Void Memory

[h1]Metroidvania meets Soulsborne in the worst possible way.[/h1] [b]EDITED REVIEW FOR THE "ADDENDUM"[/b] I would like to preface this addendum of my own by saying I really want to like this game. I honestly do. But there is still so much wrong with it that I can't recommend it in good faith. I replayed the whole game expecting it to be more balanced and approachable only to be sorely disappointed. Only one enemy was "balanced," the Red Zombie, which was impossible to handle pre-patch. Everything else that could have used some rework (enemy spells/mages, mini-bosses) did not get one. Some weapons feel worse off and only cemented the Mace and Iron Flail as being the best weapons while everything else is useless (either due to stamina consumption or attack speed). Items don't feel much different either and the healing items didn't feel like they were buffed much. Now, lets talk about the "New areas." They, sadly, suffer from the same issues as the base game. The mini-bosses there as well as the one boss I made it to are frustratingly unfair. They have more attack chains than your Stamina can handle and are able to warp around the area so you can't really outrun them to get some breathing room. The damage output of the one boss was so bad that she had two attacks that were OHKOs on my character. Whats worse is that one of them shares an animation with a much less severe attack. She also has a "predictive dodge" mechanic that will move her out of range and nullify your first attack chance which severely limits which weapons you can use and is compounded by the stamina issues. Because of all this, the rest of my review still stands as well as my rating. [b]The Good:[/b] Outfits – The one unique thing about this game. You can find outfits that can customize and change your characters appearance, and even gender. Unfortunately, that’s it. [b]The Bad:[/b] There is so much wrong with this game that I don’t even know where to start: [list] [*]Gameplay - [i]Void Memory[/i] fails to live up to the games it took inspiration from. Platformers are usually fair and make sense. If there is a floor below the one you are on and you see a hole above the floor below, logically, you should be able to jump into said hole for a possible shortcut, no? That is where you are wrong. [i]Void Memory[/i] places bottomless pits even in spots where you should drop down to the floor below. So good luck figuring out which hole is safe and which is death. Even worse is there is no way to have the camera move to check out any possible jumps you make. They are all leaps of faith. Another issue is that the developers decided to be cheap and make it so enemies get free kills on you. Anything that can shoot you, can knock you back and they tend to place them near bottomless pits, so have fun with that. They also took the idea that more enemies makes it more difficult which results in nothing more than artificial difficulty that is frustrating. [*]Lighting – The game seems to focus on your character and your character alone. In some areas, if it is out of the “Radius of Light” that focuses on your character, you will be staring at a black screen. It doesn’t help that this can cause trouble with platforming areas and even some bosses. [*]Combat - It starts off okay and then gets tedious as enemies will respawn as you move between screens. This is compounded by the fact that the developers either A) left an area barren with no enemies or B) loaded an area up with as many enemies as possible. The end result can usually be a cheap death or two as you try to deal with the melee enemies while the ranged ones rain death upon you. The other issue is the difficulty spikes of combat. It goes from no challenge at all to pure frustration that can lead to rage quits. This includes some enemies that can do obscene amounts of damage, shoot a never ending stream of magical homing projectiles (that launch you and/or stunlock you), or, with one hidden one, that can either yahoo kick your character off the cliff or launch them back into the next screen thus resetting the fight. [*]Controls - They respond. Most of the time. It was frustrating that many of my deaths resulted in the dodge failing because it failed to register. [*]Menu – There is none. At least not in the typical sense. [i]Void Memory[/i] decided to be innovative in the worst possible way by removing a player’s ability to access the menu at any given time unless it was at their “Bonfire” mechanic thing. It is only there that you can change out gear including weapons and sub weapons. What this means is that you may end up dying a cheap death because you literally can’t hit an enemy with your current set up such as the dogs (at least I think they are as you hear barking before they charge you). [*]Leveling up – Your level and HP go up. That’s about it. Your weapons seem to do a fixed amount of damage no matter how high your level goes. Worse yet, you never gain any form of defense meaning you can take a large amount of damage from some enemies and bosses unless your manage to dodge. [*]Story – I honestly have no idea what was going on with the few tidbits I got. Items have sparse information and NPCs are few and far between. It also doesn’t help that you need to return to the “bonfire” to read the new item description. I feel as if this hurts the lore potential as some items may relate to the location found in. [b]Conclusion:[/b] All in all, [i]Void Memory[/i] is a poorly made game that favors cheap and artificial difficulty over an actual challenge. Its own innovative design only hurt it more rather than allowing it to stand out. Avoid it at all costs unless you are a true masochist. [b]3/10[/b] [b]EDIT:[/b] [h1]Now with a mixture of Smash Bros. [/h1] I tried to be tenacious and keep playing in hopes that maybe it might get better only to find even more wrong with it. I would like to add that the Developer took inspiration from the Smash Bros. Series too. [*]Hitboxes – Sometimes the hitbox of your weapon will just not register. Now, I could understand if it was a smaller weapon, but when you are swinging a weapon twice the size of you and it goes through an enemy, one that you just killed 20 times before for it to not connect means there is something wrong. This happened to me over water which, in this game as most enemies tend to knock you back, you can’t swim in and is an instant death. [*]Stamina – The [i]Soulsborne[/i] game series allows their players to raise up their stamina meter in order to swing heavy weaponry more than once. Not in this game. Your Stamina meter is set to a fixed maximum amount which means you need to micromanage if you like swinging around building sized weapons. This can be frustrating if you decided to try out a new weapon only to find out that you can get about two swings off before you have little to no stamina left which leaves you with fewer dodging opportunities. This is only made worse in that you can not switch weapons until you get the next “bonfire” or return to a previous one. [*]Physics – I had mentioned earlier that there was a secret enemy that could yahoo kick you off a cliff or kick you back into the next screen to reset the fight. Little did I know I was actually playing Super Smash Bros. in disguise with my damage percentage set to 100%. While most enemies tend to launch you back enough to drop you over a bottomless pit to your death, there are a few that can send you flying across the screen like the aforementioned one. Even worse is that some bosses can launch you to the moon, or as close to the celling of the screen as possible. One of of the unscheduled skybound flights I experienced was with a downward slam attack, which should have put me down for a nap rather than launching in to the air. This is only made worse because if you are stuck in the air, you are a free target for any possible follow up attack as you can’t perform air dodges.

