Relic Odyssey review

2024-09-07 12:33:01 +02:00
parent d051309253
commit ef9e221f27
2 changed files with 71 additions and 1 deletions
@@ -0,0 +1,70 @@
+---
+title: "Relic Odyssey: Surprisingly Good after a Rough Start"
+category: [ "Review" ]
+tags: ["Review", "Exploration", "Action", "Shooter", "First-Person" ]
+---
+
+<p class="block">A few months ago I was playtesting "Relic Odyssey: Ruins of Xantao", and at the time it was terrible: riddled with bugs, grindy mechanics, poor design choices, and so on. I shared my feedback with the developer and held off on publicly reviewing it, hoping for improvements but expecting the usual behavior. To my surprise, some of the concerns have been addressed in an update, so why not take a new look?</p><!--more-->
+
+<alert class="block" data-type="info"><b>Disclosure:</b> I received a free review copy of this product via <a href="https://game.page/relicodyssey/Xaymar" target="__blank">KeyMailer</a> from <a href="https://www.honourboundgamestudios.com/" target="_blank">Honor Bound Game Studios Inc</a>. I did not receive additional compensation for this review. This review contains my personal opinion only.</alert>
+
+<p class="block">These days games tend to have the habit of permanently damaging your hearing with loud music and sounds when started. So imagine my surprise when I started the game, and it was already at a pleasant volume. Throughout the entire play test I did not have to adjust the volume of anything once, and could just lose myself in the game. Continuing on with the game itself, I created a new save file, and entered the game... 's tutorial section.</p>
+
+<p class="block">For unclear reasons, the developers chose to frontload the game with an unnecessary amount of information, instead of teaching through gameplay itself. I thought we had solved this problem with the release of Half Life 2 in 2004, but it appears that isn't the case. This section of the game is too long, with even my fastest attempts on average spending 10 minutes in this section. Some of the NPCs walk slow enough that I can make an instant coffee and be back before the NPC has reached its destination.</p>
+
+<figure class="block" style="float: right; clear: both; width: 33%; max-width: 256px;">
+	<img src="https://share.xaymar.com/view/b4ff5573-3847-4e32-a2c5-fcd2816052df">
+	<figcaption>Help, I broke the sky.</figcaption>
+</figure><p class="block">This was one of my gripes with the first playtest, but at least they're now a bit faster than back then. Progress is progress. Once you're through the tutorial section, you can either explore the area around your base, or go digging into the main part of the game. You explore for resources that can only be found in the "overworld", and go digging for common resources and story progress. I had already done enough exploration by speedrunning the tutorial section, so I went with the latter.</p>
+
+<p class="block">Both sections of the game are mostly the same. You find something interesting, explore it, kill any hostiles (and anything non-hostile, no witnesses), loot resources and items, and then return. For the digging & delving part, you'll sometimes stumble upon a dungeon, which you can delve into, shifting focus to killing hostiles before looting. These dungeons tend to be relevant to story progression mainly, but occasionally hold important material for improving yourself.</p>
+
+<figure class="block" style="float: right; clear: both; width: 33%; max-width: 256px;">
+	<img class="block" src="https://share.xaymar.com/view/34dad308-97ac-4bd7-91fd-3b861a3b0005">
+	<figcaption>What can be looted here?</figcaption>
+</figure><p class="block">Exploring itself is mostly walking around and occasionally using the scanner you're given to check if there is a resource. It helps with figuring out what is interactive and what isn't too, but unfortunately it isn't all that helpful. I've encountered several resources that were interactive but weren't highlighted by the scanner, and the other way around too.</p>
+
+<figure class="block" style="float: right; clear: both; width: 33%; max-width: 256px;">
+	<img class="block" src="https://share.xaymar.com/view/6b6886e0-bee5-47f0-b12b-b170921446bb">
+	<figcaption>Oh, I see.</figcaption>
+</figure>
+<p class="block">The game very clearly lacks visual clarity and distinctive visuals for interactive and non-interactive objects. It opts to instead force you to use a clunky time limited mechanic that recharges at a snails pace to pad out the game further. It almost felt like I was playing a mediocre Triple-A title at times...</p>
+
+<p class="block">And unfortunately that's when it hit me: The entire "overworld" area and "story" could be cut out entirely, shifting focus entirely to the digging and delving part. It would tighten the gameplay loop significantly, reducing the boring parts, and wouldn't cut away any significant material or immersion at all. That's something you only see from your average Triple-A title with the Open World Collect-A-Thon, and isn't something you want in your game.</p>
+
+<p class="block">Anyway, overall the game is currently fun, but over extended periods tends to get boring quickly. It lacks the "punch" or "catchiness" of similar titles, and is very clearly still unfinished. The developers behind it also appear to have big plans, but if they can make those plans reality is a different story entirely.</p>
+
+<h1 class="block" style="clear:both;">The Good, Bad and Ugly</h1>
+
+<h2 class="block">The Good</h2>
+<ul class="block">
+	<li>I still have my hearing despite launching the game, which is rather refreshing.</li>
+	<li>Sound effects and music appear to be balanced well enough to not be distracting</li>
+	<li>The style for each area fits together and suggests actual design choices took place, and is often nice to look at.</li>
+	<li>The crafting and research systems is free of timer-ities, which has infected the majority of games out there.</li>
+	<li>Procedurally generated dungeons have proper length for enjoyable delving, and aren't overly complex. They do lack a bit of variety however.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<h2 class="block">The Bad</h2>
+<ul class="block">
+	<li>Some assets have occlusion boxes larger than themselves, resulting in visible gaps in the world.</li>
+	<li>Awful performance which appears to come from having Shadows enabled.</li>
+	<li>Sometimes textures and models don't load in properly, with no reason for why.</li>
+	<li>Much of the game is unnecessarily padded out, probably to make up for a lack of timer-ities.</li>
+	<li>All bosses encountered in dungeons are laughable easy, often avoidable by inching slightly to the left.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<h2 class="block">The Ugly</h2>
+<ul class="block">
+	<li>There's hardly any feedback for being shot or shooting something and it makes combat feel horrible.</li>
+	<li>The voice acting is horrendous at times, often sounding like AI generated slop.</li>
+	<li>A complete lack of visual distinction between what is and isn't interactive makes this game a nightmare for 90s Adventure Game haters.</li>
+	<li>Randomly resources just don't want to be gathered, for no apparent reason.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<h1 class="block">Final words</h1>
+<p class="block">As it currently is, my recommendation is "if you've got nothing better". The game is still in Early Access, so its current state isn't representative of the final product, and that shows in many areas. Who knows what progress the developers manage to make by the end of next year, maybe it'll be nothing like what's described here. I've linked the game's page below for your own perusal.</p>
+
+<iframe class="block" src="https://store.steampowered.com/widget/2297960/" frameborder="0" width="646" height="190"></iframe>
+
+<p class="block">I don't know why the Store page is "The ruins of Xantao", but the game itself is titled "Ruins of Xantao".</p>
@@ -2,4 +2,4 @@
 import("./js/lazyload.mjs");
 import("./js/highlight.mjs");
 import("./js/mediaplayer.mjs");
-import("./js/mediabox.mjs");
+//import("./js/mediabox.mjs");