Title: Video Game Review: Desync - less than the sum of its parts
Author: Sparrowhawk
Recovered Author: Sparrowhawk
Published Date: 2017-03-17
Original URL: https://geeknode.co.za/2017/03/video-game-review-desync-less-than-the-sum-of-its-parts
Wayback URL: https://web.archive.org/web/20170712233220id_/http://www.geeknode.co.za/2017/03/video-game-review-desync-less-than-the-sum-of-its-parts/
Recovery Confidence: high
Categories: Video Game Review
Tags: adult swim games, combos, dark souls, Desync, difficult games, difficulty, featured, FPS, Geeknode, git gud, pc game, review, shooter, single player, Steam, technical games, video game reviews, Video Games

- Developer The Foregone Syndicate
- Publisher Adult Swim Games
- Distributor Adult Swim Games
- Where we got our copy Adult Swim Games
- Genre FPS
- Game modes Single Player
- Players 1
- Reviewed on PC

- Where to buy http

- Sparrowhawk

- 4 months ago

- 0 0

Retrofuturistic neon colours? A blaring heavy synth soundtrack? 80’s sci-fi idea of games in the future? Quake and Doom inspired FPS? Punishing difficulty? Rad combos? Desync has a lot going for it. It’s a combo-encouraging FPS game where you shotgun-shuriken-combo-blast your way through waves of enemies to clear increasingly insane stages. And wait til you see the boss designs! The difficulty is a key component, and you can expect to die over and over as you study and fail to learn the optimal way to handle each section.

Taken as a collection of parts, a pitch, a working version even, it is tense and explosively fun. The game encourages risky, technical play with scores and boosts, and the combos range from easy (stun and kill) to insane (knock an enemy up with a rocket and finish it mid-air with a second). But when you look closer there are a few flaws that really say a lot about the glut of difficult games that have followed in the wake of Soulsborne’s success.

Before I do that, though, there is a lot to praise about Desync. There is a great collection of enemies for a small-size game, each with unique abilities, tells, and weaknesses. And when a new one spawns, you’ll have absolute dread as you try to guess its style. On top of this, there are also special templates that alter the size, speed, health, or damage of an enemy, while visually overlaying it with different neon glows.

It is beautiful in a way that really sets it apart from conventional FPS fare. It is amazing to get away from the gritty aesthetic that is so much the norm for the genre. The heavy synth soundtrack makes you feel like you’re in some TRON-inspired fever dream. It gives a driving rhythm to each stage, and when you’re in the zone, it has the perfect atmosphere.

Similarly, the visuals are cool. The low-poly style visuals make the enemy types incredibly clear. It’s hard to ignore the burly Goliath leaping towards you when he’s lit up like he’s going to a rave. There is some neat screen distortion effects and film grain that adds to the feeling of playing a game ripped from the dreams of an 80’s sci-fi nerd. Already, though, there is one key concern – these effects can’t be switched off. And while I like them, in theory, it makes reading the tiny text in the game a real challenge.

Now we get to the heart of the game’s issues. Difficulty and hardcore have become buzzwords, a kind of gauntlet thrown down by developers (Looking at you Dark Souls!). Beat this. We dare you. It’s a reaction against handholding, tutorialising and access-granting. Talking about difficulty has also become difficult, as so often criticism is dismissed by ” git gud” culture. But it’s important not to confuse difficult with excellent. As a fan of Dark Souls, I can appreciate difficulty paired with top-quality design. Desync falls short, and my enjoyment of Souls makes it hard to simply talk about Desync on its own merits.

While Desync’s visuals make identifying the enemy types really clear, the animations feel stunted. They lack anticipation or telegraphing on melee attacks. Killer swings happen at light speed with no warning. Enemies leap into the air without any wind-up. Coupled with some very strange enemy pathfinding, this makes predicting their moves unnecessarily complicated. Especially rapid heavy attacks left me wanting to throw my mouse through my computer screen rather than grind another attempt. To contrast with Dark Souls, or Hyper Light Drifter, Desync’s animations obscure the enemy’s movements rather than highlight them. In the other two games, each enemy design is fair – once you know the tricks. Here, I felt that even after endless attempts an enemy can still so easily leap onto my head and stomp me like a goomba even if I know how to get away and am in the process of doing so.

Another problem is in the audio. Rather, it’s in the lack of audio. I lost count of the number of deaths to unseen lumbering monsters. Audio cues are few and far between, and unfortunately easily lost in the electronic soundtrack. It can be really hard to know if, when, and how many enemies are spawning around you. Enemies irregularly telegraph their attacks with a sound effect, and it can even be hard to tell if you’ve hit your target or not. A totally mute rocket launcher impact feels so, so wrong.

Maybe I am in the minority. Maybe I could git better. FPS games weren’t really my genre, and I know my skill level presented a barrier from the start. But after endless attempts, I’d finally nail down a perfect execution. Turn, blast the knife thrower into the spike trap. Dash. Turn. Change to pistol and stun. Change back to shotgun. Blast the big guy into the abyss. Dash. And in those moments Desync feels like a good run on Souls. It’s murder ballet and I am a dancing god. But much, much more often I was a raving lunatic inventing swearwords that have never been uttered before.

