Chronos was a standout game for those who owned VR helmets. However, everyone else who didn't have a pair of fancy future goggles never got to experience this weird little adventure from Gunfire Games. Which wouldn't be a huge problem except for the fact that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Remnant: From The Ashes is actually♍ a sequel that incorporates much of the lore and world-building from Ch♌ronos. So many Remnant players - myself included - were often left oblivious or confused whenever a reference to the first game popped up.
Since Remnant turned out to be a sizable hit for Gunfire Games, they've gone back and remade Chronos into a third-person action title that no longer requires a VR headset. It's a pretty standard Soulslike that lacks any defining characteristics without the hook of virtual reality, although its use of puzzles to progress through its bizarre worlds does give it a unique feel.
The game begins with your unnamed, teenaged male or female protagonist gathered around with other tribal members as someone known as The Grandmother tells the tale of how Earth became a post-apocalyptic craphole. At the end of the story, she tells you that it's your destiny to travel to somewhere called The Labyrinth in order to slay a monster known as The Dragon, who is the cause of all the world's suffering. Also, if you happen to die during your quest, you'll have to wait an entire year before trying again. So essentially, you have to try over and over until you either kill The Dragon or die of old age, which seems like a rather heavy burden to unload upon an 18-year-old.
The plot is pretty thin, but fans of Remnant: From The Ashes will see plenty of references to that game's story which will make a lot more sense after playing this. Things like the World Stones, Ward 17, Dreamers, and other bits of lore pop up frequently. There are also some significant story revelations that reframe some of the events that occur in Remnant. It demonstrates that good lore can make up for a weak narrative as I often found myself going, "Oh, I know that from Remnant," which was enough to keep me going as I wanted to see how it all tied together.
Chrꦛonos: Before The Ashes is a Soulslike and follows a lot of the standard gameplay tropes from that particular genre. Combat is almost exactly what you would expect from a Souls title with light and heavy attacks, blocks and parries, dodge-rolls, and other familiar mechanics. But it does some things differently, like including the use of items known as Dragon Stones which give your character different powers. These tend to take the form of buffs that can temporarily increase your attack damage and speed, make you invulnerable, or steal 🦩health from enemies.
The process of aging plays a big role in how you level up your character. While leveling up normally gives you two skill points to allocate into strength, agility, vitality, and arcane (which improves your magic), each death ages you one year. Every ten years you get to choose from three new perks that permanently buff your character. Your age also affects how you level up as being young lets you easily assign points to strength and agility, but growing older makes your arcane skill more important as you're no longer as spry as you used to be.
Using your character's age to determine their upgrades is a neat concept, although I didn't really get to make much use of it. Chronos: Before The Ashes isn't a particularly long game with about three expansive levels and a few boss fights. Plus, by selecting certain perks, I was able to beat the game while I was still in my thirties so I didn't even get to see what the rest of the upgrades were. Granted, I did play this game on normal difficulty - a Soulslike with difficulty options?! What madness is this?! - so perhaps you'll end up aging more rapidly if you play it on hard.
Chronos also shares a similar problem that I had with Remnant where it continued to give me new weapons, but by the time I got them I had already upgraded one weapon to the point that it made no sense to switch. While it was cool to get a new ax or sword, my hammer was so destructive that it beat everything else. At a certain point, I was just collecting new gear just for the hell of it despite knowing that I was never goingꦰ to use it.
The switch from being a VR game to a regular third-person game may have been responsible for some of the bad camera angles I encountered. There were multiple times where I would be fighting an enemy and I'd get backed into a corner where I could no longer see where my character was. The camera would zoom in too close on the enemy and I would be stuck trying to maneuver my way out. It got to a point where I would have to lead enemies to a wide-open area where I could fight them without fear of having my back up against the wall. It didn't ruin combat for me, but it was a massive inconvenience that led to some deaths that felt cheap.
One thing that made Chronos stand out for me was its use of puzzles. Soulslikes tend to be all about combat and leveling up, but here there were multiple occasions where I would be presented with a dead-end that required some actual puzzle-solving. Some of these were clever and required you to take notice of your surroundings in order to move forward. It added a bit of Zelda-like problem solving, which isn't something I've seen a lot of Soulslikes do.
The only problem is that some of these puzzles require obtaining an item and then backtracking through a level. Chronos doesn't have a map and some of the areas look pretty similar to each other. Thus, if you don't remember exactly where you need to go, you can end up wandering around until you rediscover where you were supposed to be. Soulslikes don't typically need maps but with puzzles and backtracking being involved, Chronos would have benefited from a map or at least some more identifiable landmarks being strewn about.
Chronos: Before The Fall is a decent game, but feels rather unremarkable. I never played it through VR and it seems that might have been the game's major selling point. There's not much reason to play this if you're already experienced it in VR as it doesn't look like much was changed aside from the perspective. The story, gameplay, and levels all seem to have remained the same. It's also coming out at a rough time since the remake of the progenitor of the Soulslike genre, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Demon's Souls, just released and is probably a more enthr♛alling title in🤡 every way.
But if you don't own a PS5 and wouldn't mind staring at those bright red World Stones from Remnant again, then Chronos: Before The Ashes might make for a decent distraction. Especially since completing this lifelong journey may not take you all that long.
A PC copy of Chronos: Before The Ashes was provided to TheGamer for this rev✃iew. Chronos: Before The Ashes is availablꩲe on PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia.
Chronos: Before the Ashes
- Top Critic Avg: 68/100 Critics Rec: 32%
- Released
- December 1, 2020
