Tucked away in a psychedelic booth on the final day of Gamescom, playing Ultros was as feverish as intended - a fellow journalist and I sat on a blow-up sofa (those ‘90s plastic ones, you know the ones I mean) testing our mettle against this Metroidvania. It’d been a long day, and longer week, but Ultros was an island of psychedelic calm in the chaos. Everything about this world felt trippy and a bit wo♛ozy, but the character’s slick animations and the throbbing, vibrant backdrop of The Sarcophagus (a space Uterus holding many enemies, little gardens, and boss fights) were sharp and bright.
I only had a brief glimpse into Ultros, but it reminded me in part of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Artful Escape - the ambient sound and colourful backdrop design were particular highlights.🍎 El Huervo, the composer for Ultros, is known for his work on Hotline Miami, to give you an idea of what you can expect. It’s trippy, psychedelic, and bizarre. It was even stranger to be thrust into the story with no idea what was going on, but the set piece was batshit, so it didn’t really matter. In particular, I enjoyed the thumping track that accompanied the boss fight against a giant cosmic horror. Although we were relatively early in the game, the boss battle had nuance and puzzle elements, and was classically Metroidvania in that it rewarded smart moves and combos.
Combat and movement felt smooth in general, an important factor for Metroidvanias. I slowed the character down to a meandering walk and t♛he guy had some swag. The animations were tight even as I rolled and dodged around, and this was reflected in combat that was punchy and satisfying - although some enemies were a little hard to make out against the backdrop. You could just put that down to my sleepy brain and not having much time to adjust.
It’s the unique mechanics in Ultros that will help it stand out in a competitive genre: a seed mechanic that allows you to plant gardens along the path, and a time-loop mechanic that will allow you to travel and restarꩵt areas whenever you like. Backtracking through empty spaces can be a pain in a Metroidvania, so this is a clever switch.
In terms of plants, there are a variety of seeds in the game that will offer you different bonuses, balancing your different stats to allow you to unlock different skills on the ability tree. To progress along a certain path of skills, you’ll need to grow the matching plants to munch on, granting you the required stat points. I encountered a few of these garden patches in the short time I played, and I’d imagine that there are plenty of these to utilize and allow you to freely cust♋omize/upgrade your character as you play. Then you can also harvest any plants you’ve put down after they’ve grown via the time-loop, or place down new seeds to collect better fruit.
Ultros is out in 2024, and i🅰t&🐓rsquo;s a game I’m quietly looking forward to after my preview at Gamescom.
