Ultros Review (PC)

A gigantic tentacled monster floats in between me and my goal – a gestation pod containing a Shaman. I am to destroy the Shaman’s pod so I can continue my journey – to where, I am unsure. But all I know is destroying whatever is in that pod gets me one step closer. I slash the monster a few times before rolling behind it to give it a killing blow. It explodes into a fountain of blood. I walk forward a few steps to the gestation pod and smack it, breaking it into a cloud of purple gas. The world dissolves before me…placing me back at the start of my journey.

Ultros is a weird experience, but not for the reasons you think. Hadoque’s metroidvania broke many of my expectations because of how well it managed to incorporate roguelite gameplay loops without outright crippling my progress. Well, its loops only slightly set me back every so often. More on that in a minute.

At first glance, Ultros is visually striking. It barrages the eyes with every neon color in the spectrum, only utilizing darker shades to emphasize blocked off pathways and impassable terrain. It’s one part sci-fi, one part trippy psychedelic, one part ornate. It’s a delightfully weird combination of thematics that when combined create a truly unique but visually jarring experience. My first hour in-game was stressful only because my eyes kept frantically trying to identify enemies, my own character, and the pickups that dropped from enemy carcasses. The more I tried to discern everything I was looking it, the more I slowed myself down. In the end, it didn’t matter – all of the “important” elements in Ultros’ world made themselves evident in one way or another.

Ultros puts the player in the shoes of a seemingly-nameless protagonist who awoke on the Sarcophagus – a gigantic cosmic womb floating through the stars. I did not know my purpose, nor did I know where to go. But the Sarcophagus reacted to my presence, opening itself up and beckoning me to explore its secrets within. Along the way, I encountered a few NPCs – fellow wayward travelers whose purpose was just as seemingly benign as mine.

I initially thought that Ultros was “just another metroidvania” on shrooms. It has elements of mild platforming, hack-and-slash combat, and exploration often found in competitor titles, yes. But it uses a “loop system” out of a roguelite. After destroying one of the Shaman pods, the world has a chance to reset and take me back to my original spawn point. While my path on the map is recorded, along with any equipment I’ve acquired, the normal enemies respawn while my skills (Cortex upgrades) I’ve unlocked are wiped away, only for me to unlock them again.

Luckily, I didn’t need all of the Cortex upgrades to proceed. I could also save some of them so that they persisted in between loops.

Ultros sets itself apart from other 2D-metroidvanias thanks to its loop system. While a roguelike metroidvania isn’t technically a new concept, Ultros avoids going down the route of procedural generation and instead encourages retracing steps to find different paths I didn’t, or couldn’t, take the first time. The closest thing I can compare this loop to is Rogue Legacy 2 – a game that’s more roguelike than metroidvania, but still encourages repetitious exploration. Ultros isn’t a roguelike, though. If you go in expecting a roguelike experience, you’ll be left wanting more because of how every new loop advanced the story in a meaningful fashion rather than starting over from scratch.

Indeed, Ultros disrupts expectations and it does it well. The first few loops frustrated me. No – I dreaded the entire process of looping, attempting to avoid it at all costs. It got to a point where I would do everything in my power to avoid returning to the start because I feared losing my progress.

But, like the Sarcophagus that entrapped me, Ultros had other plans in store.

I rarely got lost Ultros’ labyrinthine Sarcaophagus, as the game slightly pushed me in the direction where I needed to go without leaning on linear pathways. The loop system closed off some entrances while opening others. In one loop, I pushed to literally retrace my steps I took on the loop I just finished. In another, one of the NPCs was waiting for me when I spawned, pushing me toward the opposite direction that was initially blocked off.

If you’re reading this and assuming that Ultros is linear, you would be mostly correct. The game’s openness was heavily disguised by linear pathways as I made my way through each new loop. However, at the six-hour mark, I hit a point where the world I had explored thus far was finally “open” to me thanks to unlocking what I needed to truly explore where I wanted. Thankfully, there was quite a lot to explore, and I was consistently rewarded when I retraced my steps.

