and that apart from key relationships, some would not totally be touched upon. The transition towards the end with a certain romance path was certainly weird as it did not necessarily make sense. But apart from that, I am happy with the game as it leaves the rest to my imagination while perfectly concluding my story. This game is bound to leave you with life lessons learnt, and with the added bonus of meaningful quotes you can apply to live by, this is more than enough to justify purchasing.