Tuesday 14 December 2021

First Impressions of Mistover


 Technically I started this game yesterday but the only thing I did today was stream Iron Tank and SMT V so I'm taking a chance to talk about my first few dungeons in this game I got for free on PSN.

The first and most obvious thing about it is that the moment the game starts you realize that you're just playing Darkest Dungeon again.  The dungeons play out a bit more like a Mystery Dungeon type deal, sure but the overall vibe of the game just screams Darkest Dungeon clone.  I'm not really saying this as a bad thing either since I loved Darkest Dungeon and more of that with a twist is always a good thing.  The game is also anime as hell with a lot of the characters being moe blob anime girls with large lances and stuff like that.

It may look and feel like a Darkest Dungeon clone but it seems to have ripped its plot, however, right out of Demons Souls.  There's a big pillar of fog that's been wreaking havoc, adventureres go in the fog to try and stop it and those that go in don't usually come back out.  A bog standard reason to have an adventure but we're more here for party management and fighting with RNG more than anything else.

You have a town where you manage your team of anime people and kit them out with stuff as well as prepare for your travels into the mist.  There are all sorts of shops and upgrade places that all get thrown at you at once and right now it feels all a bit overwhelming.  It's not so much that the systems are hard to understand, so once you spend a little time with it, it all falls into place but the game just backs up a big dump truck of stuff at you and leaves you to work it out.  I'm almost sure this is intentional to make you feel like an out of place adventurer whos in over your head but from an actual game play perspective its just annoying to have to sit there and sift through all this shit before I can really get going.

Once you're ready, you grab a quest from the anime girl in town and head into a dungeon.  Dungeons are randomly generated affairs filled with monsters, obstacles, traps and loot.  Each of your characters has a unique skill to help traverse the place and while you're exploring you have to manage hunger and your light source.  I think if your characters fall while you're doing these dungeons they are gone for good but I've not lost anyone yet so I'm not entirely sure if the game has perma-death.

The most interesting feature though is the Doomsday Clock.  When you finish a dungeon, depending on how much of it you explored and how well you did finding chests and such, a big old clock will tick up towards midnight.  If you get everything in the dungeon then it doesn't move and if you leave with a bunch of shit undone then it progresses.  If it gets to midnight then the games over and you lose.  I've heard it can also tick backwards if you do REALLY well but I found everything there was to find in a small dungeon and it didn't happen so I guess I have to do the bigger levels for that. 

Either way, I think I'm going to have a good time with Mistover, only time will tell if the RNG makes me rip my hair out or not but for a game I got for free on PSN, so far I'm impressed

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