As more money is spent by console makers for research to make the best damn thing the current technology has to offer, developers and publishers on their hand are spending more money in advertising and showing off their products, or the best shots from it anyway, to an ever increasing population. Be it at E3, the world’s yearly video game expo, on YouTube or even banners at the local GAME or Gamestop among others, marketing has become a huge factor in the sales or the hype for a game. As a result of this, a lot of known titles get a lot of attention simply from the fact that the media will push onto this title rather than another. And this can unfortunately hurt The Technomancer, the latest game from Focus Home Interactive.
Developed by Spiders, which is the name of the studio not of the arachnid race (otherwise we’d all be running from it), The Technomancer came onto my radar by chance as I was probably browsing gaming news sites or YouTube. I instantly fell in love with the concept, and kept on following news updates and videos. When it was offered for review I immediately jumped in my seat and snatched it, knowing I was in for a phenomenal game. And I have not been disappointed.
The game takes place on Mars, and stars Lieutenant Zachariah Mancer, one of the few Technomancers remaining in Ophir. The Technomancers are a race of their own, powerful individuals with the ability to manipulate lightning for their offence. The game starts with the initiation ritual which Zachariah undergoes to become a full technomancer himself, and this also serves as a tutorial to learn the basic moves which you will be using in the game, so tying in the tutorial with the main story ties the game quite well as an opener. The Technomancer is a full blown RPG, with people giving you quests and side quests and the main missions as well making up your journal, a list of the tasks Zachariah has to do in order to earn rewards.
While there is nothing exceptionally new to the questing system of the game, where The Technomancer shines is its combat. This is because players have access to four combat styles, each having its own skill tree. And by four, we mean four completely different styles, not simply four slight variations of the same formula. The first and most obvious instance of combat is the Technomancy, where you get to zap enemies left and right with your lightning powers. Instead of the more traditional mana, The Technomancer incorporates charges, which are depleted every time you use a move from the Technomancy class. As powerful as the move can be, they all consume one charge, but as a penalty for using more powerful moves, the time for casting the attack is greater, thus rewarding the risk to go for longer spells. As one allocates points along the Technomancy tree, one gets to unlock more abilities and bonuses which make the class more powerful. The Technomancy attacks are strong and effective, but one cannot solely rely on these since charges take a small while to replenish, meaning unless you want to just run away and chip at enemies bit by bit, you have to use one of the three other offensive styles.
The first style is the Rogue, which Zachariah is part of the family but which does not offer a particular advantage in the game. The Rogue comprises of a dagger and a pistol, the dagger to inflict quick damage in succession and the pistol to strike from afar. The dagger and pistol are the least damaging weapons available to Zachariah, but are the fastest, and due to the ability to electrify enemies when your weapons are charged up, which is an ability from the Technomancy tree, you have more chance of electrifying enemies hitting them in quick succession.
The Warrior is the second combat style available to you, and it is the more authentic way that Technomancers should fight. The weapon for the class is a Staff, enabling quick attacks and longer reach than the simple dagger. The staff is most useful for attacking from a slight distance, and is the best weapon for crowd control since it can hit multiple enemies at once. It is the least defensive class though since it does not have a very versatile dodge move, compared to the Rogue’s roll or the Guardian’s sidestep.
Mentioning the Guardian takes us to its subclass, in my opinion the most balanced one in the game in terms of offense and defence. This is because the Guardian uses a shield and a mace for his attacks. The shield blocks all attacks but you can only move while blocking, so there is a very fair trade off. When attacking with the mace you are open though, but the mace does the most damage out of the other weapons so finishing enemies is faster than the other styles.
Apart from the combat skill trees, which are upgraded through skill points earned when levelling up, there are also two other trees which you can upgrade. The first is the Talents tree, consisting of six different talents, as the tree implies. The six talents are Charisma, Science, Crafting, Stealth, Traps/Lockpicking and Exploration, and allotting points in these talents will net you bonuses related to that area. For example allotting points in the Charisma talent will have better chances of resolving dialogue favourably due to better convincing skills, while having the Stealth talent developed will let you sprint while crouching and even knock out enemies without breaking stealth.
The other tree is the Attributes tree, consisting of Strength, Power, Agility and Constitution. Strength relates to the power of hand to hand combat and the ability to equip better and stronger equipment down the line. Agility increases critical hits rate, while Power is more directed to Technomancy and the damage of its abilities. Constitution then is more related to the maximum health points of Zachariah, as well as increase the load he can carry in his backpack.
After talking at length about the combat, one cannot not talk about companions. In the game, Zachariah will have a number of companions which are quite vital to the game. These team mates, if you wish to call them so, have different abilities so choosing those which accompany best your play style is vital to success. You can also equip your unwanted armor or loot drops on them, or even equip items which Zachariah cannot use himself. This latter limitation of Zachariah’s abilities is an interesting choice, and one which I personally like a lot since it at least constricts the player to equip powerful items on other characters, thus sort of forcing players to get used to equipping your comrades items. Speaking of items, in the Technomancer some equipment also grants you bonuses. For example the most basic example I have encountered is that Beggar Robes, which are needed for a quest in particular, give the wearer +1 in the Traps/ Lockpicking talent, thus being able to unlock level 2 chests even though you have only allocated one point in it. It all makes for a complex but worth it whole, which you have to explore and master to get the maximum advantage you can get.
As far as audio and visuals, the Technomancer can boast great visuals. There is a predominance for the red colour, obviously since we are on Mars, but this only increases the beauty of the game since in the red light the landscapes look gorgeous. Characters are very well done and they are developed differently as well. Personality traits are learned the more time one spends with these companions, which gives a level of depth to the game rarely explored in video games. I was honestly blown away when after a certain cutscene, one character comes up to Zachariah and expresses his own opinions about the matter, and the other team mate says his own as well. These scenes are definitely not a one off, and amazingly enough, the different companions you meet and join in your travels have all different opinions as well as their own way to voice it to you. This continues the trend that the game sets about dialogue being very important to the game, both since the lines and the actors performing them are very well done, and also because the story is never boring and very enjoyable even between friendly exchanges between characters.
What I also love about the game is its sense of culture in Mars. The majority of titles located outside of our home planet give no reason why they could not have been located on Earth, but The Technomancer addresses this issue as well. The main aspect of this culture is the people’s avoidance of the Sun. If you were attentive at school at a young age you will recall the fact that Mars is further away from Sun than Earth, plus its radiation shield, like we have, our OZONE has been depleted, meaning that solar radiation is much stronger on the red planet.This radiation was crucial in creating another race on Mars, the mutants. These mutants were left out from shelter and the radiation has transformed their bodies, and were then rejected by society. These mutants are made into slaves and you will find many populating the different cities on Mars. Another element of culture is the Serum currency, which while being a currency of its own it can also be drained from people. Draining serum from knocked out enemies will give you negative karma so other people will not like you as much, so the main idea is to avoid this. There are many other ways to make Serum on Mars, so it is better to keep your karma intact.
All this is but a brief summary of The Technomancer. It is one of my favourite games ever, and up till now it is my contender for Game of the Year. It hooked me ever since starting it, and does not seem to want to let go any time soon. The way the developers have created a ton of great content and then joined it all together in an incredible ensemble is proof to how much potential the studio has. Hopefully there will be more publicity for the title closer to launch since it’s just round the corner, because it will be quite a shame for the whole world to not know of the existence of this awesome game.
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