Biomass Reviews

Really having a good time with this game despite so many deaths. The graphics evoke something that is between an old Atari game and Super Nintendo/Genesis era games. The soundtrack justs fits the game and is a pleasure to listen. What I enjoy the most is the combat. Learning each enemy's attacks and patterns and then having to deal with several different foes all at once makes combat like figuring out a puzzle. It just feels good to clash beamsabres. Some people might be turned off by the sometimes long marches from the workstations back to where they died to recover their loot but right now I relish each "run" as a chance to experiment and optimize my fighting skills. I definitely recommend this game.

What can I say... this game blew me away man! I bought this game because of one particular user review that resonated with me and did not regret it so I'll pretty much just repeat what that person said. This is a game that makes you FEEL things. I don't mean in a mushy sort of 'the story is really emotional' way.. but rather in the sense that the game is totally immersive. The art and the music are just dripping with ambience and style. It is what I would call a 'true game'. There are no immersion breaking cut-scenes, there are no points the game takes away control from you, there are no tedious side or escort quests... When you are playing biomass you are just... playing biomass.... This game gives you autonomy and respects your intelligence enough to trust that you can figure out what to do and where to go and even why - on your own. It is very much a game in the same vein as legends such as dark souls and outer wilds and, if you're like me, you will play the game over and over and over chasing that last little secret or piece of dialogue. If you enjoyed either of those games and also enjoy 2d games then this game is 100% for you. I don't know why so few people are playing this which is why I'm making this review. I hope it helps others to see how awesome this developer is (he made it pretty much on his own) and encourage them to support him so he continues to make bigger and better games! Edit: Also I thought it was worth mentioning Hollow Knight since it's such a popular game that is similar... I personally enjoyed this game more than hollow knight, although it IS smaller, and would say biomass at least rivals HK in quality.

Tried every modern metroidvania, souls-like, roguelike I could get my hands on and this is one of the few that I really enjoy. Deceptively simple at first glance the game is original and quite diverse, with great atmosphere while being challenging but fair at least to where I have progressed at this point. Strange I find it just now, had not heard about the game ever before and I like it a lot better than others that are much more popular and far less interesting.

Biomass is quite possibly the most interesting, engaging game of the year and I'm not even REALLY done with it yet. You're thrust into an eerie, crestfallen kinda universe encountering a variety of sometimes odd, sometimes badass, sometimes genuinely nerve wracking characters. You're feeling generally pretty at home, the combat has some trademark "soulsy" rolls, parries and overall "git gud or go home" to it. Then you start to realise how the equipment you wear, the items you find, the directions you go effect your interactions with the world, you start to wonder how differently the path you walked might have been. What'd you miss? Who didn't have to die? Then things get REALLY gnarly in ways you should only experience for yourself. Do yourself the favour, pick it up and don't forget to take in just how good that soundtrack is while your mind is being blown.

First and probably only time I'll ever 100% a game. I'm not great at writing reviews but I very thoroughly enjoyed this game. The only part of the game I ever found genuinely frustrating/annoying is one area where you have to spend a couple minutes climbing ladders every time you die just to progress, but it's only in one spot and it's only an issue for as long as the area remains difficult to you.

An absolute masterpiece. The only con I can think of is that not enough people have played it; would have loved to get into deep discussions about the surprisingly rich and intricate lore of this game, the music, the creative choices, and everything else that makes this game a true work of art. I got way more than my money's worth. Unity/10 would erase my memory to discover it for the first time again.

