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Cronos: The New Dawn |OT| Survive The Future. Salvage The Past.

powder said:
I dunno, I think a better evolution of inventory management is actually giving you less new toys. I don't want to juggle three or four different guns that just seem to be "laying around" in the environments. Make me get through the game with a single weapon if you want to challenge me instead of refusing to give me a backpack.
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You don't have to use all the weapons though; they're just options. I only keep 2 weapons in my inventory.
 
Finished the game today, the story got quite predictable like 2/3 into it, the ending was a bit underwhelming to me ngl.
But overall I really liked it, the gameplay was solid, the soundtrack was very good and the overall vibe and atmosphere were excellent. Although I would've liked a bit more enemy variety. I did manage to avoid the enemies merging like the plague, so perhaps I missed some enemy types due to that(?).
Died 4 times, all of them were in the final 3 or 4 hours, as long as you manage you resources well it isn't that difficult imo.
I wish we got to understand more about what is the Collective, Travellers and the likes but oh well. If this game is successful perhpas we'll get DLC or a sequel the dwelves more into it.
 
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GudOlRub said:
Finished the game today, the story got quite predictable like 2/3 into it, the ending was a bit underwhelming to me ngl.
But overall I really liked it, the gameplay was solid, the soundtrack was very good and the overall vibe and atmosphere were excellent. Although I would've liked a bit more enemy variety. I did manage to avoid the enemies merging like the plague, so perhaps I missed some enemy types due to that(?).
Died 4 times, all of them were in the final 3 or 4 hours, as long as you manage you resources well it isn't that difficult imo.
I wish we got to understand more about what is the Collective, Travellers and the likes but oh well. If this game is successful perhpas we'll get DLC or a sequel the dwelves more into it.
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I haven't finished yet, but they really don't shed any light on the travelers or the collective? That's dog shit. They better be setting up for a sequel.
 
Finished up with the 4th area and boss and am now in what i think is the final rift.

Boss was annoying until i got the burst carbine with lots of ammo. Maxxing this asap in ng+

Btw the corrupted essence you can get in the prison area..hoooly shit when you figure out its effect.
 
Fabieter said:
Finished steelworks. Is this the difficulty what I can expect for the rest of the game?
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It gets harder but i felt like when you have ur damage upgrades capped and a fully upgraded pyre its lowkey a cakewalk.

Third and fourth area were definitely easier to me. Steelworks prepares you well for those.
 
Finished it after 19 hrs, honestly could have been another 10, I like my games longer, in the 25-30 minimum range.

From this C rating, it looks like I played like absolute crap, it didn't feel that way at all, I hate this letter rating crap.
It was challenging at times, mostly at the beginning. The deaths are the same, most at the beginning or experimenting.

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The audio-visual presentation is amazing, no more need be said.

The combat at first I didn't quite like, but I was wrong and I'm not ashamed to admit it, this is what I said:
Alex11 said:
What I agree with you is the combat. I just don't really like it, IMO it's inferior to Dead Space and the RE series.
It's a bit too clunky as you said and I feel I die a bit too easily, I mean there is very little room for error, especially when facing multiple enemies. Even if survival, I think death in 2 hits is a bit much, IDK maybe I'm wrong and that's the way and the upgrades really matter.
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It's the way it's supposed to be, to struggle at the beginning, to die and learn from whatever you did wrong or didn't do.
And the upgrades do matter, from halfway you start to feel them and it all clicks and by the end they matter even more.

That's not to say it becomes easy, just because you learn the game and pay attention and you play it like you're supposed to, doesn't mean the game is easy or doesn't pose a challenge. It still remains more challenging than similar TPS survivals.
Enemies and bosses lack variety, the only one I liked is theabbey boss. I liked that it was different, something new, interesting.

Some gameplay nitpicks:

- Can't unload bullets from weapon variants, can't max the inventory since the upgrades are locked by area/progression. Ammo for the third gun while not even carrying
Being a game with inventory management and limited resources IMO these don't make sense.

- The anti-gravity mechanic looks cool, but that's it, as gameplay it's gimmicky. I hoped they later opened up some puzzles, exploration with hidden areas, it's pretty straightforward. The same with the electric circuit mechanic, it also comes very late.

Time node mechanic is more intereting as its more fleshed out, both in exploration and combat. One thing that IMO is genius is the enemy health on weapons.

The level design is amazing overall, for me a bit too linear at first, from Steelworks until you go to the last mission is almost perfect. That last area and its boss is a letdown.
An 8,5 for me, could have been a 9 easy with some tweaks.
 
Just beat the final boss in like 5 attempts,imo the hardest one..especially phase 3 and 4 is on some apeshit.

Pulled out the arbalest with 4 shots and took the pistol aswell. Got him into phase 4 with pistol alone and waited for those big aoe attacks to charge up and hit him.

4 shots of arbalest(no upgrades) and 1 final pistol shot (maxxed) and it was over.

Got ending A . Took 24h. Yeh i take my time and shot soo many photos.
 
