Review cover Sundered (Computer)
Official GBAtemp Review

Product Information:

  • Release Date (NA): July 28, 2017
  • Release Date (EU): July 28, 2017
  • Publisher: Thunder Lotus Games
  • Developer: Thunder Lotus Games
  • Genres: Metroidvania
  • Also For: PlayStation 4

Game Features:

Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative
A Metroidvania with hand-drawn visuals from the creators of Jotun; is it as good as it sounds?

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Adapt or Perish… But Mostly Perish

Enter Sundered, where playing as Eshe, a wanderer stranded in a ruined underground world, you are tasked by an eerie contraption called the Shining Trapezohedron to adventure in the ever-changing caverns abound with Lovecraftian horrors in order to reach the surface; a task that might cost you more than what you expected...

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The plot seems hazy from the get-go but clears as you play on, learning more about the cryptic world you are in as Eshe moves deeper in the underground through the narration of the ShiningTrapezohedron. But even then the story doesn’t feel satisfying enough given the toughness of the game.

Sundered starts off with a strikingly steep difficulty curve, with hordes of enemies that appear randomly for a blitzkrieg offence on your vulnerable self. And then you’ll die, a lot. True to their “Soulsian” inspiration, Thunder Lotus Games made dying an imperative feature in their second game. The game wants you to die. Indeed, once you bite the dust, you’ll respawn at the entrance to the underground; the game’s sole checkpoint which doubles as a skill tree. There you can upgrade Eshe’s abilities like her armor, health, luck and damage by using shards obtained after slaying enemies, breaking pots and slashing those spherical piñatas that serve as treasures. Once her abilities upgraded, Eshe can go back to take on the region that gave her a hard time beforehand.

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Speaking of the regions, Thunder Lotus Games added a little twist to Sundered's environments. While the core map is static, the sections between every main area is not. The path taken to reach your objectives are procedurally generated, giving a different playthrough every time you respawn, in theory. In practice, the repetitive layout feels monotonous with some minor tweaks for the sake of change.

Sundered is a long game, not just because you'll take time to backtrack, kill and get killed, but the core game itself is pretty lengthy. Add to that the multiple endings that are available depending on your between sanity and madness to this Lovecraft-inspired game, you're in for considerably longer, provided that you have some stamina left to tackle the whole game again, several times!

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On to the difficulty curve, you might think that it might entice those suckers for challenges but it’s not necessarily so. The lack of checkpoints adds another level of difficulty to the game. It is disproportionately so at the beginning of the game. True, you’ll open up shortcuts to ease your way to other sections but only later in the game after you unlock additional abilities like double jumping. But at the beginning you’ll die a lot, and you’ll stay at the “beginning” for a while, you will need to trace your way back again to the same spot, just because those hordes of relentless sentinels won’t stop following you or you managed to reach a boss, only to realize that you’re short on Health Elixirs or have yet to wrap your head around the boss’ mechanics. This constant backtracking becomes tediously and frustratingly repetitive. Nevertheless, the frustration is eased later in the game as Eshe gains new abilities and weapons like the prophesied Valkyrie Cannon.

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Die, die, die!!!

Another issue of concern is the loading times. I could easily have my tea infused and ready to drink by the time Eshe drops down the underground’s opening and actually seeing her drop down after the loading screen...

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Eshereal

For all of the ugly mess you’ll find yourself in from the avalanche of opponents, repetitive deaths and backtracking to the painful load times, Sundered is beautiful. The game features painstakingly hand-drawn animation that play fluidly to offer an absolute treat to the eyes. I would myself indulge more time taking in the scenery if there weren’t angry robots constantly after my back or sniping at me from a mile away.

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Successfully beating the gigantic bosses also gives a certain sense of fulfilment. That’s Sundered at its best. But considering the ordeal you’ve been put through to get there, one would expect a more rewarding experience.

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Surrendered

Sundered is a visually pretty game that is also pretty frustrating but gets better if you allow yourself to sink some time past the initial steep difficulty curve, backtracking and load times.