And this brings me to my final and biggest concern. Once you are in a level, you’re in. You can’t save and quit, stop to make some tea or scream into a pillow. The game only saves your progress at the end of a level, after five or six or more stages of four or five waves of enemies. I stopped feeling tense and started feeling nauseous. And having to redo entire stages because I’d stopped to go to work feels unfair.

And without a story or a pseudo-open world, there can be no progress if you get stuck. When the same teleporting break-dancing green monsters eviscerate you for thirty minutes, that’s it. You just have to keep playing until you are red-eyed and have given up on language entirely. Again, I compare it to Dark Souls, where you have natural break points and options to try elsewhere when the frustration grows too much. Desync is missing those moments to exhale.

What frustrates me is that otherwise, this would be an amazing game. The incentives to play technically and cleverly are great. The range and customization of weapons lets you find your own style. Some of the fight arenas are incredible, giving you a wealth of options. These all come together to give you wonderful tactical freedom. And you could get hours upon hours of play out of this, especially if the bug bites. The elusive S+ rank is there to get you playing again and again, mastering the spawn patterns and perfecting your play-style. I want to love this game unqualified. But I simply can’t. The design choices turn difficult into unfair. All of the parts come together to leave me feeling frustrated, and not motivated.

Here is the problem. Like any of these hardcore difficulty games, you need to spend hours practicing, perfecting the craft of the game. You need to memorize attack sequences to manage your resources, learn the enemy attack principles, and the meaning of all the little bars and power-ups. This should be a satisfying, engaging experience. Instead, I found myself battering again and again at a stage, wishing I could just not be playing anymore. Without being able to stop at any time, or have breathing space, or make progress, the unfair design decisions make it downright unpleasant. I’d rather give up and go play Dark Souls. At least then I know when I die, it’s all on me.

Retrofuturistic neon colours? A blaring heavy synth soundtrack? 80's sci-fi idea of games in the future? Quake and Doom inspired FPS? Punishing difficulty? Rad combos? Desync has a lot going for it. It's a combo-encouraging FPS game where you shotgun-shuriken-combo-blast your way through waves of enemies to clear increasingly insane stages. And wait til you see the boss designs! The difficulty is a key component, and you can expect to die over and over as you study and fail to learn the optimal way to handle each section. Taken as a collection of parts, a pitch, a working version even, it is tense and explosively fun. The game encourages risky, technical play with scores and boosts, and the combos range from easy (stun and kill) to insane (knock an enemy up with a rocket and finish it mid-air with a second). But when you look closer there are a few flaws that really say a lot about the glut of difficult games that have followed in the wake of Soulsborne's success. Before I do that, though, there is a lot to praise about Desync. There is a great collection of enemies for a small-size game, each with unique abilities, tells, and weaknesses. And when a new one spawns, you'll have absolute dread as you try to guess its style. On top of this, there are also special templates that alter the size, speed, health, or damage of an enemy, while visually overlaying it with different neon glows. It is beautiful in a way that really sets it apart from conventional FPS fare. It is amazing to get away from the gritty aesthetic that is so much the norm for the genre. The heavy synth soundtrack makes you feel like you're in some TRON-inspired fever dream. It gives a driving rhythm to each stage, and when you're in the zone, it has the perfect atmosphere. Similarly, the visuals are cool. The low-poly style visuals make the enemy types incredibly clear. It's hard to ignore the burly Goliath leaping towards you when he's lit up like he's going to a rave. There is some neat screen distortion effects and film grain that adds to the feeling of playing a game ripped from the dreams of an 80's sci-fi nerd. Already, though, there is one key concern - these effects can't be switched off. And while I like them, in theory, it makes reading the tiny text in the game a real challenge. Now we get to the heart of the game's issues. Difficulty and hardcore have become buzzwords, a kind of gauntlet thrown down by developers (Looking at you Dark Souls!). Beat this. We dare you. It's a reaction against handholding, tutorialising and access-granting. Talking about difficulty has also become difficult, as so often criticism is dismissed by " git gud" culture. But it's important not to confuse difficult with excellent. As a fan of Dark Souls, I can appreciate difficulty paired with top-quality design. Desync falls short, and my enjoyment of Souls makes it…

Video Game Review: Desync – less than the sum of its parts

Video Game Review: Desync – less than the sum of its parts

2017-03-17

Sparrowhawk

Total - 6.8

68
6.8

Desync should be a fantastic, tight FPS experience. It encourages excellence in play, with loads of tactical options and a fantastic soundtrack and aesthetic. I want to love it, but difficulty does not excuse unfair design. It's flaws, like the lack of visual and audio cues make my overall feeling frustration, not fun. With some minor tweaks, it could be fantastic, and for many diehard FPS players it may already be a blast. For the rest, this might not be the game for you. It wasn't really for me.

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Sparrowhawk

Gaming Author at Geek Node

Brendan hides behind both LCD and DM screens from the lure of adult life. Perpetual student on hiatus and freelance writer of things. Indie game enthusiast. Maker of puns and cuddler of cats.

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Article Tags:
adult swim games · combos · dark souls · Desync · difficult games · difficulty · featured · FPS · Geeknode · git gud · pc game · review · shooter · single player · Steam · technical games · video game reviews · Video Games

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