TGO said:
It seems Remaking Silent Hill benefited Bloober greatly.
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It gives me hope that they will absolutely knock the SH1 remake out of the park. This and SH2R are both in my top 10 survival horrors

1. Resident Evil 2 (the gOAT)

=--------

2. SH2 Original / Remake (lean more to the remake for visual representation but indifferent in the grand scheme of things. Both remarkable version of the same game)
3. Alien Isolation
4. Resident Evil 4 (OG)
5. Resident Evil 1
6. Dead Space
7. Evil Within
8. Cronos
9. Resident Evil 3
10. Resident Evil 7
 
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Chuck Berry said:
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I mean I said it before but the art direction in this game is possibly up there as one of my favorites of all time. I've only put in a few hours but this is exactly what gets me off. I'm a huge fan of 70s and 80s Electronic music, early Industrial, stuff like that and this game is right in that pocket.

I'm also a rabid fan of Returnal and this game takes some of my favorite artistic choices of that and filters it through an even grimier Cold War lens.
 
TerribleAtThisGame said:
I mean I said it before but the art direction in this game is possibly up there as one of my favorites of all time. I've only put in a few hours but this is exactly what gets me off. I'm a huge fan of 70s and 80s Electronic music, early Industrial, stuff like that and this game is right in that pocket.
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Same here, same here, same here and same here.
 
This game is awesome to be honest. 10 hours in. And the Dead Space comparisons are lazy and dumb - the game doesn't even take place in "space" or a spaceship at all.
 
Just finished it. Really had a wonderful time with it overall.

I will say that the story kind of lost me at the end, and became too tropey and videogamey for my tastes. I liked the world and lore much more than the actual story.


Still, a very pleasant surprise and I'll be excited to try whatever Bloober produces from here on out. Solid 8.4/10 from me.
 
This game literally has that Carpenter "The Thing" heartbeat thump thump as you're doing your business

Fucking chilling man. Absolutely. It will be on my GOTY list somewhere I'm sure.
 
If anyone needs a stop gap horror game to play after this until silent hill f, crow country just hit on PSN plus.

Really liking this too.
 
I don't know if it's me or what, but oh boy it's been a while since I've been actively shitting myself playing a horror game. It's mostly business as usual with these games but this one has some extra spice.
I guess well placed jump scares on top of the very good world/sound design on headphones really brings it home for the second half of this game.
 
This game is magnificent. Much like SH2R, videos didn't do this justice. It clearly takes from here, from there, but it comes together into its own thing that is quite unique. The setting alone, again, is just perfection.

I just got to really sit down with it the first time and that first real combat arena you fall into kicked my ASS twice. Third time around I felt like it clicked and I came out thinking okay, they really did something cool with this combat. The whole game has this raw ugliness to it and the combat feels the same. A big one to mention right now is the level and encounter design. I love this. It's refreshingly linear yet keeps you on your toes and throws in plenty of small details and side areas and all to feel right.

Christian Bale GIF by PeacockTV
 
I just had to force myself to stop. The pacing in this game is so good. It's structured so well, like the whole buildup to the first boss, the time travel.

I just returned to the central station after New Dawn and this shit is just KILLER. The boss was sick too. I could waffle on, firing on all cylinders for me and much like SH2R, this game feels like much more than the sum of its parts. Feels so old school and has a lot of "soul".

PS: I'm so into this voice actress' delivery. It adds a lot. "She does not matter."
 
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Physical release is tomorrow and GameFly were kind enough to ship my copy early. Hoping to get it by the weekend so I can put some time in it. Silent Hill f releasing next week, so I'm double dipping on survival horror.

Would have loved to get the Xbox version since that seems to run a lot better per DF, but looks like this only got a PS5 physical release sadly.



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I know I keep going but oh well. At work and can't stop thinking about all the world building details and the atmosphere. I'll spoiler some shit from the first "area".

They're certainly playing with tropes here but application is key and they know how to do it. Playing through the devastation, reading about the characters and location in drips, traveling back to December '81 and connecting the dots, the building basement with the building super, finding a shelter.

They really know what made old school Survival Horror games tick imo. The world building in this is very well done and I love how detailed and condensed it feels so far. I'm a sucker for games with relatively small yet detailed locations.
 
SpearHea.:D said:
Lord that morgue encounter and the way leading to the final hospital level, amazing stuff.

Survival Horror should be this tight. The game at times is too stressful for me, had to quit, relax and boot up again.

Although not on Evil Within 1's Level, this game makes me reminds that masterpiece. Loved TEW1 10/10 Survial HorroR experience.
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Better than tlou2 ratking tension build up?
 
Finished the 2nd section now after getting the shotgun.
Really great game.
The section after the shotgun where you gotta fight a bunch of infected at once while typically not having all that much ammo was intense, and my assumption was, well, with like 2 pistol shots and 2 shotgun shots remaining while trying to be as conservative as can be, surely they won't throw a bunch of enemies at me anymore, right?
I thought wrong. Having some weak infected act camouflaged as corpses that you can stomp to kill was a great addition, makes things tense despite not being difficult in a sense. Don't want to waste ammo, and don't have to; but still feel some pressure.
Then the stronger infected were a challenge, constantly with just a few bullets. The last 2 that gank you from different sides with a dead infected at a barrel in the middle was also nice, had basically no ammo, but 2 fire cartridges, so I stunned them for long enough to beat one of them to death with my fists, and use my last 3 pistol shots to kill the last.

