Morrigan wrote:
Um, OK:
- Good, methodical, non-button-mashy combat requiring good timing, spacing and observation, with responsive controls, weighty animations and precise hitboxes
Check, with an emphasis on good timing: the key new mechanic (executions) requires you to actually hold the key for some time (which varies with the limb you're trying to cut: heads come off the fastest, bodies - the slowest), meaning that enemies can easily retaliate in the process. Also, timing consecutive attacks in a combo just right allegedly costs you less stamina to perform them, Lords of the Fallen style, but there's no visual feedback to what's considered perfect timing this time, so I can't really say how significant a role it plays in reality. Can't attest to hitboxes though; I never experienced being hit when I felt I shouldn't have in Dark Souls II and people were complaining about the hitboxes there all the time, and the same goes for The Surge. YMMV.
Morrigan wrote:
- RPG mechanics that are not overly complicated, but deep enough to favour experimentation and customization (particularly weapon/build diversity that really change your playstyle and how you approach different situations)
Here's something I can't stress enough for the general populace - The Surge is a hack'n'slash/action adventure game. It's
NOT an RPG (not in a conventional sense, at least). It was never advertised as such, it's just something that caught on by proxy out of the numerous (some might say inevitably so, but I can't say the response by the Souls community to these types of games doesn't irk me a great deal to be honest) comparisons to Dark Souls. That's not to say it doesn't feature the things you've mentioned, but still worth pointing out. There's no sci-fi equivalent of a mage class, or a massive sheet of attributes you need to spend your limited pool of skill points on to define your playstyle - something that one might argue is actually more conductive to experimentation and customization than a traditional RPG setup. The various criteria you've mention actually require a detailed coverage of how leveling and other RPG aspects in this game work, so I will put this a spoiler tag for the sake of brevity (or if an hypothetical interested party would rather discover these on their own), feel free to skim through and see if it contains the answers you seek (good luck with that though):
The leveling-up system in this game boils down only to your increasing your "core level", i.e. the energy capacity of your rig. The energy capacity of your rig, in turn, basicaly determines how are you going to experience the game - they determine your level of access to certain areas in the game, what armor you can wear and the sort of implants you could equip. Level of access is probably the most straight forward to cover: throughout the game you'll run into circuits you could overcharge if you meet the core level criteron for them. These can be sorted into three groups - base core level (core level 10 - the game's equivalent of SL1 - is required to unlock all main quest related stuff as well as all the shortcuts to a given area's Ops Station, which serves as a mini-Firelink Shrine. And yes, I said "level" and a singular Ops Station, more on these later), low core level (up to 20-25 I think is required to access some optional stuff) and high core level (reserved to special crates, won't disclose their purpose though).
The armor in this game serves a twofold purpose - the obvious one (defences against different types of damage as well as stability - poise, if you will), and as a mean to alter some of your stats: each extremity has a set of attributes tied to it, to which each particular armor piece responds; your leg armor, for instance, might incur a bonus or a penalty on the stamina consumption while dodging or running, your body armor affects stamina regen, your arm pieces determine attack speed et cetera, with the expected balancing act to match (heavier armor means better defences and higher stability versus higher stamina consumption, that sort of thing). The fact that you can assign armor to each extremity independently (so you have head gear, body armor, two separate arms and two separate legs) gives you more room to control and balance these parameters (or just neglect them entirely and fashion your custom Optimus Prime), as well as more mileage out of an admittedly limited selection of armor sets (12-15 I think, can't check for sure right now). All armor pieces come in sets, and equipping a full set incurs a buff (like health regen, damage bonus at high health, that sort of things) as some sort of consolation prize for being boring. The armor pieces come at a price though - there's no encumberment limitation, however it's replaced with energy limitation, with each armor piece (as well as most implants) having an energy cost attached to it, and total sum of your armor and implants can not exceed the energy level your rig can provide. Seems like a good enough segue...
Implants. This is what dictates the bulk of your experience with The Surge, and are treated accordingly, often being your reward for exploring off the beaten path or completing side quests. These cover a large chunk of applications and often stack and synergize with others, and I don't want to prolong this wall of text fad infinitum and I still have some shit to cover, so I'll just summarize by say that we're looking at something that ranges from conveniences like seeing enemies health bars, through healing items, implants that increase each of your three pools (HP, stamina and energy, the latter is filled by successful strikes against an enemy, depletes outside of combat and is used to perform ancillary functions like executions, drone operation and healing - if the appropriate implant is equipped of course) that scale with your core power up to a stated limit, weapon buffs, and up to leftfield stuff like "bullet time". There's a great variety there (as well as upgraded versions of each implant that warrants it), there are synergies, there are benefits to stacking (equipping duplicates) - all of it has to contend over the limited amount of implant slots as well as the current energy capacity of your rig (your armor also takes up energy, mind).
Briefly on the subject of build diversity as it pertains to weapons - there are five subtypes of weapons in the game. Using a weapon from a certain subtype effectively (by hitting enemies, that is) increases your proficiency with that subtype. There are no other limitations to what weapons could you use (like strength/dexterity requirements) other than those inherent to each weapon type, so you're basically free to use whatever you like in theory. In practice, there's a balancing act involved - maining one weapon guarantees maximum increase in the weapon type's proficiency, but it also means you're limited to one tool, and there are certainly situations where a different weapon type would provide better results; if you're using several, you're better equipped to adapt but that also means that your proficiency gains are divided between more types rather than one.
