ULTROS Review

Ultros

ULTROS is a psychedelic Metroidvania the place you get up stranded on The Sarcophagus — a cosmic uterus holding an historical, demonic being. Trapped within the loop of a black gap, you’ll have to discover The Sarcophagus and meet its inhabitants to know the half you play within the unending cycle of rebirth.

Launched

February 13, 2024

Developer

Hadoque

Execs

• Gorgeous Visuals And Hauntingly Stunning Soundtrack
• Participating Story With A number of Endings
• Distinctive Gameplay That Mixes Hack n Slash Fight With Tender-handed Gardening

Cons

• Missing A Actual Problem In Fight Encounters
• Navigational Shortcomings Lead To Some Irritating Moments

As an avid Metroidvania gamer, I’m all the time looking out for the following large one to catch my eye. And let me let you know, ULTROS and its psychedelic artwork model didn’t simply catch my eye — it burned a kaleidoscope-shaped gap by way of the middle of my mind. It’s been an expertise of exploration, experimentation, and surprise, all topped off with a minor dose of frustration.

ULTROS takes place on The Sarcophagus, a big house station aimlessly floating in some distant nook of house. Regardless of what the identify implies, The Sarcophagus is something however devoid of life. Actually, it’s functionally a big womb, performing as a house for all method of alien wildlife, just a few wayward explorers, and, most significantly, a big, incubating demon identified solely as ULTROS. You get up someplace on board, uncertain of who or the place you’re, and got down to discover solutions.

A hauntingly lovely soundtrack of violins and eerie synth pads fills your ears as you acquaint your self with the colourful, alien setting surrounding you. And as you discover every of the distinctive biomes, slowly taking out the incubating shamans fueling ULTROS’ progress and dispelling the phantasm ensnaring each dwelling factor on board, you’ll expertise a number of loops — cycles of rebirth the place you’ll should relearn abilities and reacquaint your self with areas which have advanced because of your actions or inactions within the earlier cycle.

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The core gameplay parts are a mixture of hacking and slashing your manner by way of hostile fauna whereas additionally taking part in gardener, fastidiously selecting between a wide range of plant sorts that will help you navigate the alien landscapes, resolve puzzles, and gas your talent development. Fight is pretty fundamental, making use of a lightweight and heavy sword assault and a dodge mechanic to take out your foes, with new strikes and skills turning into accessible as you progress additional into the sport.

Fight feels snappy and rewarding as you fastidiously maneuver every enemy’s combos, creating openings to assault from behind or to toss one enemy into one other. However the diploma of problem I’ve come to anticipate from Metroidvanias was arduous to search out right here, with solely a few enemy sorts ever dealing severe injury to me. Actually, all through my first 18-hour playthrough, I didn’t die as soon as. On the one hand, this was a bit disappointing as I had been hoping to run into at the very least just a few bosses that will require some trial-and-error. However what the fight lacked in issue it considerably made up for in its emphasis on approach.

Vitamin performs an enormous function in ULTROS. As you harvest the fruits of the varied vegetation you encounter and hack by way of every enemy, you’ll acquire sources that can be utilized to unlock new abilities, fertilize vegetation, and even feed and befriend some creatures. On the subject of creature elements, the number of assault sorts you employ when defeating them can decide the standard of the elements you accumulate. Brutally beat a creature with the identical transfer time and again, and also you may simply be left with some bloody pulp, whereas thoughtfully putting every hit can yield a extra nutritious bounty. This technique rapidly made every battle really feel like a mini puzzle, with among the extra sturdy enemies requiring me to fastidiously execute each potential I had accessible with a purpose to get one of the best sources from them.

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Though these sources will typically be spent on replenishing your well being, you’ll principally use them to unlock new abilities. Every talent requires a unique mixture of the 4 nutrient sorts with a purpose to be unlocked, with sure dietary values being extra extensively accessible in particular areas of The Sarcophagus, successfully demanding me to discover the entire of the ecosystem if I wished to study each talent. And simply after I felt like I used to be in a position to unlock a very powerful abilities, getting ready me for nearly any scenario, I’d break one other shaman out of its incubator and set off one other loop, beginning over and having to rebuild myself from the bottom up.

Initially, this felt like an enormous setback, one thing I’d anticipate to expertise in a Roguelike. However as I discovered the varied routes and the place to search out the vitamin I wanted to degree up, I used to be in a position to rebuild myself sooner with every loop. By diligent exploration, I used to be additionally capable of finding a number of Mnemonic Mycelium, a novel useful resource that allowed me to hold over abilities between loops, making every rebirth appear a bit much less devastating than the final.

As enjoyable as fight and talent development are in ULTROS, they’re a small a part of the bigger equation that makes up the sport, with the biggest factor being the way you work together with the varied vegetation accessible, and the way the choices you make within the setting have an effect on the gameplay and story parts all through every loop. That is the place the actual brilliance of ULTROS shines by way of, and the place I additionally discovered my biggest moments of frustration.

You’ll ultimately acquire entry to a handful of plant seeds, all of which develop into distinctive flora that can be utilized to traverse the map. Planting the Ogu Mumin seed, for instance, will yield a tree-like plant that’s helpful when reaching areas too excessive to leap to. Planting a Mushishi on the ceiling may end up in a brand new path turning into accessible by way of some swinging vines, whereas as a substitute planting it within the floor creates a strip of grass that may profit the setting itself greater than your private exploration objectives. Moreover, what you plant and the place you plant it could possibly have long-lasting results that play out over a number of loops. Some vegetation will survive and develop far past their preliminary reaches after dwelling by way of just a few loops, whereas others will wither and die with every rebirth you expertise.

