Disclosure: Thunder Lotus Games gave us a free Steam game code for review purpose.
Sundered is a horrifying fight for survival and sanity, a hand-drawn epic from the creators of
Jotun. You play Eshe, a wanderer in a ruined world, trapped in ever-changing caverns teeming
with eldritch horrors. Harness the power of corrupted relics to defeat gigantic bosses, at the cost
of your humanity. Resist or embrace.
Features
- Beautiful hand-drawn art and animation.
- Unique abilities that may be altered to provide game play tweak.
- Various upgrades and multiple character builds.
- Random encounters with hordes of enemies.
- Massive boss fights.
Game Play
When I watched the trailer on YouTube, I thought Sundered is a game that combines game play of Super Metroid (SNES, 1994) and Megaman X4 (PlayStation, 1997). Its game play is reminiscent of those classic games but Sundered has an identity of its own. Playing Sundered does not feel like playing those games with upgraded graphics.
Sundered’s game play revolves around on exploration, combat, and death. Dying is a part of the game play and you will die a lot. You always start at the Sanctuary every time you die and that is where you will spend Shards to upgrade stats such as Attack, Armor, Shield Down Time, and Energy Regeneration.
The game starts off simple and easy but gets more engaging once you unlock more upgrades and explore other regions of the map. Shrines scattered throughout the 3 regions grant you abilities which expand the combat. Eldar Shards dropped by mini bosses are used to modify the abilities granted by Shrines. Example would be the Leaping Device that grants a double-jump ability. You can “embrace” an Eldar Shard which grants you a gliding ability or “resist” the Eldar Shard and gain an ability to perform a third jump while mid-air. Gaining more abilities and unlocking more upgrades does not mean you can breeze through enemies because, as you get stronger, enemies get tougher and more of them swarm on you.
One of the features that really sets Sundered apart from other platformers is the random enemy encounters. Enemies spawn randomly so there is no such thing as safe zones and it makes every run different. Hordes of varying enemies will sometimes even appear in the platforming areas of the game where you need to avoid spikes and lasers. It makes the game more challenging and breaks the monotony of exploration.
Like with Megaman X4, boss fights are in enclosed rooms. The big difference Sundered makes is that the rooms are much larger and involves platforming.
Image Quality and Performance
The graphics of Sundered may not be comparable to that of AAA games such as The Witcher 3 but it certainly does look beautiful. Many indie games rely on “retro” graphics to attract nostalgic gamers and it’s great that Thunder Lotus Games decided to take a different path for the game’s graphics.
The game was tested on my Linux gaming PC equipped with Gigabyte GTX 970 ITX and Intel Core i7 7700. Maintaining 60 FPS was not demanding and my PC was only drawing around 80 watts when running Sundered at 2560 x 1080 resolution with maximum image quality. My Linux gaming PC usually draws around 190 watts when running more demanding games such as Dying Light so I think those using low-end GPU’s such as Radeon R7 240 would be able to enjoy Sundered at 1080p (1920 x 1080 resolution).
Closing Thoughts
Sundered is one of the indie games worth buying at full price. It improves upon the game play of classic platformers such as Super Metroid and Megaman X4 and does not only rely on nostalgia. Game length is a common weak point for indie games but Sundered changes that. I have already played Sundered for about 9 hours and the game progress is just at 27%. PC gamers using Linux will also be delighted to know that Sundered has day-1 support for Linux and does so without game-breaking bugs or graphical glitches.
The game is currently available at Steam for PhP 499.95. Steam Play is supported which means you only purchase Sundered once and you can play it on Linux, Mac, and Windows. If you want a DRM-free copy, you can buy the game at GOG for $ 19.99.