Morrigan wrote:
- Intricate level design that reward exploration, worthwhile secrets to find, good loot
Check. Triple check on the first part if you like yourself some shortcut porn (remember the single Ops station part? There's one per area close to its entrance, and each area is designed with that in mind - they're mostly compact but packed, often borderline claustrophobic, but there always would be multiple shortcuts to unlock that somehow loop back to that single Ops station).
Morrigan wrote:
- Good art direction with striking visuals, especially in terms of monster/enemy design, and environments (memorable architecture, beautiful or grotesque landscapes, etc.)
Yeah, as SatanicPotato said, this is where we probably lose you
. I'll say this - the way the world is realized is extremely cohesive thematically, with everything "making sense" in look, purpose and placement in relation to the time period (we're talking around 50 years from now one, give or take), for better and for worse. Let's not muck around and focus on the "worse" here - while there's some variety in the locales - the sleek look of an R&D department doesn't look anything like the nitty-gritty of the production floor, for example, if the general setting coupled with the aforementioned cohesiveness sounds like a poor breeding ground for memorable architecture - that's because it probably is. Expect plenty of indoor environments and poorly lit corridors and service shafts. Pretty landscapes? I think I saw a glimpse of what I believe is the Nevada desert that one time, is that what you had in mind?
Morrigan wrote:
- Engrossing atmosphere, preferably dark and morbid and creepy, or hauntingly beautiful (e.g. Ash Lake)
I'd say yeah to atmospheric, but in a way that's not dissimilar to Doom 3, which I guess is not your thing. The NPC interactions deliver the morbid and creepy rather reliably though, which is a good thing they cared to take from Dark Souls' book but not relevant to the point really.
Morrigan wrote:
- Challenge: punishing on sloppiness and mistakes, but extremely rewarding upon success
Check.
Morrigan wrote:
- Non-intrusive, non-"cinematic" storytelling
Check.
Morrigan wrote:
- Minimal hand-holding (e.g. this
clever photoshop my worst nightmare xD)
"Minimal hand-holding" is rather apt. It feels like a good moment to disclose that the game is not a seamless open world, but rather an array of about 5 separate areas, with one serving as a hub to which the rest connect. The progression is also semi-linear/Metroidvania-very-lite, in that there's only one way you should be going to progress and are gently funneled through, but actually finding that way is on you, your observation skills and will to explore. You're always free to revisit previous areas though, and even encouraged to do so (the game gives very subtle hints about it that also rely on your observation skills, as well as a small hint
when it would be a good idea to do so, because it's considerate like that)
Morrigan wrote:
- Possibility of coop/PvP a big plus
U-uh. Single player only.
Morrigan wrote:
FWIW, for other Souls-likes, I also played Salt and Sanctuary and Lords of the Fallen, and found the former to be fantastic (and succeeding at every point above), and LotF to be largely failing, being okay at best (level design, environmental art), bad at worst (no customization, lack of depth in its RPG mechanics, terrible character designs, piss-poor and overly intrusive story, not very challenging, no real atmosphere or sense of dread and/or wonder) and generally just mediocre (everything else), on the above points. I played LotF once and have no desire to revisit it, but I replayed S&S several times trying different builds.
Watching videos of The Surge, especially knowing it's made by the LotF devs, didn't fill me with confidence. Sounds like LotF with better combat but worse art design.
Don't think I've mentioned it before, but my GOTY list for 2016 pretty much consist of Doom (obviously) and S&S as a runner up. DS3 is nowhere near it, mind. Not relevant to anythng, just something I felt like mentioning.
What
is relevant though, is to stress out yet again that Lords of the Fallen was
co-developed by Deck13, along with CI Games, with a former The Witcher dev directing it or something to that extent. No, I'm not being anally retentive for the lolz, because it might be worth noting that CI Games went on to make stellar smash hits like
Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 (back to the usual selves, in other words), The Witcher dude fucked off back to making
Souls/BB/etc. gameplay videos for all I care, and Deck13? Well, they made The Surge. I admit that going in, I was pretty much of the same mindset - these are some of LotF devs, so at worst it would be another enjoyable yet unremarkable romp. Going out though? I played, and still play, a game by a development team that actually
understand what made the Souls games special (stuff like intricate level design, attention care to tiny details just to appease the, like, two people who would actually notice this stuff, "show, don't tell"/storytelling by deliberate design, everything serves as a worldbuilding device, as well as the approach to challenge and general feel), then went ahead and made their own game out of it, which about sums up what I want out of my souls-likes. At worst and "objectively" speaking, it renders LotF moot as far as quality of gameplay is concerned. The setting is up to one's tastes, and I can respect that, however.
A little P.S: lately I've seen a bunch of videos about The Surge myself, and if the ones made by ParagonDS and Downward Thrust are some of the ones you've seen - do bear in mind that both of these are prone to the type of asshattery that a "let's get a video out as close to release as possible for viewz, integrity of content be damned" kind of mentality usually brings out as a byproduct.