SYNDUALITY: Echo of Ada Steam Charts & Stats

Still new to the game so I'll update this review if I change my mind. TL:DR I normally don't like extraction shooters but the mecha got me interested. I'm glad I gave it a try it's a really fun game and there is a lot that's very good here. If you like mecha and anime stuff it's definitely worth it for the price of the base edition. If you saw the trailers and you thought; "Anime, mecha, waifus, this looks really cool!" It's a no brainer just buy it. If it appeals to your inner anime otaku you will probably end up enjoying the game a lot just because it has a lot of charm for people who are into that stuff. This is not the most heart racing shooter going, your heart won't be pounding all the time like Armored Core. It's pretty comfortable to play, but has enough danger to keep you paying attention. I would say this is more of a cozy game, it is challenging and you can die easily if you aren't careful or paying attention, but most of the time you're just exploring. Your Magus AI partner is very helpful calling out danger, and the things you need. As you play the AI learns where various types of resources spawn on the map and will mark the map with the things on your wishlist. It make it feel more like a living partner which is cool. While you're in the base working on stuff or browsing menus the Magus wanders around and is doing stuff, some in of it is mundane, some of it is funny, it gives the game a lot of personality and it makes it feel more alive. The base building is simple, but it gives a satisfying feeling of meta-progression that you can't lose, so that takes some of the sting out of dieing. Speaking of dieing, the game really doesn't let people gank you without consequences. Gankers get sent to the shadow realm where they play with other gankers. If you kill someone, the main thing you get is that you can loot their gear. You start out on the good guys map, and so it's really not worth it for the people who have good gear to mess with you for your low grade stuff. If you're avoiding it for that you shouldn't worry about it. Especially now that all the veteran players are moving into the new zones, my new player experience hasn't had me getting ganked at all. It is a bit grindy but my understanding is, it has been rebalanced to make it a lot less so. They give you a bit of a starting bonus now so if you aren't wasteful you won't feel like you're screwed the first time you die. So far it doesn't feel bad to me. Cash shop is mainly cosmetics for your Magus. You can rush the battle pass with real money so that can give people an advantage which kinda sucks but it is pretty limited in what you get. I do wish they would be free to play, or have less micro-transactions, having both is a bit insulting and I feel like that's where most of the negitivite reviews come in. There is not much mecha customisation, you can't even paint your mech, so that part could be a lot better. Hopefully they will continue to support the game and add a mech painting shop at least. It kinda feels like early access, I'm hoping that they'll still continue to support the game and improve it for a long time.

This game is in my eyes underrated. The ads for this don't give it justice nor do they explain the main mechanics of the game. Sure it is a grind to get everything, but it is a grind that I really like and many people don't and that is okay. Only downside I'd say is getting stacked on by the player killers, which the game has no party features unfortunately so you know that those people are on call together or specifically hunting other players down. With that a large part of the community that I know is all friendly and will not shoot any other players unless they are being shot at. The only thing I want them to add would be a party and friends system which would make co-op quests a lot more doable.

The lil lore video was lagging pretty bad I had to skip it, but the game is fun and everything right now. Be ideal to join while you can.

Honestly would request a refund at this point if I could. The game had me at the PvE base building aspect but the values of items seems to have never been balanced. A good loot run can make you 50k but one of the iconic mechs, the rabbit, is over a mil. Really expected more.

Advertised with what looked to be a complete campaign with a proper story line and potentially a co op campaign, added onto the fact that the cutscenes were awesome and told an extremely compelling story. All that made this game feel even more disappointing when you realize the campaign is literally forced snips of the actual story and can only be progressed by world leveling which takes away the experience considering you play as yourself and not as the "main character" I hope by season 3 they see their game model fail and be forced to revamp the game by force adding a proper campaign and maybe even an open world campaign by then. Thats the only way they can hold up to what they showed in the trailer.

I should've reviewed this when i last played but as much as i loved the anime, the devs did not design this game to be player friendly or coop friendly. Otherwise I kinda enjoy some of its other aspects.

EDIT: There's some fun ideas here, soured by lazy, poor implementation and greed. I reeally want to like this game, so I'm frustrated and disappointed that on the first mission, a new enemy type showed up and my game froze, then crashed and I lost everything. Well, I had to complain somewhere.. Other than that, everything about the game, from ui to gameplay is slow and clunky and lacks the polish you'd expect from a published title. Like many in the genre, they hold a lot of premium and even basic options back and expect you to grind for days, or pay them extra money. EDIT EDIT: I got my refund, only to rebuy the game to keep playing, because despite its numerous flaws (like crashing every 15 minutes), there's a core that really appeals to me, specifically.

