Gestalt: Steam & Cinder is a good metroidvania for those wanting a middle-of-the-road metroidvania. Its steampunk aesthetic makes for a gorgeous and audibly delightful tale, its combat is as fluid as it they come, but my biggest concern is that it doesn’t take a big swing in innovation or set itself apart from other metroidvanias in a big way.
Metroidvanias should employ unique thematics, be it religious Castilian-inspired worlds, East-Asian taoism, to steampunk. Too many metroidvanias utilize grit and dark worlds in an attempt to set the player on an odyssey out of the depths of Tartarus. I can understand that familiarity breeds nostalgia, which in turn breeds happy players, but breaking the trend can lead to just as many happy players so long as the core gameplay systems are done just right.
I don’t want to say that Gestalt: Steam & Cinder missed the mark in its execution of storytelling and level design. It won me over in its fluid combat, setting, and soundtrack. However, in a metroidvania, level design and systems are important for players willing to dive into a long bout of exploration with memorable boss fights and platforming.
Gestalt: Steam & Cinder takes place in a steampunk-inspired city known as Canaan. As Aletheia, you are to thwart the schemes of Canaan’s overseers and figure out Aletheia’s past. Using her gun and sword, you’re to slay every mutant and machine in sight.
One of the first things that stood out when playing Gestalt was its fluidity. Aletheia looked and felt eerily similar to Zero from the Mega Man universe. Her ability to dash forward, backward, wall jump, double jump, and use a mix of ranged and melee weapons made her a formidable foe. I was pleased that Gestalt didn’t artificially cripple this heroine at the start of the game for the sake of plot armor in a metroidvania setting. Instead, I was able to hit the ground running while slightly increasing my mobility every time I came across the standard metroidvania upgrades like the double jump and air dash.
In the metroidvania sense, Gestalt doesn’t make bold swings to innovate for its combat or exploration. Anyone who’s played a metroidvania prior to today can pick up Gestalt with no issue or need to learn a new set of gameplay mechanics.
In metroidvanias, there’s a happy medium between having enough rooms to explore, meaningfully backtracking, and exploring rooms that (hopefully) vary in their contents and design. Those that vary up level design and/or incorporate a fast travel system ease the pain of needing to backtrack. When backtracking is an optional affair, players should be rewarded with something for their time like small easter eggs or permanent upgrades. Gestalt’s fast-travel system is…well, weird. I unlocked the ability to fast travel at around the halfway point in the game, but I couldn’t actually use it until I had backtracked to specific rooms to “activate” the few portals I could use to quickly make my way across the world map.
I was concerned about the game’s lack of an intuitive fast travel system until I had reached what I later learned was the penultimate biome. The game’s overall map isn’t large enough to necessitate the need for being able to teleport between save points. On the flipside, individual rooms are occasionally gigantic, meaning that I spent quite a bit of time walking around to backtrack or proceed. Fast-traveling in Gestalt is pretty much meaningless, as the teleport rooms are out of the way for most of the game.
I’m torn on Gestalt’s approach to level design. Barring the fast-travel quirks, I wished that some rooms were made smaller because they felt empty and meaningless. For instance, in the area that served as the city hub for NPC merchants that let me upgrade my weapons and such, the rooms were full of NPCs that had very little to say and/or nothing else at all. When I see the possibility to explore several rooms in an inn, I would expect to come across easter eggs or NPCs that could offer something in the worldbuilding department.
Instead, Gestalt’s world felt too big for its britches. It’s unfortunate because of how beautifully drawn the levels ended up being, but that beautiful pixel art could have been contained in a smaller space to prevent an artificially padded in-game time. Seeing pipes constructed to look like trees in a steampunk universe looks quite unique the first time around, but the rooms’ massive spaces could have been used in a better fashion.
This is not to say that exploration is meaningless in Gestalt – not at all. Each biome is chock full of things to find. Sometimes I came across glowing red orbs that, when shattered with my gun, would grant me an ability point for me to spend on a permanent upgrade. Sometimes I would find an accessory I could equip. Or, I would come across a lost corgi that served as the cute collectable (think of Hollow Knight’s grubs). Once you find enough corgis, you can pet the corgi NPC in the hub – please do it. I love it when games let me pet the cute dog. You must pet the corgi!
Gestalt utilizes the level system to reward players who continuously slay enemies, be it during its long backtracking segments or simply exploring a new biome. Each level up, I earned an ability point that I could spend on a permanent upgrade like bonus health, bonus damage, or stronger melee combos. Aletheia’s skill tree expanded as I came across the standard traversal upgrades, but I always had agency to flesh out her stats at my choosing.
Each biome had a boss battle. This isn’t anything new, per se, but I was disappointed in the bosses’ implementation. Most bosses followed the same pattern where I needed to whittle their shield down with my gun, stun them when the shield was depleted, and then go all out in attacking them with melee attacks. When the shield regenerated, I was to repeat the cycle. Most boss battles lacked changes in bosses’ attacks, making the battles feel predictable and lackluster.
There are a few exceptions involving bosses with multiple phases, but I wanted Gestalt to challenge me or give me ample opportunity to use Aletheia’s combat skills to their fullest extent. I had unlocked several upgrades by the end game, but most bosses could be dealt with by the same set of attacks. If bosses had required me to switch up attacks or even switch off between the bullets I used in my guns, that would have added some depth to the battles.
I can see where Metamorphosis Games had intended to test players in their combat prowess and platforming, but those moments came far too late. The resultant metroidvania experience ended up being middle-of-the-road and predictable despite the gorgeous pixel art and string-instrument-infused soundtrack. The steampunk world of Gestalt is interesting, but I kept feeling like too much was happening off-screen without Aletheia’s knowledge or involvement.
Every time I defeated a boss or stepped foot in a new biome, I was shown a cutscene involving characters I had little knowledge of and/or ended up meeting far in the story. If anything, the game assumed that I would strap in and wait for my questions to be answered without really cementing Aletheia’s role in the grand steampunk universe that was Canaan. Several twists and turns in the story surprised me with these nebulous characters’ roles and connections with Aletheia. This style of surprising players (or readers/viewers) works when the world is fully realized and sets enough time aside to walk through the protagonist’s backstory and existent relationships with other characters. But this doesn’t work in Gestalt – the game assumes that the player is on the same page as Aletheia, even though we’ve had a few hours to get to know her.
Gestalt can be completed in around 10 hours. Maybe more, maybe less, depending on your interest in finding all of the hidden corgis and other collectibles. Compared to other metroidvanias, Gestalt feels hollow in the sense that its world wasn’t fleshed out to its fullest extent and tasks players with walking through gigantic rooms that lack things to do. When you get to the point where things begin making sense in its grandiose steampunk designs, you’ll appreciate its story to a greater extent. You need to spend several hours in confusion to hit that point, though.
Gestalt: Steam & Cinder is a good metroidvania for those wanting a middle-of-the-road metroidvania. Its steampunk aesthetic makes for a gorgeous and audibly delightful tale, its combat is as fluid as it they come, but my biggest concern is that it doesn’t take a big swing in innovation or set itself apart from other metroidvanias in a big way.