Только закончил прохождение этого отличного соулс лайка с видом сбоку, и захотелось поделиться своим мнением, ну и конечно поддержать разработчика Gustava. Интересное время мы наблюдаем когда казуальный шлак по типу симулятора камня или прочей рофельной хрени стоят отзывы очень положительные, а где разработчик приложил усилия и прописал интересных персонажей, создал неплохой мрачный мир, и в целом на мой взгляд разработал хорошую сложную игру так к тому же ещё и сделал её бесплатной, и наблюдаем всего лишь 147 положительных на целых 73 отрицательных отзывов, и в итоге у игры стоят смешанные обзоры, я считаю это абсолютно несправедливо, и игра заслуживает чтобы обзоры были хотя бы просто положительные. Читая отрицательные отзывы я убедился какие пользователи их оставляли наиграв 0,4 или 0,2 минут в игре, я просто мягко говоря в шоке большинство этих обзорщиков даже не наиграли пару часов, или даже меньше и просто не захотели хоть немного игре раскрыться, а побежали ныть в обзорах какая игра плохая, я прошёл немало соулс лайков и могу сказать, что да она сложная в некоторых моментах очень, но и удовольствие от пройденной игры будет значительно больше, чем в какой-нибудь казуальной хрени, в которой не надо думать, а просто жать одну кнопку и игра всё сделает за тебя, на кой хрен писать отрицательный отзыв если тут не игра виновата, а то что ты не хочешь уделить несколько часов, чтобы заучить тайминги и подобрать тактику, для того чтобы победить босса, хотя если учитывать момент сколько некоторые наиграли, там скорее дохли от обычных мобов. Ну вот немного побомбил так сказать, а теперь сам собственно обзор. Мы играем за пустого или как некоторые нпс говорят фальшивого человека, мир умирает, мы пытаемся найти осколки древнего артефакта чтобы после соединить и дальше не буду спойлерить, вообщем сюжет типичный для жанра соулс, но несмотря на некую вторичность, в игре есть очень много положительных моментов, о которых я напишу ниже. Первый момент, что особенно хочется выделить достаточно интересный проработанный мир, с разными скрытыми стенами, их тут немало, а лут очень даже приличный можно урвать, поэтому советую колотить как можно почаще по стенам, помимо лута можно обнаружить скрытый проход на локацию, которых тоже не сказать чтобы мало, ну и естественно там вас будут ожидать и боссы. Следующее знаю есть немало рпг игр в которых разработчики по каким то причинам не хотят чтобы броня менялась визуально в игре, здесь же её хоть отбавляй, если конечно бродить достаточно долго по локациям, и причём в какой-то степени сеты брони уникальные, некоторые вообще полностью меняют личность персонажа, видно, что разработчик старался, и как по мне визуальный стиль игры достаточно приятный, хоть и конечно многих отпугнёт простенькая графика. Ещё хочется добавить немного текста о локациях, они абсолютно не выглядят однотипно, каждая по своему в некотором роде необычная и выделяется разными противниками да и атмосферой в целом, сразу скажу на зимнюю локацию советую идти только после хорошо прокачаетесь, лично мне она показалась самой сложной на ней я умер очень много раз. Ну теперь можно переходить к самой боёвке не сказать бы что она простая, учитывая какая небольшая полоска выносливости у нашего персонажа, поэтому приходится рассчитывать каждый удар, и просчитывать противника, почти для каждого требуется свой подход, умирать придётся очень много, сразу говорю эта игра поблажек не даёт. Оружия в игре тоже немало, иногда можно будет завладеть снаряжением босса при победе над ним, анимация большинства оружия отличается и имеет свою уникальность и звуковой эффект естественно. Помимо основного оружия есть и дополнительное это может быть какой-нибудь пистолет или дробовик, ну или какая нибудь магия, игра выполнена в атмосфере викторианской эпохи, мне показалось, что разработчик вдохновлялся бладборном. Ещё хотелось бы написать о том что в игре нет парирования, и только уклонениями можно уходить от атак противника. Прокачка уровня занимает не так много времени, если хотя бы уделить некоторое время и пофармить мобов, а не бежать пытаясь всё сносить на своём пути. Немного напишу о предметах, которые будут давать некоторые преимущества нашему герою, уникальность также присутствует, как и в оружии, это не просто + к стамине, или плюс к живучести, а есть такие которые очень помогут в этом нелёгком пути, и смогут переломить ход битвы с некоторыми боссами. Для каждого оружия и предмета есть небольшие описания помогая немного разобраться в лоре игры, окунуться в этот мир было достаточно интересно. Про музыкальную составляющую тоже хочется написать в положительном ключе, приятные и некоторые эпичные мелодии буду радовать вас на протяжении всей игры, музыки не так много как хотелось бы, но она абсолютно не надоедает. Всем тру фанам соулс лайков рекомендую! https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3413020870

