Good but could've been great
An easy 8 to 8.5 if we're going by "vibes" and pure game feel, BUT... dragged down by a lack of content and overall bugginess. It's an aesthetic win yet again for Reikon, a talented Polish indie studio and purveyors of dark sci-fi ultraviolence. I liked RUINER a lot and this came out of nowhere in a PlayStation State of Play presentation?
It's an excellent companion piece to id Software's 2016 DOOM reboot, in a similar fashion to others inspired by that game (and DOOM II before it -- like another indie boomer shooter, Prodeus). But Metal Eden has a style that's unmistakably a Reikon title, whereas titles from other AA/indie teams often feel uninspired or like an off-brand version of their more famous, AAA inspirations.
You get the menacing, far-future world ruled by megacorps; a sinister navigator guiding you along your objectives; high-production CGI cutscenes devoid of lip sync, intercut with stylish 2D art panels in between levels; tight and satisfying, if somewhat monotonous and unbalanced combat; a plot that's definitely show and don't tell, style over substance, or cool factor over coherence. While there's no Susumu Hirasawa featured here (a truly inspired choice that made my ears double-take), the soundtrack is also strong, if used sparsely, and though the weapon, character and level design are definitely to my tastes (so much so that it's ironically gotten me now interested in Bungie/Sony's Marathon reboot which features a similar plastic, bio-synthpunk aesthetic), there never feels like there's "enough".
To be sure, I felt the game lasted appropriately long for what it was, and it doesn't waste your time on padding, but there's a feeling of missed potential here. There's a bit of exploration in the levels, but not enough to mask the fact that its a linear, level-based affair. The Ball mode teases you with possibility, but Metroid Prime this is not, and is simply yet another cool but underused mechanic. The game could've used more of those ambush encounters, or offered score attack modes, or perhaps a survival/wave-based mode. By the time you have a full arsenal and have gotten to grips with the game's combat options, you're at the end. For such a compelling world, maybe give players a codex or something with lore collectibles as what little visual storytelling there is is very sparse too. As much as I praise it for being everything modern AAA single player shooters are not (read: bloated), it feels a bit too stingy here in not fleshing out its world or mechanics. Yeah there's a NG+ that was patched in later, but I wouldn't know how satisfying it would've been to play because the game is buggy and reset/deleted my save file and I wasn't about to play the game all over again without my full arsenal.
So, all those downsides drag it down quite a bit. Know that I say all this having paid around $16 CAD on a steep sale from GOG; I can imagine many being happy with what you get here despite the rather high $40 USD price, but I can imagine for many others that it would sting and in such a crowded market, does no favours for the title.
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