As with every extraction shooter, it's not for everyone. But this is pretty chill as far as extraction shooters go. Lots of downtime, lazy material gathering and PvE, but it's just enough for you to let your guard down even though you know better, until you hear the sound of another player, and the pucker factor goes way up. If you enjoy that zig-zag of peace and tension, this game has a very unique flavor to it. Otherwise, you can avoid. The gunplay is pretty good as well, and relatively forgiving. Most guns feel good to shoot, and have a pretty good skill ceiling of mastery when trying to use them outside of their best range. Because cover is usually only a dash away, and TTK is relatively high, it's easy to break line of sight for healing, and fights can take pretty long if you're reasonably skilled. They're very satisfying to win, and reflecting on losses usually leads to learning good lessons about how you should have handled it. Rewards looking at past fights and learning from them.

I Survived season 1 and all i got is a lousy t-shirt (plus several actually and bunch of other stuff) I went into this expecting it to be a bit of a gamble as to if it was worth it to play and be a fun game until something else sucks me in, i managed to extract 300+ hours of fun out of this game so far so i got my money's worth. The game feels like a soulsborne game, where even basic enemies can pose a threat, and death is punishing (as you lose everything in the sortie barring what can be saved via safepocket) but that makes every successful sortie a bit sweeter especially those barely survived no ammo/repair kit left but full of loot runs. every player chance meeting a bit more apprehensive as you dont quite know if its a friend or foe right away. And every PvP fight an absolute rush, with victory intoxicating. The mechs feels pretty good to pilot, it has "weight" so it feels like you're in a multi-ton war machine. The gunplay does take some getting used to it since its 3rd person as what you can see might be separate from what your gun can hit, you'll see it when a target or you are blocked by something and when you ADS. But it feels and sounds good to fire the weapons and when it hits a target both critical and non-critical hits, with differences in sound between type and class of weapons. Mobility is mostly fine, like Code Geass's knightmare frames with the skating, takes practice as what you can and cant skate/walk over, the mobility feels satisfying to master as you zooming around. Sound is great and exceptionally vital gameplay-wise as what you hear, what noise you make and what your magus says and hears is huge. The big selling point, the AI assistant/co-pilot known as a Magus is fine, They have different types that determine the Magus active skill as well as passives that adds to mech customisation and playstyle. Your Magus can be a bit repetitive in what she/he says, but id rather that than not being told a possible player is heard nearby. plus there's the 4 core types and 2 DLCs and they change how they says things based on how you play the game where they more confident as you get experienced and more militant or even crazy as your play-style goes that way. So theres lots of variety. And you can if you want to, dress up your AI Waifu/Husband/etc, The options is so SO much more that your mechs. The exploration tickles my brain just right, learning the map, finding what and where enemies and loot are located, finding all the routes. and a bit of environmental storytelling here and there. the Map size i think is a good size, big enough to have a lot of variations between areas but not so big that it becomes a walking simulator, if needed you can get traverse from 1 end of the map to the other in a few minutes (assuming your not slowed down with a heavy load and running straight to your destination ignoring fights and loot) Mech customisation is a bit pigeon holed as there is a bonus for using the same type and grade of mechs, but you can mix and match for the different bonus/stats/roles each part has, and you can bring and change parts mid sortie like having spider series arms for its Anti-Ender bonuses and switching to Birdwatcher series to complete the set bonus. With the limitations like it wont allow arm changes if the equipped weapons isn't compatible or if the weight limit will be exceeded if changed. Right now there's only 3 maps available, "North" for Association "good" faction, "South" for the "bad" Black Market faction, and a "east" map that's a combination and expansion of both north and south maps that you're limited to once you get far enough into a faction's quests. The PvE is alright where its easy enough to learn the npc enemies locations and behaviours, and there is purely pve story mission that gives more lore insight. Pvp has since gotten a lot better and more balanced, still a work in progress, less one shot to the face instant kill, more variety of mechs and cradles viable to use, Pvp itself is really heart-pumping, so much so that I've gotten "the shakes" after a really good fight from the crazy adrenaline rush and victory high. A lot of the issues have been ameliorated, and it looks like the devs are working on fixing issues and getting it mostly right. Loot has been improved both in items found/dropped and credit payout for mining AO crystals so building up and upgrading your inventory of mechs and gear as well as base upgrades is significantly less grindy. The shop has more mechs available with both Association, Match making is mostly working even with the limited player count,

Season 2 made improvements, a PvE only area is on the way which is good. Before it was a no. Now if I could rate neutral I would. I personally like the game a lot and I wouldn't actively shoo people away from the game now, but there's still a lot of work to be done. We'll see