With poorly lit metallic halls, flickering neon lights, a bigger than life mechanical sprawl, and a cyborg ninja protagonist, Steel Seed has lots on the floor that piqued my curiosity, as I may be simply lured into B-tier sci-fi tales if issues look bizarre sufficient. Sadly, this one is bizarre in all of the mistaken methods. Its stealth motion and energetic platforming are its greatest traits, however they’re uneven throughout the roughly 12-hour marketing campaign. Some actually cool moments and creatures find yourself misplaced amongst miles of dreary and uninspired areas, overshadowed by irritating fight and a flimsy story that sap no matter shuddering indicators of life this machine had in it.
The issues with Steel Seed begin with its hero’s generic presentation. Zoe, awkwardly plucky and earnest daughter of the creator of the dystopia she awakened into, feels utterly out of sync with the put up-apocalyptic sci-fi world she is in. She’s properly-voiced, however not properly-written, relying closely on some vapid self-reflection a couple of previous she will’t totally keep in mind and superhero film-type banter together with her robotic pa. Ma’am, you’re the final dwelling human on a planet overrun by killer robots and the one likelihood to deliver humanity again from extinction. I want you to cease quipping and lock in.
Steel Seed is dense with lore about how some main company was humanity’s final hope till the CEO (who can also be Zoe’s father) received double crossed by whoever and no matter, however its plot is mild on attention-grabbing happenings or compelling causes to proceed to the following goal outdoors of “as a result of it’s telling me to.” There’s an element that technically satisfies the literary definition of a plot twist, however you see it coming to this point prematurely that it’d as properly be a unadorned man coated in gold.
You’ll spend quite a lot of your time navigating this put up-human settlement by hopping on platforms and scurrying up partitions. It’s all very paying homage to the Uncharted video games, the place shimmying throughout a ledge could possibly be crammed with sufficient mishaps and bounce scares to make the method a tense one. Steel Seed even goes a step additional, making its excessive stakes sequences of sliding by way of collapsing buildings or outrunning gunfire really feel far more precarious because it’s fairly straightforward to fail among the extra intense sections.
Mild puzzle mechanics can add some small pace bumps to your progress, typically within the type of commanding your R2D2-coded companion, KOBY, to shoot unreachable buttons whereas your arms and ft are busy conserving you firmly hooked up to a wall. These had been simply dynamic sufficient to remain partaking, which is all I can ask for for a recreation that has platforming however isn’t solely targeted on that form of gameplay, a la Astrobot. Issues do get extra intelligent in sure chase encounters, the place your perspective modifications from 3D to 2D with a view to outrun enemy hearth from the background – however these moments are scarce, and Steel Seed does nothing that intelligent wherever else.
The huge environments you’ll be doing all this poking round in are very hit or miss, visually talking. There are fairly just a few stretches of fairly generic techno-hallways or oft-troped rust-stylish junk yards that do not actually encourage awe for those who’ve seen any science fiction ever. However often these halls shall be crammed with bizarre little robotic bugs, or a X-story tall mech that rivals the size of a few of God of Struggle’s largest creatures will rise to greet you, and you may’t assist however assume, “they cooked with this one, at the very least.” Usually, although, there’s little or no in regards to the world Zoe is tasked with saving even value remembering, one thing me and the amnesiac protagonist have in frequent.
There are lots of enemies in all of those areas seeking to cease you from saving the day, and you may maintain them with stealthy wit or brute drive. The levels the place you discover most enemies are rife with nooks and crannies to cover in and precariously positioned obstacles to make use of as distractions, or to trigger killing blows themselves. At first stealth is fairly easy due to the very slim number of completely different dangerous guys that patrol round, as properly your restricted beginning abilities. I used to be joyful to see that blossom into one thing extra strong as time went on, although. Though you don’t actually see greater than 5 completely different enemy sorts in any given encounter all through Steel Seed, each is so completely different and they’re blended collectively properly sufficient to create checkpoints that may be an actual problem to navigate safely.
Sections get bigger and extra dense with lookouts which have overlapping patrols and imaginative and prescient vectors, and whereas among the mid-recreation situations hit the “excellent” mixture of enemies and space measurement, the late-recreation stealth sections drag on method too lengthy. The pretty strict checkpoints additionally imply it’s essential begin from the start of the part for those who fail throughout it, typically throwing 15-20 minutes of affected person stabbing and enemy hacking straight into the recycling bin whenever you slip up. You additionally run out of recent methods to take down foes fairly early on, and I discovered myself setting lots of the identical traps all through. So whereas the hunt began tense, it turned stale before I’d hoped.
Zoe and KOBY achieve extra methods as they progress, however you form of must earn the flexibility to purchase them with the factors you discover by breaking containers or enemy robots, finishing what can typically really feel like busy work first. Kill 5 enemies with out being seen and also you’ll earn the privilege of shopping for the extraordinarily helpful glitch mine ability, which fits a good distance in direction of killing bots with out being seen. Lots of the abilities have necessities that may come naturally by way of play, like scanning various enemies individually with a view to unlock a model of the scan that hits the whole lot of curiosity in a small zone – ,however others had been extra tedious duties, reminiscent of looking the principally bland areas for hidden choose-ups or finishing more difficult ability checks like killing a specific amount of enemies a particular method in a small window of time, which had been issues I fortunately averted.
I lower than fortunately averted outright fight like a pc virus, although. From the buggy lock-on that permits you to give attention to an enemy however will nonetheless pull you in direction of different close by foes, to the mashy assault strings with mushy responsiveness, to the dry assault animations from each Zoe and all of her victims, confronting your foes straight is usually a large number. Not one of the abilities you unlock make fight really feel any higher, regardless of providing you with some admittedly sturdy choices for late-recreation encounters that may spin uncontrolled with the variety of potential individuals in any given melee, attacking from off display with reckless abandon. By the tip of the marketing campaign, if I received caught throughout a stealth part, I might extra typically simply reload on the final checkpoint than clear up the foes that caught me as a result of it was merely much less boring that method. Zones the place you don’t have any selection however to battle in open fight had been constantly my least favourite elements of the Steel Seed, however mercifully, they’re few and much between.