Verdict

What We Liked ...
  • Challenging
  • Beautiful hand-drawn animation
  • Multiple endings
What We Didn't Like ...
  • Steep initial difficulty curve
  • Unsatisfying for the challenge it imposes
  • Loading times
7
Gameplay
Easy controls with a game that wants to kill, not challenge you, doesn’t make for an easy game. On top of that, the repetitive deaths and back tracking amount to the point of frustration early on.
7
Presentation
Impressive hand-drawn animation that has become a trademark of Thunder Lotus Games makes for a visually impressive experience. However, the procedurally generated regions will have repetitive elements and the lack of enemy variety lowers its presentation score.
8
Lasting Appeal
Best enjoyed over time, you can easily sink in a considerable amount of time in Sundered by exploring, taking in its wonderful visuals and tackling its multiple endings.
7
out of 10

Overall

Sundered is pretty to look at but as the saying goes, never judge a book by its cover. It is an unforgiving game that fails to fully satisfy the gamer. Nevertheless, if savored bite by bite to prevent the frustration and repetition from exceeding your satiety threshold, it’ll prove to be a pretty entertaining title.
Even with death being a mechanic that allows you to level up, this line makes it seem like the game itself is unfair rather than challenging:
Easy controls with a game that wants to kill, not challenge, you doesn’t make for an easy game.
How unfair does the game feel? This quote makes it seem like the game purposefully tries to kill you a la I Wanna Be The Guy rather than say mechanical skill with something like Dark Souls. Do the deaths feel like they were something avoidable if you were better, or were they entirely impossible to avoid.

You also mentioned loading times. I must ask what kind of system you are running and roughly(exactly?) how long the loading times were. Could the problem be alleviated with an SSD/ramdisk?

Overall this seems like a brief review that doesn't go into much detail but still acts as a summary for what to expect out of the game. I'm fine with that, but I feel like the criticism could be more measured on what exactly is wrong with the issues.
 
Oh my god. Another 2d indie game that is NOT pixalated to shit. It seems they finnaly getting good at drawing and animation.
 
Even with death being a mechanic that allows you to level up, this line makes it seem like the game itself is unfair rather than challenging:

How unfair does the game feel? This quote makes it seem like the game purposefully tries to kill you a la I Wanna Be The Guy rather than say mechanical skill with something like Dark Souls. Do the deaths feel like they were something avoidable if you were better, or were they entirely impossible to avoid.

You also mentioned loading times. I must ask what kind of system you are running and roughly(exactly?) how long the loading times were. Could the problem be alleviated with an SSD/ramdisk?

Overall this seems like a brief review that doesn't go into much detail but still acts as a summary for what to expect out of the game. I'm fine with that, but I feel like the criticism could be more measured on what exactly is wrong with the issues.
Fights are unavoidable since the enemies appear at random easily more than half a dozen at a time. A more annoying enemy type is the one that snipes at you off-screen where you can barely see it. And often there are more than one, so better search and destroy it once you see its aim. But you can mash the attack and dodge buttons until you kill them all, with only a sliver of life left.

Never timed the load times but they are lengthy enough to feel noticed and I've heard others mention the same issue too. Here's my rig btw:
  • GTX 1070
  • i7-6700K @ 4GHz
  • 8 GB RAM
Oh, and the load times is worst on the GPD Win.
 
Definite yes to me. Launch trailer got me, review only made it better really. Definitely gonna support thread guys. Would like to see it on ninty console(s) as well. :rolleyes:
 
Played. Finished the corrupted ending. Didn't take too long, didn't feel overly difficult, to be honest, at Normal difficulty. There were times things felt a little cruel, but with a little leveling up / grinding, and a few tweaks to the perk slots, even the most challenging minibosses weren't much of a challenge. I'm even tempted to replay it just to see how the purity ending plays out.

And yes, SSD makes the load times reasonable. Admittedly they still aren't short in the way I'm now used to, but if you're not running an SSD in today's day and age for your games, you really should start to consider it.

The only major issue I had, and this is likely due to streaming it across the network from my main PC, is that wall jumping is a little unforgiving. :( I kept finding myself irritated at trying to escape the hoards (a cool feature, in my opinion) and then failing horribly at simple walljumping...
 
Oh dear, I bought this just when it was advertised based on its picture and concept, rip money. How do I get alerts to your reviews prans?
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Oh dear, I bought this just when it was advertised based on its picture and concept, rip money. How do I get alerts to your reviews prans?
8755a6be4c.jpg
Sorry but I'm not sure that you can get alerts unless I share it on my profile status. But I usually share my reviews on my twitter account once published, so you can stay updated there :) In any case, it's not a bad game, so give it a try and you might even like it more than I did!
 
Review cover
Product Information:
  • Release Date (NA): July 28, 2017
  • Release Date (EU): July 28, 2017
  • Publisher: Thunder Lotus Games
  • Developer: Thunder Lotus Games
  • Genres: Metroidvania
  • Also For: PlayStation 4
Game Features:
Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative

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