Beyond The Veil Reviews

Much like accidentally brushing up against roll of industrial-grade sandpaper after a walk through a syphilis ward, this game scratches an itch I didn't know I had. Perhaps it was my wholly unrealistic expectation that bullet-hell shumps should also contain their share of dark, post-apocalyptic melancholic musings that had turned me off the genre. Or perhaps it was just all the bullets. Beyond the Veil has bullets, yes, but it also has an intriguing enough story to want me to GET GUD (tm).

Genuinely great little game, stylised well, and glad I watched that splatt vid way back when.

Give me a minute here. I just finished the game and now I need to pour a stiff drink, sit with the lights off for a while and stare out the window at the falling rain, or something like that. Man, this thing is dark! About a third of the way in I figured out exactly what it reminded me of. There's an author named R Scott Bakker who wrote fantasy novels. I don't know, maybe he still does; but I quit reading them. His books always had this over-the-top combination of lurid prose with a world so supremely awful that no human being could possibly stand to live in it. Everyone was doomed, damned or both. The characters seemed to spend every moment of every day wracked with such excruciating mental and/or physical anguish that you simply couldn't believe that they all wouldn't just lie down in mute surrender and await the merciful embrace of death. You can see why I stopped reading these things. It's not called "The Great Ordeal" for nothing. Well, this is basically R Scott Bakker: The Game. The first thing that catches your attention here is the bold visual style. Come to think of it, that's pretty Bakker-esque too. For all his excesses, he had a real way with words when it came to describing two particular things: underground ruins and magical pyrotechnics. The rest of it may have made no sense, but if you really want to feel like you're lost in the unfathomable depths of an ancient tunnel or being burned to ashes by a wizard, he's your man. These guys clearly have their own vivid sights that they're eager to show you, although you're going to have to use your imagination to see them. Visually, they depict their desolate hellscape of a world in a through-a-glass-darkly sort of way, as if the solid matter is merely shadows and abstractions hiding an underlying truth. The enemies, the zones on the map and your character itself take the form of strange geometric symbols. The forces of nature, in contrast, are much more realistic: raindrops splashing on the barren ground, blinding flashes of lightning and wind howling through the canyons--in a nice touch, it actually can affect bullet trajectory. Everything is black and white, of course, save for the flames and bloodstains on the ground. It's like they're trying to say that the only real things are chaos and pain. Geez. They really lift the veil, though, during the text interludes tucked away between chapters and before many of the zones. There you get to experience the suffering of the protagonist in its full glory and scrutinize his every agonized emotion and tormented thought down to the subatomic level. At the beginning the plot is still more or less tethered in a version of reality. You play as a warrior summoned to another world to bring it back from the brink of death by shooting everything in sight. By the end things come totally unglued and, well, I don't really know what the hell was going on. It sounded pretty bad, though. Ultimately I think it's supposed to be some kind of nihilistic allegory about facing death in a world without meaning or something like that, but you never really know with this kind of stuff. They might just like the way it sounds. The gameplay elements are just as confusing and feel as if they were all abandoned in various stages of completion. At first shooting things in this hyper-stylized world is kind of fun and different, but without much variety in the enemies or abilities it turns into a pure grind by the end. You've got randomly-distributed weapon drops that range on the usefulness scale from "very" to "not at all." Upgrades that are never fully explained. A crafting system where most of the time you can't find the right ingredients. Yeah, I'd have thought it would be much easier to get my hands on charcoal in a place like this, but I searched in vain. Then there's this whole food and water system woven throughout the item drops and crafting options which seems like it might have served a purpose at one time but now has been rendered completely obsolete. In hindsight turning a concept like this into a top-down shooter was a bizarre choice to begin with. The whole time you get the feeling that their heads are way up in the clouds somewhere, transfixed by whatever hellish cosmic vision they're witnessing, and that making the actual game was just an annoying distraction. Maybe they should have made a walking simulator or a visual novel or something less interactive so they could focus on crushing our will to live with their depressing story, since that seems to be where their heart truly lies. Hard to say what you should do about this. It's so damned weird that on one hand it really is kind of an interesting experience, but if you if you try to absorb it completely it'll make you feel bad in more ways than one. You can find more indie game reviews at [url=https://oddlittlegames.com] oddlittlegames.com [/url] or visit my [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34514756/] curator page. [/url] Thanks, and enjoy!

This is the kind of game where you really have to come for the atmosphere, I think. The gameplay's certainly not bad, by any means, but it's pretty average top down style shooting gameplay. The art, and the music, and the somber writing passages, though, are just what I was hoping for seeing the screenshots and trailer. If something about this art style appeals to you, know that the game's committed to it and will certainly deliver you that. I haven't finished it yet, and plan to, I just thought I'd get a positive review in cause I know how cruel steam is to games without a lot of reviews. Edit: I did finish the game now! The enemy health pool can be a little high sometimes if you're not keeping up with weapon upgrades, but other than that, by the end the gameplay was beginning to feel like an important part of the tone and kind of won me over. The story really comes together and is worth seeing through to the end.

This might be odd to say, but I'm recommending this game despite refunding it. That's predominantly because this game is just not my style. But I could definitely see it being someone else's jam. Pros: -Interesting storyline. Even from my brief look into the game the worldbuilding seems pretty deep. Not quite on the levels of Sunless Sea, but it's definitely got that same eldritch atmosphere to it. -Good visual style. Gives me that Darkwood vibe. -A potential for in depth customization. Guns, talents (Inscriptions) and gun accessories (Increased damage, fire rate etc.) Neutrals: -The character styles. Paired with the gloomy environment the strangely geometric appearances of the enemies (and yourself) kinda feels jarring. I didn't really love them, didn't hate them. It is a little tough to get immersed when you're some kind of spiky arrowhead though. -The travel. I like the exploration aspect to it, but it feels almost a little dragging having to wait for the travel timer, considering how quickly you clear the early zones. I felt like I was staring at the bar a little more than I was actually running around the map. -The Bugs. Nothing really jumped out as atrociously gamebreaking, but it's frustrating when the volume slider does nothing and restarting from the last checkpoint leaves you softlocked if the checkpoint clocks in in the middle of a travel/craft progress. Minor nuisance more than anything, hence why they're in Neutral. Cons: -The survival mechanic seems...Kinda pointless? Maybe it's because I thought of myself as a spiky arrowhead over a person, but eating and drinking seemed like it was there for the sake of being there. -The gunplay. I'm not sure if it's just because I'm experiencing the opening levels but the gunplay felt...Slow? There was an immense amount of backpedaling, long reloads and gunfire that seemed almost impossible to avoid. You can dash, but the dash felt like it didn't do much to get me out of danger. I ended up using the dash just to get in the face of my enemies and blast them with the shotgun instead of using it to dodge fire. Perhaps you're meant to use cover but between the trees and the -shadows- of trees, it was tricky to figure out where cover actually was. Overall, it just felt slow, clunky and less strategic and more "tank the bullets and hope they die quickly." Overall the game has style, but it's not my style. Maybe others will enjoy it, I don't know. I do hope it gets more attention though.