Good and challenging game. Boss fights are also pretty varied. The dodging involves stuff other than using phantom maneuver at the right time, which is pretty cool given how limited your character's mobility is. It's hard to see if enhance defense is still active or not. The light blue aura is hard to see since your character has a lot of white. I don't have this issue with enhance attack and enhance stamina so it's definitely the color. At first I died a few times from pressing Phantom Maneuver and not having directional key held down. Took a while to figure out why my Phantom just sat there and took lethal hits lol.

Since i don't have internet for my laptop where I live, steam has not recorded my actual playtime. I have played around 6 hours. It's ridiculous that you cannot open any menu until you are at a "bonfire". Not being able to change equipment when you want hurts experimentation. That's not getting into the problem with changing system settings. I have to manually close out the game and run it again because there isnt a way to open settings ingame or even go back to the title. This is especially bad when you're playing wih a controller and the tutorial gives you the keyboard controls. And then when I checked the gamepad controls on the menu, Two of the button where switched around so I ended getting paranoid about actually customizing them. To add insult to injury you have to figure which buttons are relevant to the "bonfire menu because it gives you the keyboard prompts. Your character controls rather stiffly. Attacks lack proper weight. When you're hit it, there's not really an animation. Your character just flings backwards(or forwards into the air. Every attack does this. It makes platforming even more of a chore and is one of the reasons why enemies aren't fun to fight. Unless I'm missing something there's no way to upgrade your healing which is a bit a problem in higher levels. The artstyle is pretty good regarding your character, npcs, enemies, and bosses, though some of the animations aren't that great. Locations are not as good. A lot of it is pretty blocky looking and amateurish at times. Platforming is terrible. In dark areas you have to rely on leap of faith jumps to see where can go. There's uneven terrain you don't know you can walk on. Backgrounds sometim looking like it can be platforms. A later level is a gauntlet of cheap, poorly thought traps that are often unavoidable with how they're positioned. Enemy placement is awful and exacerbates the bad platforming. Enemy spam, enemits on tiny platforms, enemies that make traps unavoidable, enemies that hit you from offscreen before you even realize they're there, etc. Bosses are hit and miss. When they're good they're really good, but when they're bad oh God. I want to like this game but there are so many glaring problems present. It's just so unpolished.

