Dolmen preview
0Dolmen Preview
Dolmen is a game that Iove been aware of for a while now. Having watched over a gameplay video of this sci-fi soulslike title, it has been one Iove casually kept tabs on over the years. Now I have the privilege to get some hands-on experience with the game and let me tell you, this took great pleasure in kicking my ass.
So we're set in a universe where our scientific boffins have
Certain enemies will have weaknesses to certain elements, but its their lingering status effects that make their use worthwhile. For example, if you manage to inflict the Light Wave status effect on an enemy, they will periodically discharge flames, hurting themselves and nearby enemies. If that discharge happens to hit another enemy afflicted with Light Wave, fire will ricochet back and forth between them, doing tons of damage to them and any friends caught in the middle. Its a powerful strategy to help weed out mobs of weaker foes, but it comes with some risk as youall burn through your energy bar, which is also your primary method to heal. Using energy to heal sacrifices a portion of your bar and can leave you with nothing to make use of until a checkpoint can be reached.
Checkpoints scattered throughout the area will teleport you back to your ship where you can level up, change equipment, and craft new gear that you can use to cater your stats to the play style you want. The gameplay loop checks all of the boxes to make a competent Soulslike experience, but there are numerous annoyances big and small that eat away at Dolmen and made it far more frustrating to preview as a result.
You can also choose specific starting loadouts to give yourself a bit of an edge at the outset. I went with one that gave me dual-wielded energy weapons. You can also choose single-handed weapons, shields, and two-handed weapons. If you have a shield or two-handed weapon, you can parry enemy attacks. Combat in Dolmen is pretty much exactly what you find in every other Souls-like, which is to say that the controls are very responsive and combat is tight and challenging. Obviously, this is a tough game, and it doesnt shy away from laying you flat, even early on.
In the very beginning, I mostly went up against these weird insect creatures. Theyre not all that strong individually, but the game doesnt mind throwing half a dozen of them at you at one time, which saw me dying occasionally. Shortly after, there are human-esque enemies that are much more dangerous.
I noticed early on in my campaign that the freedom you are given is quite great. If you don't want to take a particular route, you can choose another. The upgrade system is limited only by the material you find in the world, and the same goes for your abilities, which can be upgraded however you want. You are not locked into a specific class although you have to choose one at the beginning. It works just like it does in Dark Souls. The problem is that the enemies can be much more difficult if you don't find a good route. Once I got to the bosses, I felt they were the highlights. You are offered a classic form of game design, where the key to defeating the bosses is to learn how the boss move and attack. One of the early bosses I fought was a massive spider. The size of the bosses is a bonus and in my opinion makes them far more intimidating, even though, in general, I find them a little easy and far easier to read than the ones you find in Dark Souls
Perhaps whats most exciting about Dolmen, however, is the range of environments and enemies its set to offer. After beating the large arachnid-like boss, we were whisked away to a new location that offered a vastly different experience. Dark, oppressive corridors were replaced with bright, open areas filled with sand. And our enemies were more advanced and ferocious. It seems like you wont really know whats around the next corner in Dolmen, keeping you on your toes and invested in the action.
After our hands-on time with Dolmen, we dont expect it to blow us away at launch. It should make plenty of Souls-like fans fans happy though, offering an experience thats similar to what theyre used to but with some twists that give it a bit of welcome freshness. It certainly seems better than Hellpoint and, with some time left before the games launch, there every chance that additional polish will be bestowed upon it to iron out some of its rough edges.
Ultimately, my short look at this adventure allowed me to check out a couple unique areas - the aforementioned one with spider creatures and a wasteland factory where deadly cybernetic soldiers lurked and large, unkillable creatures baked the ground with sweeping rays of death. They led up to boss encounters that featured their own unique challenge to conquer, such as an insect queen that unleashed her skittering offspring on me even as I tried to dodge her much larger claws and spit attacks.
Other Videos By Bazifar30
Other Statistics
Dolmen Statistics For Bazifar30
Bazifar30 currently has 26 views spread across 1 video for Dolmen. His channel published less than an hour of Dolmen content, less than 0.82% of the total video content that Bazifar30 has uploaded to YouTube.