It has been a long time since I have experienced a roguelike game. I think the one I have always been obsessed with was/is The Binding of Isaac (PICK AN EDITION). That game has set the bar for me when it comes to the roguelike genre. There is just something about working towards a goal, dying repeatedly, and feeling micro-progressions that make me want to come back for more. It’s what makes that genre so much fun, sans the Dark Souls series. Sorry, Eric.
Anyway, developer Metric Empire has captured that feeling with the genre again with their unique first-person shooter-roguelike Battle Shapers. The game has those micro-progressions kicking on all cylinders with a sprinkle of Unreal Tournament from yesteryear. Its charm runs on upgrades and collection, while at the same time making sure to keep you interested with randomly selected levels and enemies. The demo surely speaks volumes of what to expect with the full meal.
Grab your orbs, upgrade your arms and armor, and let’s get going.
Gripping, yet simple gameplay
Our time with Battle Shapers was restricted to a short demo that told us about all we wanted to know about the game. It’s built on a few gameplay designs that work in harmony together. Those designs are solid first-person performance, tightly knit levels that keep the action going, and gorgeous upgrades that make each replay a bit easier to digest.
Beginning with the first-person shooter performance, the gameplay feels smooth and natural. You move around like any good FPS experience and shift forward and backward to avoid a barrage of enemy attacks. The controller felt smooth in its performance during our demo time with the game, as moving our main character quickly out of heavy fire was simple, especially with the environment working as a great bodyguard at times (there were always places to go to get away from gunfire). Would I have liked a way to quickly strafe to one side or another? Yeah, as a quick move to the left or right worked well for a game like Returnal, and it provided quick options to get out of danger. Plus, moving like that in Returnal was stupid fun. As it stands with the controls in Battle Shapers, moving and shaking within the confines of the demo’s controls made the game as fast and furious as you might need. I never felt like I was ever in an impossible position when going up against multiple enemies, as I could move quickly out of danger and back into the scrum when it called for it. This is part of the gameplay design that reminded me a lot of Unreal Tournament. Just quick movements and shoot/run kind of design. Beyond the additional strafe, I think my only big complaint was the lack of an aiming down sight option. I’m so used to aiming down sight during an FPS experience that it has become second nature when playing this type of game. Not having that option and reassigning that typical left thumbstick press to another ability in the game was, at least at the beginning, frustrating. I got over it after about an hour.
Outside of moving and shaking, the game’s beef in its burrito is what it offers in upgrades and reasons to keep playing. That beef comes in the form of cores, weapons, talents, and abilities. The cores are a big part of the gameplay, as they enhance the player’s suit and provide certain advantages during fights. For example, you can set a strike core for your suit which upgrades your dash strike and gives you a new ability called overkill (guess what the does?). The dash strike is nice because it can push back enemies and cause a lot of brutal destruction to enemies in their last league. Your suit can house two of these cores (primary and secondary) and you can enhance them randomly after completing stages. The cores offer a lot of mix/match that makes the gameplay unique and interesting.
Weapons are obvious in purpose, but they do come in a good variety, which makes gathering red gems, the currency in the game from taking down enemies, an enticing ordeal. While my priority during the demo wasn’t weapon collection, you get a good taste of weapon variety as you acquire temporary ones on the battlefield. Purchasing them makes them permanent.
With talents, this increases attributes such as shields, armor, and other points of interest. This essentially just levels your character and improves their overall performance as you repeat the fighting scenarios. Acquiring these talents creates additional motivation to keep returning to the gameplay after dying, and this game will certainly hold your feet to the fire in that category. It’s nice to see your efforts in the game improving your performance as you continually play it.
The final category is abilities, which allow you to gain cool abilities such as casting a turret into the environment that the enemies must avoid. For this demo, the turret was active, as was a huge bomb-like explosion that can cause massive damage to multiple baddies. Again, pure motivation to keep playing.
Overall, the gameplay was solid during our demo time. I know this game is going to get deeper with the final version, but it’s good right now.
Unreal environments
The levels in the Battle Shapers demo were pure Unreal Tournament design. The levels were multi-tiered, out-in-the-open ventures, that also had plenty of obstacles to hide your character behind, should you need some defense while reloading or rethinking. The levels in the demo came in a wide variety, some plant-based, some robotics-computer-based, and all of them packed with dangerous moving traps and contraptions, such as spinning blades or gas traps. Can you imagine the chaos within some of these levels? Facing enemies down while avoiding traps and dealing with ammo/gun movement is just beautiful chaos.
How you moved through these environments reminded me a lot of Returnal, where you have a mini-map in the top-right corner that shows you multiple paths you can traverse. Going through one door when you complete a level meant that you would hit a dead end or run into two additional doors that split off into two different levels. My little exploration gaming attribute went off when I discovered that this game was far deeper and girthier than expected. It certainly made the perception of the experience and the world that much greater.
What the demo showed was just a taste of what could be, so the environments had me excited. They complimented the speed of the gameplay and provided enough reason for gamers to return and explore.
Only time will tell if the variety of maps in the final product can match the established expectation from the demo. Here’s hoping.
Conclusion
As it stands right now, Battle Shapers is shaping up to be a solid rogulite FPS experience. It has checked all the boxes that make roguelikes fun and it is hiding a lot that we haven’t seen yet.
We’ll just have to keep an eye on the game as it progresses. You should as well.