Nevertheless it isn’t simply concerning the planting course of itself; it’s additionally about how you employ the varied instruments you’ll purchase to look after them, or not. There have been some areas the place the pesky, thorny Staccati vines blocked my passage fully. After getting my reducing software, I used to be in a position to hack by way of the bramble and discover the world it was hiding. However not lengthy after I started reducing did the vines start to regrow, pushing me deeper into the stomach of the beast. Later, after I bought my digging software, I used to be in a position to come again and uproot the seed, eliminating this thorny nuisance as soon as and for all, whereas additionally permitting me to replant that very same seed elsewhere.

The complexity of deciding which vegetation go the place and the way every loop will additional have an effect on their progress or trigger them to wither fully makes navigating the map basically one large puzzle. There are some areas which might be pretty simple to get by way of, whereas others can solely be reached by selecting the best mixture of vegetation, instruments, and soil vitamin. When this labored properly, it took the type of me fastidiously tending to a plant for a pair loops till it reached maturity and allowed me to gather that beforehand unattainable to succeed in Mnemonic Mycelium.

However there have been additionally some irritating occasions after I ventured down a path and rapidly discovered myself misplaced in an space I had visited earlier than. The trail out of there that had been accessible in a earlier loop was not accessible, forcing me to discover a new manner. A few of this intentional misdirection was gratifying, whereas a few of it was not. For instance, breaking by way of a destructible wall I first found on loop one opened up a pathway I wanted to get to a brand new space. When consulting my map on loop two, that very same space I now discovered myself trapped in appeared to don’t have any exits.

After scouring each inch of this as soon as acquainted space once more, I’d ultimately discover that the destroyed wall had been rebuilt, although there was no indication of this destructible impediment on my principally crammed out map. Whereas I can admire the thought of issues altering between loops, the truth that the entire of the map was nonetheless intact, minus these sorts of obstacles, meant I needed to manually bear in mind the place they have been to keep away from spending an hour retracing my steps. Finally, I used to be in a position to bear in mind most of those sorts of blocked paths, nevertheless it made for some particularly gradual and tedious moments earlier in my playthrough.

It was in occasions like these that I felt like there may have been a bit extra hand-holding. Sure mechanics appear to be rapidly glossed over, the builders clearly encouraging you to rely a bit extra on experimentation to find simply what’s potential. Whereas this method solely backfired just a few occasions all through my first playthrough, these occasional moments actually slowed down my development and brought about some undesirable frustration.

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After efficiently navigating by way of all of the trials put earlier than me, I finally was in a position to take out all seven shamans and set off the ending of the sport, leaving me partially happy after finishing my inaugural journey. However there was a lot I hadn’t accomplished the primary time round that I made a decision to leap in and undergo the sport once more. A lot to my shock, the second playthrough is the place I discovered my biggest appreciation for all the pieces the builders had achieved in ULTROS.

The primary time round, I had approached gathering sources like I did in most video games. I used every software at my disposal to gather each seed and nutrient accessible to additional my objectives, mindlessly stomping by way of the delicate ecosystem, uprooting mature vegetation simply to stockpile their seed in case I wanted it later. Whereas this had short-term advantages, doing so additionally disturbed the ecosystem that had been rising for a lot of seasons earlier than I awoke. The long-term influence this made was not as simply recognizable on my first playthrough because it was on my second.

One of the best instance of this was the expertise I had when connecting the dwelling community all through the map the primary time round vs the second playthrough. About midway by way of the sport, you’ll get entry to an space that means that you can run what successfully capabilities as a neuron from one relay to the following. Connecting it to sure mechanisms can open doorways beforehand locked, whereas connecting it to the pods I saved and upgraded my abilities in would unlock a quick journey system able to sending me to any pod at present wired to the dwelling community.

Reaching the top of the sport requires making use of this dwelling community, however most of it was fully non-compulsory. With one of many endings of the sport requiring me to wire the community all through your complete map, this non-compulsory aspect quest rapidly turned probably the most advanced puzzle the sport needed to provide, one which spanned nearly each nook and cranny of the map.

One of many key parts to wiring the dwelling community is utilizing the flowers that develop off of the matured vegetation as relay factors, serving to you join the community additional by making use of the vegetation itself. Since I had been extra reckless on my first playthrough, wiring the dwelling community by way of sure paths was way more troublesome, requiring much more work, combining the performance of all my instruments and including extra vitamin to the soil to assist mature the vegetation additional to make up for my poor choices earlier on. On the second playthrough, nonetheless, I made a decision to solely uproot a plant if I completely wanted to, taking every cautious step by way of the alien panorama with the conviction to make my footprint on the ecosystem as minimal as potential.

And this extra acutely aware method paid off. Areas that had taken me an hour to restore on my first playthrough have been lush with plantlife, making my mission to attach every relay a a lot simpler feat the second time round. The distinction between these two experiences actually speaks to the underlying themes of concord and conservation, a core motif I may solely admire with a number of playthroughs. That is fairly presumably probably the most lovely a part of my time with ULTROS, and an expertise most would miss fully in the event that they select to solely play the sport as soon as.

General, ULTROS is a extremely good recreation that forces you to experiment with a number of approaches, unafraid of throwing you into the deep finish on occasion. It offers a Metroidvania expertise like no different, saturated with distinctive puzzle fixing, psychedelic visuals, a phenomenal soundtrack, and a weird however fascinating story and setting.

A few of its greatest moments can solely be appreciated by these keen to place within the further time, which is each a rewarding and unlucky actuality, as not everybody will be capable to expertise one of the best the sport gives with a single playthrough. However in case you have the persistence to persevere by way of some minor shortcomings and a few playthroughs, your understanding and appreciation for this recreation will little question mature from a freshly sprouted sapling to a towering conifer.

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