My opinion on this game is oddly subjective, as to me it somehow is a lot more than the sum of its pieces: I love it. I haven't played that many indie games, but this one is my favourite so far. If I had to summarize it, I'd say it's weird - but in a mostly great way, I just don't think it's for everyone. So what makes it weird? The power levels of the bosses are kinda erratic, you might find yourself needing countless attempts for one boss and then beating the next on second try. The story is difficult to piece together, even for a souls-like, on the one hand this may be confusing, on the other it's cool and mysterious. The world and its aesthetics are a crazy blend of styles, if you ever felt like slashing tentacle beasts with a lightsaber, while wearing a cowboy outfit - this game is for you. In my eyes the pixel art is amazing and the soundtrack is really good too. Somehow the low detail that comes with pixel graphics and the vague story make this strange world surprisingly immersive, you just need to fill in the blanks for yourself. Every now and then you discover some missing links and references to things you've seen before so everything feels increasingly coherent over time. And this brings me to what I like most about this game: The atmosphere Biomass has something really dark to it sometimes. While it isn't a horror game, there are some rather disturbing implications in the story and the setting is full of despair. And yet I always felt like I didn't know what to expect and that makes it so interesting to me, as sometimes there were moments of peace and serenity when I didn't expect them. It's unpredictable but somehow it still fits together, it's exciting and in a way it's intense. And when I finally understood the main story that was a really great moment. I don't even want to talk about the gameplay too much, others do that in a better way, because it isn't the selling point to me, even though I definitely enjoy it. This isn't a huge game with complex skill trees or dozens of stats, but there is a solid bunch of weapons with quite different characteristics, interesting and useful upgrades for a variety of playstyles (melee or ranged, glass cannon or tanky) as well as a very simple crafting and levelling system. There are some secrets where you can interact with your environment to find hidden treasure or a shortcut which is cool, additionally changing your outfit can change your interactions with NPCs. The bosses all feel unique, have decent movesets for a small game and with few exceptions I had a lot of fun beating them. The normal enemies are nicely done too, ranging from easy to surprisingly challenging. Now for some downsides: Some of the controls aren't perfectly intuitive and navigating the inventory is hard at times, but besides of one button being used for both interacting and healing it usually didn't annoy me. I had moments where the game was just too cryptic and confusing for me to figure out what to do next, so I had to ask others for help. Some run ups to bosses are very annoying because you just climb a ladder for a time that feels terribly long after having to do it for the 20th time and the placement of checkpoints could be better at times. Overall I highly recommend this game, if you're looking for a souls-like metroidvania that's a unique experience with great atmosphere and a beautiful world, just expect to be a little confused or lost at times and don't expect revolutionary gameplay. It's worth mentioning that the dev is working on an improved version, so there will be more aspects to fights and many problems will probably be fixed, so if you aren't convinced now, maybe you still want to check out Resynced when it is released.

Was honestly expecting to enjoy this game after reading the rave reviews. I'm usually a sucker for pretentious meta commentary and souls-likes/metroidvanias in general but I had so many issues with this game within the first half hour that I couldn't be bothered. Combat feels very clunky and rigid. It's honestly hard to explain with words but nothing ever felt "good". Weird frame timings, attacks always seeming to be just out of range, nothing has impact whatsoever, having to wait a couple of frames after rolling to be able to attack again. It all just felt off. Adding onto the combat complaint, the parry system is extremely inconsistent. I tried to parry most attacks I ran across and it seemed like it really only affect 2 of the many weapons and attacks I came across. And the times it "did" work it took me a second to even register that it did something because the animations and combat in general are just so floaty and lack impact. Ran into an enemy that you literally couldn't dodge because his attack went both in front and behind his hitbox hitting you on the backswing if you tried to dodge through him. Oh and you can't parry him either even though his weapon is the same color as the only ones I could parry beforehand. That was fun. Remember when Miyazaki thought it was a good idea to have your character get locked in a 3 second animation when you pick up your bloodstain, causing you to die again if you dared to pick it up without clearing the area again therefore making you risk losing them if you die in a room crowded with enemies? That was fun. I should also mention you have no healing unless you can manage to build up energy by hitting enemies or clashing with their weapons, but you can only hold one charge of it. Which is you know, fun. Especially when you're just starting out and learning the enemy patterns and have absolutely no way of recovering from guaranteed mistakes your first time through, therefore causing you to run the same 5 minutes back to the same enemy every time you make said mistakes. Maybe the game gets better and all of these systems work eventually. I don't know, I don't care, all I know is it makes for an incredibly frustrating first play experience and I couldn't be arsed to find out. The general atmosphere is cool, I'll give it that. Story seems interesting? I'm sure there's some sort of pay off if the other reviews are to be believed. But pretentious world building and cool pixel art aren't enough to carry this for me, sorry.

