SYNTHETIK: Legion Rising

not gmod

SCORE: ★★★★ The Breakdown +Satisfying gunplay and stellar kinesthetics +Responsive, tactical shootouts full of barely controlled chaos +Interesting classes that accommodate many playstyles +Varied and exciting loot that empowers runs -Myriad bugs and poorly documented item descriptions -Co-Op support has some strange quirks -Visual noise can be a bit overwhelming and affect the learning curve It's rare that I so powerfully want to start off a review by saying, "I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love this game" - but that's exactly how I feel about Synthetik. The top-down roguelite shooter is such a visceral, kinetic experience that it immediately evokes a strong response from the first battle, the first floor, the first inevitably doomed run - even if it occasionally stumbles over some technical shortcomings. Rogue AI is trying to take over the world, and you're a, uh, rogue rogue AI, an android created meant to take down humanity who has decided instead to destroy your masters and protect mankind. Why? Don't worry about it. That's pretty much the beginning and end of the narrative in Synthetik, and it doesn't really matter. It's all an excuse for the structure of the game, where you're said freshly printed android ready to take on the entirety of the machine legion across procedurally generated levels ranging from snowy military bases to burning outposts. Aesthetically, it's 80's as hell - put Terminator, Robocop, and a vat full of neon in a blender and you're most of the way there, from the chunky industrial robots to the stiffly articulated movement of the player android. The kinesthetics are Synthetik's bread-and-butter, and they're absolutely divine. The game started as a ballistics simulator and spiraled from there, and it shows. Every bullet, laser, and ion bolt has individual trajectories, properties, and physics. Guns are punchy, loud, and creative, with modifiers that range from simple (like an underbarrel grenade launcher) to delightfully stupid (such as a sniper rifle referencing the '360 no scope' meme that gets a huge damage bonus if you spin in a circle before firing it). On a fundamental level, combat simply feels amazing, and though it's optional, I highly recommend the manual reload mechanic, which requires ejecting each magazine before inputting a new one as two separate motions. While initially awkward, it soon becomes the beating heart of the entire game, and once you get used to it, the benefits for a perfect reload massively outweigh the nearly non-existent mental RAM required to do it right every time. While the randomness and repetition of a roguelite is on full display here, there are thankfully plenty of ways to shape one's playstyle. The first is a class system containing a wide variety of androids; play the Engineer and hunker down with fortified turrets while baiting enemies into a killbox, or hop over to the Vanguard and loot dogtags that buff you every few kills while leeching life with a combat knife. Each class gets unique perks that allow them to benefit more from different guns, items, and skills, and a token system allows the player to tag preferred loot, increasing its odds of showing up and giving it a small power boost. All of this combined meant that it was easy for me, who played the Breacher - a sort of alpha strike specialist equipped with recharging explosives that benefitted from aggressive blitzes - to reliably get at least one good shotgun and a defensive item that benefitted my playstyle, even if it wasn't exactly ideal. It's a good thing the core gameplay is so rock-solid, because the further you get to the peripherals of Synthetik, the more the wheels start to wobble. What I mentioned about it starting out as a ballistics simulator? That's still its primary focus, and other elements I found suffered from more than a little bit of jank. Item descriptions don't always accurately or completely describe weapons or equipment, so a piece of gear may be better or worse than it seems and has to be 'felt out'. Co-Op, while functional, is hilariously basic; as far as Synthetik seems to be concerned, there's still only one player, which causes some strange interactions with everything from healing to enemy aggression here and there. Still, outside of the rare frustration due to a run being ended over an inaccurate tooltip, this is a minor issue; if one is in need of a silver lining, there's a degree of esoterica to be found here, knowledge gathered and disseminated by the game's small but intensely loyal fanbase. Though it has its share of technical quirks and stylistic quibbles, Synthetik is one of the most satisfying, spectacularly responsive shooters I've ever played - isometric or otherwise - with a rewarding customization system that allows for a wide variety of class fantasies to be fulfilled. Whether solo or with a friend, I can't recommend it enough.