Surrounded by darkness, jump scares, and bosses you have no business defeating (unless you got skills), Dolmen brings the same feeling as Dead Space once did for me. Running around cluelessly and trying to figure out when I was going to die next. Great times!
The familiarities draw my attention and my curiosity about the unknown drives me to want to play this game some more. The game’s movements and mechanics resemble that of Demon Souls but the environment definitely brings me back to the nightmares on the Ishimura. Characters are humanoid but there are variations to confirm that you can play with characters with more alien-like features. There are no confirmed perks or trait differences. So I guess we will have to wait till release to play around with that.
Personally, I love the thrills that come out of horror games but I see the horror element dissipate when co-op is mentioned. Developers in Massive Works seem to understand this, so they make it that the game itself is solo but you may call out for help when you are at the boss fights. This lets you truly experience the game to the fullest. Get the true horror aspect and yet get together to take down the big bad bosses in a more adventurous setting.
Co-op is only available during boss fights, which get you loot for crafting/upgrading gear. If you do decide to do co-op don’t worry about being jipped, everyone gets the same loot. Although there may be some instances in which efforts are questioned by a team member. I look forward to yelling and screaming at my friends and monitor.
Oz’s Reactions –
Having played for just a couple of minutes, CTO of Massive Work Studio, Gabriel Ferreira, said, “Yeah, you’re definitely into action games” after noticing that my aggressive run-in-and-attack everything approach kept getting me killed. He guided me through the level explaining exactly what I should be doing and expecting because clearly, I’m not a “souls-like” experienced gamer. This was great, especially for it being the end of the day, having Gabriel take some time to guide and make suggestions was just the IRL Tutorial I needed.
At the booth, they had three classes set up for you to test out, an all-out melee build, a ranged build, and a hybrid build. When I initially started I went for the hybrid build just to get the best of both worlds and learn the game. Midway through my demo, I scrapped the whole thing after dying, a lot, and went with the melee build as recommended. It was definitely a much better approach for me, and I can honestly say it flowed much better with my play style. I still died, a lot… but my actions made more sense once figuring out the game itself.
Dolmen’s sci-fi environment and scary-looking aliens adds to the overall horror-type vibe, and we can’t wait to dive into this game.
