I am a fan of 2D games, especially those with hand-drawn characters, environments, etc. Sundered immediately stands out because it is absolutely gorgeous and the intro scene gave me a taste of what is coming up. After jumping and rolling through the tutorial level which blends into the main game I knew I was going to like this game. But I had this feeling with other games. And some of them managed to disappoint me.
The gameplay then… it’s cool. I immediately noticed how fluid the animations were, controls felt precise and responsive. Attacks felt good but after killing a bunch of enemies I noticed that there were more coming my way. This is when I realized that there are going to be hordes of enemies in this game. And I hate hordes of enemies. It’s in my top 10 most hated features in any video game along with randomly-generated levels. Wait, this game has randomly-generated levels? Well, I’m enjoying it so far. Let’s see how bad it gets.
To my surprise it wasn’t that bad. Hordes can be annoying but you can eventually kill them or just run away if you’re not feeling like fighting. Sometimes I would fight for a bit to gain “experience” and then run because it seemed that hordes are endless. Later on I started to understand that hordes are there for a reason. They let you level-up if you are not that good of a player like me. There are also more efficient ways to level-up in the game so don’t worry about grinding. I’ve upgraded mostly by playing the game. And to think of it, it was very interesting and challenging to fight large groups of enemies.
With that out the way, let's talk about more of the good stuff in the game. Story was very interesting and it was given in a subtle way. It also required some thinking because it’s not being fed to you but rather me trying to figure it out. It is possible that I have understood some of it wrong but on the other hand it’s nice that it’s up for interpretation. One of my favorite parts of the game is the upgrades. There are two main paths and they affect more than just the upgrades you can get upgrades. I can’t say more without spoiling it for you so feel free to get this game and try it for yourself. What I can say though is that gameplay gets much better either way.
I noticed the lack of music in the game. But it’s just me. Turns out that all those sounds were the music. The most of it blends with the rest of the sounds I barely noticed it. While thinking about the soundtrack I decided to actually listen it on Google Play and it’s great as standalone music. But sometimes it does sound like a boss slamming his legs on the grounds or shooting big guns. It really helps to set the atmosphere and the tone of the game. On top of it all there are secrets in this game. You cannot get there right away and you will need either brains or witts if you want to get whatever is hidden there. You may even need both. I remember the moment I realized that I’ll need to break rules if I’m going to get to wherever I was going
Last but definitely not least - boss fights. They are epic. They require either good upgrades or skillful usage of your abilities. I’ve done it both ways because I played this game twice and I feel like got the most out of it beating it with different approach. This game is absolutely worth your money if you play 2D action and/or hack and slash games.
WORD OF CAUTION: This is not a classic metroidvania, whatever that means. I just read it online but I don’t really care because I don’t really know what that means. What I do know however is that I had an absolute blast playing it.