The other unique aspect of Ultros is that of its gardening system. As I explored the Sarcophagus, I came across seeds that I could plant in glowing dirt mounds. The seeds I planted would grow into small shrubs in my current loop; in the next loop, that shrub would become a full-grown tree that I could use to reach higher platforms. Later permanent upgrades would allow me to better cultivate my plants, uprooting and replanting the seeds where needed. In practice, the gardening gameplay ever so slightly dances with puzzle and strategy gameplay without relying on gimmicks.

Ultros’ world encouraged me to stress test it using the tools I had permanently and temporarily unlocked. While I was occasionally pushed in specific directions, I could occasionally defy the game’s boundaries without getting trapped. The gardening mechanics allowed me to be creative, testing out my abilities to reason and utilize logic. Metroidvanias often encourage similar skills minus the creativity – Ultros wins out on that front.

Much of Ultros’ hack-and-slash combat is simple. My attacks were delegated to two inputs, but the temporary Cortex upgrades added some additional mechanics and combos I could use to defeat enemies. I was rewarded with better loot when I slayed enemies using a variety of attacks, so I recommend avoiding phoning it in and hoping for the best. The combat itself was fluid, however. When I dodged enemies’ telegraphed attacks, I could slide behind them and backstab them to increase my attack combos. I don’t consider it truly “precise,” however. It’s far more forgiving than the likes of The Last Faith. That said, I wished that the permanent upgrades I unlocked would add some additional abilities to my arsenal of attacks.

Most metroidvanias grant players permanent traversal upgrades like the double jump as a reward for slaying a boss – Ultros follows suit. Unlike its competitors, Ultros’ combat can be freely unlocked in a single loop so long as you get the necessary nutrients from eating food. This means that all of the major upgrades unlocked in-game lean heavily into traversal rather than anything else. I prefer metroidvanias that allow the player’s power to scale upward the further they explore; in Ultros, my power levels felt relatively consistent, albeit temporarily gated by the loop system.

The handful of Ultros’ bosses were just as psychedelic as the rest of the game, but they weren’t challenging. I was able to defeat all of them in one go without dying or needing to restart my progress. You can interpret that as me being scarred from more difficult 2D-platformers over the past few months, sure, but there was room for more variety in the bosses’ combat patterns. Because Ultros’ larger upgrades were traversal based, there weren’t many opportunities to flex the protagonist’s muscles and utilize combat creatively.

It’s unfortunate, really, because the rest of Ultros is quite creative. At the same time, the lack of emphasis on “deep” combat means that the game can be approached in an easygoing manner. Seeing as this game encourages the player to cultivate the world rather than destroy it, perhaps this intentional. Either way, I hope that future iterations of Ultros (if a sequel is to emerge) builds on its combat to make it more complex.

Before I finish this review, I want to commend Hadoque’s decisions in Ultros’ art design and music. I loved the music and thematic overall, as the psychedelic elements incorporated a wide array of conflicting patterns and motifs, spanning East Indian mandalas to Western brutalism. However, I would have preferred a wider collection of color palettes. Most of the world relied on the same set of psychedelic neon that could made more variable.

It took me just under 11 hours to complete Ultros for the first time. When I hit the credits after completing what I interpreted as the “bad” ending, I felt… confused. Stunned. Intrigued. Although I had spent all that time playing through the game, I felt just as confused as I was when I had first started the game. Yet, the melancholic credits music caused me to reflect on my journey through the Sarcophagus and reconsider what I could have done differently, or perhaps spend another few hours exploring to get to the bottom of my character’s purpose. I wasn’t fully attached to Ultros smattering of NPCs, but there was a part of me who would miss them. I should return to the Sarcophagus later to see if I can do better…

Maybe the point of Ultros isn’t to fully immerse the player into its psychedelic world, but to allow the player to figure out its trippy neon intricacies on their own terms. It’s one of those games where some of the larger questions of the game’s purpose won’t be answered until the credits, if at all. Other questions are better left unanswered to give players the power to fill in the blanks on their own.

Ultros is a psychedelic cosmic loop of a metroidvania. Its combat is approachable and simple, while its gardening encourages creativity and problem-solving that is rarely seen in the metroidvania genre. I had a good time playing Ultros; it mystified me while giving me room to stress-test its cosmic universe and fully explore its boundaries. While I wanted more complex combat and intentional varieties of color, I was quite satisfied with my journey to warrant a play in the future. Ultros is a trip worth taking at least once.