Relatively simple, but well designed and tense
 
Giallo Corsa said:
When the game doesn't drop ammo, it drops/provides you with resources/mats as to be able to craft them.

Again, I've been playing survival horror games since their inception and Cronos DEFINITELY isn't unfair or even "hard".

Want to know which game has bullshit ammo drop which could literally fuck you up with progressing due to the RNG ? The Callisto protocol, now that game had a terribly balanced ammo drop percentage which showed that it wasn't properly play tested, i still remember a section after the (terrible) elevator boss fight where it'd spawn enemies all around you while having literally 2 bullets in your pistol - something which wouldn't change even after reloading or dying 10x times at the same exact spot (i.e, the RNG systems in many survival horror games acknowledge the fact that you're left without ammo and basically spawns it inside crates/containers upon reloading a save).

Cronos, on the default difficulty setting at least has been one of the most mild survival horror experiences difficulty-wise so far to the point that if anyone's ever touched a joypad in the last 15 years it should pose no problem whatsoever.
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Really? I played that piece of shit at launch and i was swimming in ammo, like comically so...i thought if was one of the easiest survival i ever played.

Did they rebalanced the game after launch?
 
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GymWolf said:
Better than tlou2 ratking tension build up?
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See my post above. The game is REALLY good at pacing/buildup in my opinion. It does a lot of detailed world building via signs, notes, art direction and damn, the music. The synth pulse from The Thing starts at one point and had me stressed hard before shit popped off even. It feels tight and thought out in a way most modern releases don't anymore imo, that's the "old school" about it.
 
I'm up to the
Catacombs
now and I can say with certainty that this, not only is Bloober's best game (which by itself doesn't say much) but actually one of the best survival horror games I've ever played.

EVERYTHING is spot-on, the combat (aiming sensitivity/combat and shooting feedback), the combat encounters, the OST, the sound production, the EXCELLENT level design (pretty straightforward/linear but also with room to breathe and explore), the retro-futuristic esthetics, the VO's... EVERYTHING falls into place to create one of the most memorable gaming experiences of the past few years - I really don't know how Bloober did it but they did.

The only negatives ?
- some rooms rob you out of the surprise element® as soon as you see exploding barells/gas tanks laying around since you immediately understand that this is going to be a combat arena.

- The world is very static with zero interactivity : can't break bottles on shelves, can't break the windows, can't move chairs around etc etc...
I'd like this to be remedied in a sequel.

- While the graphics are good, it's mostly due to the amazing art-direction, most of the textures are low res and the environments at times feel low poly(?), I understand that this is a AA game but still...

- Game had some progression stopping/halting bugs when it came out.

There's other thing to nitpick but, for their 1st survival horror TPS showing this is EXTREMELY well made, it's confident at what it does since it knows its audience/target demographic.

ANYONE that's into this type of game should get it, it's actually amazing that they managed to pull something like this off, and oh, I like this much better than Silent Hill 2 remake (no framerate slow downs/no weird character models/no weird animations/60fps cutscenes vs 30).
 
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Must be an age thing because I am loving taking my time with this and drinking it all in step by step. The challenge is just right, the pacing is just right. I have the shotty, but I still don't even have the boltcutters yet.
 
GymWolf said:
I already have it and played a bit but i'm juggling too many games so i put it on freeze, it deserve a focused run if it is really that good.
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It's the kind of game GAF collectively talks about wanting a lot. It's AA, it's niche, it knows exactly what it wants to do and does it full-on, it's not a AAA ultra-polished experience and it feels refreshingly focused. It's also very "game-y" like the modern audience likes to say in that level and encounter design comes first, it doesn't care about my logical immersion over encounter design and so on.

Bloober right now reminds me of Demon's Souls era From quite a bit. The games aren't polished to perfection but you aren't getting SH2R or Cronos anywhere else and you can feel the ambition. It just depends if that niche is your shit.
 
TerribleAtThisGame said:
It's the kind of game GAF collectively talks about wanting a lot. It's AA, it's niche, it knows exactly what it wants to do and does it full-on, it's not a AAA ultra-polished experience and it feels refreshingly focused. It's also very "game-y" like the modern audience likes to say in that level and encounter design comes first, it doesn't care about my logical immersion over encounter design and so on.

Bloober right now reminds me of Demon's Souls era From quite a bit. The games aren't polished to perfection but you aren't getting SH2R or Cronos anywhere else and you can feel the ambition. It just depends if that niche is your shit.
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I'm ok with all type of games, indie, aa, niche, aaa with big budgets.

I'm not one of those who constantly cry about how the videogames are doomed every other day
 
GymWolf said:
I'm ok with all type of games, indie, aa, niche, aaa with big budgets.

I'm not one of those who constantly cry about how the videogames are doomed every other day
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Yea I don't know what you're into specifically but just pointing it out. Gives me an excuse to talk about this game more while at work and bring cucked from playing more.
 
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