If you are a fan of the old side scrolling castlevania games, especially SotN, this is a must have. From mechanics to the music, void memory delivers an amazaing game experaince. The game lets you explore how you like with oodles of secrets lurking throughout. Combat can be challanging at times but, everything is fair. Be perapred to sink an easy 20 hours into your first play through. The only negative I have with the game is its lack of support for a full screen mode, which is not ground breaking for me at least. For under 5$ on sale, you would be getting quite the steal. Even the orginal price tag of 16.99 is worth it in my opinion.

You itching for a little bit of that Soulsy kinda Castlevania like action? I reckon Void Memory might just do the trick. I found this baby while desperately searching Steam for something to play that wasn't absolutely terrible and I'm damned glad I did. Keep in mind it's not a perfect game, there are times when it's a little too dark for comfort which can lead to MANY unfortunate but hilarious fall deaths and the enemies have two tiers, the trash mobs and the relentlessly irritating. Some of the translations are absolutely hilarious but this doesn't take away from the experience so much as enhance it with a few good chuckles. Despite the translations you can fully tell there's a nifty bit of lore going on in there with an awesome atmosphere and sweet, sweet tunes when there's music to be heard. The different weapons, accessories and sub items/weapons allow for a variety of playstyles and strategies to be formulated to fit every situation that might come your way. For some of the later bosses I'd completely rework my characters loadout to make my life easier. Speaking of bosses, that's where the game really stood out for me. The boss designs are absolutely fantastic and some of them fully test your mettle as a gamer. They felt great. Perhaps infuriating, almost exhausting at times but hot damn they felt great. At the price of 11 bucks or so, I'd buy it again. Absolutely delightful experience and I'd hope to see Gustav churn out some more of the good stuff in the future.

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THE POSITIVE: I like how smooth the combat feels, although the controls a little weird but you get used to it. the art style is gorgeous, and you can change the player model to many different cool appearances, it has a wide variety of weapons to use which encourages different playstyles. it even offers a side weapon. somewhat like Bloodborne. THE NEGATIVE: I was enjoying it very much until I finished the first half of the game, I reached an area so frustratingly difficult, I never played it again. Difficult as in: the run to the boss drains all your resources only for you to reach an overpowered 1 hit KO boss to finish the job and kill you instantly. And you can't change the resolution past 1600x1200. Not recommended for impatient and casual players like myself. If you like the difficulty then by all means go ahead and play it.

If steam has a rating called "Mixed", I would definitely rate this game that. Until then, let's just keep it negative now. It is a souls-like metroidvania with a long learning curve. Once you get the hand of it, it is a unique adventure to go through. Combat is clunky and requires some management. Every weapon has two-combo moveset. It is not recommended to fininsh due to the fact that the attack and dodge takes away so much stamina that makes you feel like you never exercise before––tired as hell. Plus all the bosses has a barrage of unforgiving movesets. That`s for later part. For story, you are a phantom summoned for the sake of collecting the broken "Relic" to...destroy the fractured world? Or save it? I am not quite sure what`s the meaning of my so-called "holy yet cruel crusade of relic-hunting". Almost all the lores come from dialogues, from a subjective point of view. Often time the clues I can find in game are enigmatic or straight up unrelated to the whole. As a result, levels becomes a multi-stage runthrough without in depth connection. Your progression transforms to following orders without question, a shame really for me who digs this game`s design and story. Remember the bosses I mentioned above? Here comes the part which I love/hate. I love how the bosses are designed, as well as their movesets. They are distinctive. However, I hate how unforgiving they are. On paper, their movesets are dope; in reality, they are ridiculous to a degree of losing fairness. Our protogansit`s only way of evasion is to dash forward. The problem is the AOE bosses have are often long and lasting. It is hard to tell whether the skill is over, or did I successfully escape. Mistakes are made, and half of the health vansih. Most unbalanced one is Grammartys.Being the earlly challenging main boss I don`t even know how many time I got kick in the ass by this damnable montrosity. Let`s keep it this way: imagine in Dark Souls 3, put Pontiff Sulyvahn to where Abyss Watchers is, and ampflies his speed and range. That's HIM. NG+ is hell. The difficulties rank up because there are more late-game enemies in begining, and they all hit like trucks. To this point our protagnist is a true paper doll––two-shot by everything. This is a cheap way to cover new difficulty. Bosses are even more unforgiving than before. Faster. Stronger. And larger AOE. I don`t even know why I bother finish it again considering there`s no true rewards other than achievements.(which I am obessive with, so screw myself then.) To ravel it all, I only recommend this game for first time playthrough. Other than that just don`t. DON'T.