![]() Killing enemies will reward you with ‘nanites’, which you can use to strengthen your character’s ability points. ![]() Upgrading your character will be a familiar affair for fans of the genre. I played on PS5 and the framerate was solid throughout, with next to no performance issues whatsoever. The textures lack detail and the animations are not quite as sharp as you would want. But if someone told me it was released during the PS3 era, I would believe them. Some recent fiction has done the ‘helmet on’ storytelling really well and has set the bar high- I’m looking at YOU, Mandalorian– but Dolmen is nowhere near that bar. The full helmet he wears is never removed, relegating him to little more than a faceless robot. This isn’t helped by the fact that we are never able to see the protagonist’s face. There is not much in the way of personality from either of them though. Their dialogue serves to move the story on as the player moves deeper into the planet. The protagonist regularly communicates with one of his allies via a comms unit. But again this just comes across as creating a huge void where there should be an atmosphere. Revian Prime is a desolate place, and no doubt the developers have tried to really make you feel the silence by keeping the music to a minimum. With the only sounds being your gun firing or the occasional shrieks and wails from the monsters. Trudging through the areas you will notice there’s barely any music at all. But there is a distinct lack of atmosphere for large parts of the game, and this is extremely noticeable. To a degree, this is understandable, given the fact that it is an alien planet. Forcing you to double back on yourself for no good reason. But instead of both ultimately ending up at the same point, or one branching off into a previous area, one will usually just result in a dead-end. Often you will be presented with two paths to choose from. Despite varying in terms of the visuals and color palettes, sadly they just are not fun to explore. ![]() There are three main areas in the game, each of which is broken down into sub-sections. Unfortunately, though, it is all downhill from here. It gets off to a pretty great start in terms of the level design. At first, the interconnecting area which serves as the tutorial doubles back on itself, opens shortcuts, and introduces secret areas. From an early crater area through several space stations and experimental labs. The roughly 10-hour journey takes you across Revian Prime. We never really get to know any of the characters well enough to form opinions on whether we like or dislike them. The problem is that none of it is really interesting enough to warrant digging around looking for logs and hidden conversations just to uncover more of the lore. The story is subtly told through item descriptions and audio logs in yet another homage to Dark Souls. Unfortunately, though, other people and species also want to harness these for themselves. None more so than ‘Dolmen crystals’ which seem to have mysterious properties the Zoan Corporation wishes to harness. You are tasked with exploring Revian Prime, a planet that is full of useful resources. Working for the mysterious Zoan Corporation, you play as a genetically modified human known as a ‘Driller’. ![]() With this genre starting to become rapidly overcrowded, Dolmen certainly had its work cut out for it in order to stand out from the crowd. In fact, there are dozens of games planned for release over the next couple of years that would fall into the Soulslike category. With the runaway success of Elden Ring, this is not likely to change anytime soon. The number of Soulslikes available is increasing dramatically. Over the past decade, the success of the Dark Souls series has spawned a new phrase and sub-genre in the gaming community: the ‘Soulslike’. While its boss battles are thrilling, its moment-to-moment gameplay is dull and uninspiring, with bland enemy and level design. Drawing heavy inspiration from Dark Souls, it is a challenging RPG with a huge emphasis on combat. Dolmen is the debut title from Brazilian developers Massive Work Studio. ![]()
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