With just one week of difference, free Return Updates have been published: Ascension and Inscryption: Kaycee’s Mod, two expansions that came to meet similar missions for their respective titles. Both games are appropriated of roguelite ideas (randomly generated content, permanent death, etc.), but are separated from the classical conception of gender by having a clearly defined principle and end. Ascension and Kaycee’s MOD offer us something more like an endless structure, and in both cases they serve to better highlight the unique qualities of each game.
Rorthin: Ascension adds to Bullet Hell in third person two novelties: a cooperative mode and the “tower of Sísis”, a separate location from the main game to which we are accessed from the site to which we return after each death. No need to move a lot to enter (requires the hook we got in the second final boss), but if we want to get away it is more advisable to enter with an endgame game in which we have all the improvements.
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Read more
- Analysis of Return
- Inscryption analysis
The tower of Sísis promises us what the Greek myth: a continuous ascent and an inevitable fall back at the beginning. We advanced with closed rooms (Arenas with enemies, elections of improvement or platform areas) and every twenty rooms we face a final boss. If we overcome it, we change it from phase, at which time the difficulty scale significantly. To give a little more salsa to the matter, we have a classification table that registers the score of each run based on various criteria, but that it mainly wants us to be fast, that we are effective and that we leave the room as soon as we have eliminated the last enemy.
Ascension allows Housemarque to show why they are one of the most beloved modern arcade developers: with just a multiplier, a new type of consumable (temporary weapons that work almost like Ultis) and a couple of extra standards, the Return experience It becomes even faster and fierce, a constant race against time and errors in which we must take microdecisions to every second. The exploration disappears, since every second that we spent collecting a weapon are extra obbolytes and percentage of the multiplier we are losing.
To make sure there is a final, every time we have a boss, a permanent failure is added that usually be of the most serious: enemies that leave puddles of acid when dying, reduction of damage when we are static, obobits that disappear faster… Perhaps the curve of difficulty could be a little less exaggerated in the phase changes, because past phase 2 the received damage is triggered and from phase 4 the number of enemies on the screen is overwhelming. However, viewing the maximum scores, it is evident that there is a public for this experience to who does not seem so much; The number 1 of the world goes by phase 16 at the time of writing this article.
On the other hand, ascension adds a narrative component that works best as a sequel but that can be played in parallel to the main game, with an equivalent to the campaign house in the form of a hospital corridor. Although the technically mode is infinite, this story with a more defined structure that allows to establish an “final point” to the expansion for those who only want to know more about the history of Selene, adding in this case about 5-6 overtime to the title.
Inscryption, the drafted Goty last year, dazzled us for his narrative creepypasta but also because it was a magnificent card game. Without one of his two halves would not have reached excellence, but it is also true that his campaign left wanting to continue exploring his brilliant systems. No more revealing for those who have not played, Kaycee’s Mod fulfills this desire by transforming the cabin into an independent title and, again, infinite.
Released from the fastening of having a final, Kaycee’s MOD can be allowed to break even more mechanics, leaving more room to test different strategies or simply create horrendous and indestructible letters. In return, expansion asks us to activate self-imposed challenges called “skulls” if we want to get a series of unlocks, ranging from new letters to pieces of history that complement the main game.
KAYCEE’S MOD requires us more than the campaign and even permits are permitted to throw themselves at the end of the game, since when the Game Over arrives, several statistics will be displayed… including the amount of “wrong plays”. Beyond taking salt on the wound, it seems the way you have to recover the tone of the conversations of certain characters without bringing them back directly.
I have not had time to explore this expansion such as RURNAL, but I loved it again re-torned with the systems designed by Mullins and checking how they are designed to break through a thousand sites and a thousand different ways, assessing the player’s ability When it comes to getting creative in this regard. When Inscryption came out, several teammates commented that this card game could have been an independent degree without problem; KAYCEE’S MOD is the definitive proof that we were not misguided.
Although few games can be as different in gender, budget or style, it does not stop being curious that Daniel Mullins and Housemarque have launched a similar exploration of their own works with so few days of difference. At first glance it may seem that these expansions are valuable to add infinite “content”, that word that seems to encompass anything that occupies us from leisure hours, but in both cases I see something more: an intense exploration of the systems that make both experiences In essential within their respective niches.
In turn, Return and Inscryption updates work independently because they are an addition and not a fundamental part of the experience. The rhythm of the Rental campaign were benefited from certain moments of breath that do not exist in the pure arcade of Ascension, while inscryption shone not only by its gameplay, but however how it became a part of the narrative (in addition to all The surprises he had reserved).
It is appreciated in the two cases that the feedback of the original titles has been present at the time of building these experiences that are familiar but intensify certain key facets such as the intensity of the RURTNAL combats or the malleability of the Inscryption. Separated from the main game, both expansions have plenty of space to experiment with their bases without fear of breaking something. I hope that approaches such as ascension and kaycee’s mod encourage more developers to try the limits of the gameplay of their own titles.