In the same way that there are a multitude of games that are compared to Dark Souls, there is another good amount with which it is impossible not to remember XCOM due to the mechanics that its gameplay presents. The same thing happened with Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden, the title in charge of The Bearded Ladies which was published a few years ago.
However, it is seen that it has not been the only bet that the team has wanted to make in this genre. This has led him to develop Miasma Chronicles, another of the games that I have recently been able to test at the 505 Games offices together with Stray Blade, although in this case I was not able to enjoy it as much as I would have liked, but at least I did served for get an idea of what will be special.
A world devastated by the Miasma
The plot of this adventure places us at a time when the United States is completely in ruins because of a mysterious phenomenon known as Miasma. The first sequence begins with our couple of protagonists, the young Elvis and his brother Diggs in robot form, who are trying to cross a giant wall formed by this strange anomaly that is ending the world.
The reason is because their mother disappeared, but not before leaving them with a message that she would wait for them behind this wall. With more questions than answers and with a mysterious glove that her mother also left them, our characters will look for a way to strengthen themselves and find a way to find her.
It is clear that the glove plays an important role in the history of this journey that we will undertake, although in the time that I was playing no more details were given about it and I could not see what it is capable of. At least I was able to dedicate myself to going through the scenes of this devastated world with a splendid setting and very well achieved for its art and the desolation that is breathed everywhere.
Along the way we will be able to collect reports and documents that will be very useful to learn more details about how this terrible situation has come about. In addition, there will also be objects of all kinds, especially scrap, and plastic, the latter being the most important of all because it is the material used by the few survivors as currency.
After playing for a while I reached one of the first main cities in which the couple of protagonists live, with very diverse characters with whom you can start conversations or we will be assigned secondary tasks. But if there was someone who stood out, it was the mayor, because the only thing left of him was his head equipped in a kind of spider robot, or something like that.
All this makes clear the catastrophic situation in which the United States finds itself and how humanity has had to adapt to these adversities because of the Miasma. I have to emphasize once again that the artistic section is excellent, although it is not that it offers something totally new or different compared to what can be seen in other titles with the same theme.
Getting ahead with a good strategy
By saying that Miasma Chronicles baby of XCOM You can already get an idea of what the fights that we will fight will be like. All of them will take place some scenarios in which the terrain will be divided into squaresso that we can move through any of them with a limited number of steps to take and trying not to be too exposed to the sight of the enemies, so their thing is to stay hidden so that the opposing shots do not crush us in a heartbeat .
In this test I had to face a series of mutant and giant amphibians, about which it must be recognized that they were not kidding. The artificial intelligence was very high, forcing us to think of a good strategy even from the first confrontation that we have to wage. It’s not that it’s a headache, either, but I was happy to come across something that could probably prove quite a challenge in the long run.
Each of the characters has two actions, to choose between moving, attacking, reloading or using special abilities. Likewise, you can also choose to enter a fight stealthily to carry out an ambush and thus start with an advantage or go directly in front of everyone, but without a doubt the first option is the best of all to attack before our opponents.
On the other hand, the battles take place in the same place where we are at that moment, without loading screens in order to make the experience more fluid. My only regret is not having had the opportunity to delve deeper into the fights to see if there will be more surprises or if there will be other options that we can opt for them.
In short, the first contact with Miasma Chronicles has been brief and positive. The setting convinces and is very well done. For their part, the fights promise to discover what exactly their depth will be in case they are able to offer something that makes them unique. Of course, the game still has cards to show as it continues its development with a release scheduled for next year.
- platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC (played version)
- multiplayer: Nope
- developer: The Bearded Ladies
- Company: 505 Games
- Launch: 2023