The last balancing patch addressed 80% of my criticism in regards to the 'power progression' so I have to rewrite the entire review to reflect it. Before the update, we didn't have a dedicated healing item, so now you can regain some of your health without engaging in melee combat, making the game more accessible to new players. Don't feel bad, you are not playing the easy version of the game, the developer also fixed the damage formula which inflated the power of some weapons by like 300%. Lastly, I want to mention that biomass (currency) has been nerfed overall, meaning that it will take much longer to flatline the difficulty curve (although it will still happen around the 8-hour mark). Some of the harder locations do not reward you with a reasonable amount of biomass, but generally speaking, the recent patch made the game less sporadic, even though it's more difficult overall. Props to the developer for pushing those changes so quickly, now it should be more difficult to find abusive tactics in regards to farming and stats. Biomass is similar to the first Dark Souls in terms of how it is structured - it has a starting area that branches out in a few directions (one of the paths is not intended for new players, but you could take it). Now to call this game a metroidvania is a bit of a stretch, there are some aspects of the genre, but they are very limited, and in some cases, you can work around them. Once you commit to a certain path you have to finish it before trying a new direction, you will have to replay the game a few times to access all of the content. The game can be completed in 6 hours (or one path), with additional paths taking less time due to the power curve, so it could take over 12 hours to see the bulk of the game. Some of the quest lines have multiple outcomes so it has additional replay value for all of you completionists out there. Without going too deep into spoilers, I'll just say that replay value is part of this game, you are not meant to see everything in a few playthroughs. The combat system has a lot of different features including melee counters, I-frames rolls, hitting projectiles, equipping mods, using consumables, weapon collisions, meter building, and stamina consumption (if you played any Souls-like most of these should sound familiar). The game also has a unique healing system where you are rewarded for continuously fighting in melee combat. Essentially you build a red meter in the corner that depletes if you do not gain the first charge, but you can also use it at full to recover more health. The effectiveness of the charging system depends on the weapon, I find that using faster blades is more efficient (you can also modify the mechanic with different mods that could completely change how it works). As for the melee counters, it really depends on the enemy and the attacking frames, personally I don't find it very reliable, you need a lot of experience in the game to do it consistently. The roll has some I-frames, they are much shorter than in similar games so it's not always a good idea to roll into a wide attack, sometimes it's better to just avoid it entirely. Lastly, I want to mention that Biomass has a big emphasis on the psychological narrative and building atmosphere, including a very unusual game format. Generally, the game has a very infectious world, every location can invoke some kind of emotion. I often found myself feeling isolated or the exact opposite, the mood can seemingly jump between different tones without being distracting. This is the game that can make you laugh, it can make you feel scared, and it can also make you happy (to give the dev credit, it's not an easy thing to do). While the narrative is very vague, it's fun to speculate on the mystery, the closest thing I can compare it to would be something like 'Resolutiion' (another weird as faq narrative game). I like that some locations have a small ecosystem going on for aesthetic reasons, but aside from a few sidequests and occasional jokes, it's not overly complicated. [h1] Pros: [/h1] + compelling psychological narrative and world-building + very atmospheric, moody, and immersive + good amount of content and replay value + combat system, while not perfect, provides many options + nice variety of items, granted you could debate the effectiveness + achievements, branching quests [h1] Feedback: [/h1] So if you read the previous draft of this review I mostly had several complaints with the balancing, all of those were addressed to a reasonable level. I still think you will have some issues with the power curve, but at this point, I am not going to nitpick every little thing just because I can. The combat mechanics can work consistently with enough practice. The last thing I would say is that some weapons could use more love, but keep in mind that a few of them have a hidden gimmick, such as using electric rod vs shields (so don't take anything at the face value just because the damage is low). There are some big glitches that could softlock the game, not nearly as many as before though [b] Overall Thoughts: 8/10 [/b] Biomass is a deceivingly artistic game despite having souls-like mechanics, it's very much focused on the world-building and psychological story, plus a unique game format when it comes to replay value. Even with some of the balancing issues, most people that I talked to enjoyed the gameplay, including myself. Just like any good souls-like game, it does not hold your hand, so expect some challenge (maybe it's not always fair), but the combat system can be mastered with enough experience. Is it perfect? No... I still had a ton of fun playing it. [code]Review By: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]

In all honesty, Biomass is probably one of the best investments of my time and money I have ever given to a video game. It is not simply "fun" or "interesting", or anything that can be fully expressed with a single adjective. Frankly, games like these are the very reason I think video games can be called art. The gameplay is great. The story is great, but more than either of those, I am in love with how Biomass makes the player feel. It captures the same sort of vaguely disturbing and lonely atmosphere that Metroid is known for, and despite the presence of NPCs, it is great at making you feel truly alone and unwelcome when it counts. As for gripes, I have none at all. But be warned it is extremely difficult and not very forgiving. if that's your thing, go for it. If it's not, your loss.