Gestalt: Steam & Cinder Steam Charts & Stats

Entertaining, terrible ending, average story.

Gestalt: Steam & Cinder is a pretty good steampunk, metroidvania game; now then it's time to talk about the story. Long ago the world was in peril a dimensional gateway was opened to another world known as the abyss, when it opened demons came out killing anything that got in their way and nearly bringing Humanity to its end, thankfully the surviving humans banded together and took some of the power from the Abyss and created knights of steam and steel in order to slay the monsters. And it worked the brave humans that dawned the abyss armor drove the horrors back and sealed the abyss gateway forever, unfortunately the power of the abyss armor was too much for its wearers most of the knights were driven mad and became something neither human nor demon, but one brave knight was able to push them back, unfortunately the damage was already done and the once human knights became a new race that were banished to the outskirts. But that was a few centuries ago and after so much war Balthazar head of the last bastion of humanity wants to open peace talks with the descendants of the banished to bring an end of the centuries of long conflict, but by doing so will initiate a chain of events that will determine the fate of all life on Earth and all centering around one young woman, a young warrior named Aletheia. Okay then the likes, the gameplay is very good it's a standard metroidvania, explore the land, fight enemies and bosses and find power-ups in order to advance and explore new levels and unreachable places, nothing too complicated, it also has some RPG elements after slaying monsters you go up a level, you also find equipment in order to make your character stronger, the gameplay also is pretty easy probably because I played a lot of metroidvania in the past but it's very forgiving for those who haven't. The story is very good with plenty of great twists and turns, it's also the kind of story that's very ambiguous you don't really know who is really the good guy or the bad guy and who's right and who's wrong it's like I said very ambiguous, I was also really fascinated with the world and how it functions to the point where I wished that I could have see more of it. The characters were good each one had their own unique designs and some nice personality I like the main character Aletheia she was cute but definitely badass and a bit snarky. The pixel graphic art style is very good it's very well made with its uses of colors, designs and scenery that gives off this nice retro look to it that like I said with other games before, it makes you just want to stop and stare at it all, it's also has some very good animations that is very well done and pretty smooth. The levels are good each area is very diverse from a forest to an underground lab to an abandon city, it also had some nice bits of environmental storytelling and had some creepy background imagery, it was all very fascinating to the point that I wish I could see more of it. The enemies and bosses are all very good each one has its own unique look, we have unique steampunk robots and cool monsters, we also get to fight human enemies as well with each one being a joy to look at them all. The music is good each soundtrack fits the game very well. Okay then the dislikes, there's nothing really just like about this game I will say it does end on a cliffhanger, but I do hope that we get a sequel to this because it feels like they're definitely should be. So now with that all done with Gestalt: Steam & Cinder is a pretty good steampunk, metroidvania game; it has very good gameplay, very good story and very good enemies and bosses, so I definitely recommend this game if you're a fan of Steampunk and/or metroidvania games especially if you're new to metroidvania as this is very forgiving to first time players.

Great fun, challenging and most of all, I never had a game breaking bug since day one. Rare these days. Great developer and hope to see more from them for a long time.

Once again, a cool game ruined by bad boss design. The bosses are just straight up not fun to fight. You are given all these cool skills, but the bosses don't give you time to use any of them. You only get time to hit once or twice, and then dodge. This is based on two major issues. First, your dodge has a cooldown. This inhibits your ability to push foes, since you cannot dodge twice in rapid succession. Since bosses attack in combos (usually) this means that you have to dodge OUTSIDE of the entire combo, wait for it to end, move in on foot, hit once or twice, then dodge. Get enough energy for gun. Repeat. That is every single boss. If this game simple did not have bosses, I would recommend it. If the bosses were toned down to a reasonable speed, allowing for actual individual skill expression instead of cookie-cutter fights, I would recommend it. But as it is, the boss fights are things I dread, and that means this game is just a series of long levels tainted by the knowledge that they will be capped off with bosses so badly designed they make me want to tear my hair out.

The game was kinda slow and clunky at the early game. but when you get some upgrade of the skill tree the comboing will be really smooth. all i cound say is this game is really worth the money, much more than its price(the base price).

A fun metroidvania (though it's actually pretty linear) with a good art style. Lots of long text-only dialogue scenes, but the portraits are nicdely drawn and nimated so whatevz.

Enjoyable game and i had an overall good with. Has a bit strange difficulty curve where the ealier bosses seemed harder to me because they required dodging and managing lifepoints while the last boss(es) could be cheesed with just special abilities and energy potions. If you play metroidvanias more for the exploration than the challenge this is for you.

Very solid game Artwork 10/10 Music 10/10 Controls 9/10 Combat 8/10 The only reason I didn't give the controls and combat a 10/10 was that sometimes the commands feel a little buggy. This may be more user error, but there are a few points where I needed to wall jump back and forth but the game wouldn't register that my thumb was in the direction I was jumping (jump left lean left) and then I'd fall. Possibly just me not being fast enough. For Combat, I think it's very solid overall but I kept wanting some sort of parry or block. There are a lot of enemies that you end up just having to iframe dodge through, jump around, or just face tank the damage if you're over leveled. Also while you can have long light attack combos I rarely ever got to use them, mobs would rarely stagger enough to punish them so it felt more like having to poke them down or blasting them with your gun. In most cases by the time I stagger them they are dead anyway.

Relatively short for the genre, decent fun with a few nitpicks. Pixel-art is generally good but a bit inconsistent, some NPC's/areas feel unfinished. Combat is good but not challenging enough to warrant the amount of options it provides. Ends on a cliffhanger so that kinda sucks. Overall decent game.

Short Metroidvania, Gestalt : Steam & Cinder is a fun game with nice pixel art and fun combat. It is not a difficult game by any means, you can very quickly unlock skills and items that makes encounters easy to breeze through and I certainly felt cool while doing tricks and pulling dodge counter attacks. However, for such a Story heavy game, with a lot put on its lore, the ending is quite a disapointment, so much build up for it to be ruined by the last 30 secondes of the game. Let us hope that Metamorphosis Game's next title will either continue the story, or learn from their mistake and make an even better game. For a studio's first game, it is overall a good one.