➤ Conglomerate 451, the review 🎮

Conglomerates 451 is the new game of the Spanish Runeheads (Fall of Light). As we will see in the course of review, is a successful mixture between Dungeon Master, from which he takes the general setting, and Darkest Dungeon, of which he welcomes some ideas in the management of the party and the elements roguelike.

In the game we play the role of the director of a secret agency tasked with regaining control of sector 451 (the reference to Ray Bradbury's book is not accidental) on behalf of the Senate of Conglomerate City, a colossal and decadent metropolis, theater of struggle between power-hungry multinationals and criminal gangs. The agency is licensed to create gods human clones with cybernetic grafts, which will form the teams that will actually descend on the battlefield to face the different missions. At the beginning of the game we have to choose between the story mode, which will allow us to follow the events preset by the developers in a campaign that will slowly reveal the secrets of sector 451, or the infinite mode, with random events and no time limits. The game itself is divided into two macro sections, one management and one on the pitch. We will examine both in detail in the next paragraphs.

Management part

The part management of Conglomerate 451 is the one that allows you to create our team of clones and manage all aspects, with one eye on finances and one on technological research. Basically from a side menu it is possible to select the various items that give access to the different sections of the agency, all useful for some purpose.

For example, the cloning laboratory allows us to create new agents, choosing from the available classes, the research center gives us access to the five technology trees, which unlock the structures and capabilities of the agents, while the medical center allows us to heal the wounded from pain and trauma, using regeneration tanks. The accommodations deserve a few words apart, where we have direct access to the agents already created. It is here that we can manage their endowment, raise them in level, implant new ones chip, check their status, check for mutations and, in essence, carry out all those micro-management operations necessary to make them more efficient. If we want we can also withdraw them to free up slots, so as to employ fresh clones on the field who enjoy all the bonuses unlocked in the research center.

In addition to managing the team, the agency menu also allows us to access valuable information. For example, in the cemetery we can find all the agents withdrawn or destroyed on the battlefield, while the archive and the director's office present us with a series of interesting statistics on our game, as well as the progress made in taking control of the various territories.

Finally there is the menu New Mission, which is self-explanatory: this is where we can select our next task and choose who to take to the field to try and complete it. Each assignment has its own difficulty level which usually determines the number of enemies present and their strength. Obviously, the higher the level, the more there will be a need for a well-trained team to make it out alive.

Exploration and combat

Having made all the most appropriate choices in the management part and made up the operational team, you are ready to take the field. Here Conglomerate 451 reveals its dungeon crawler nature. The control system in fact it is typical of the Dungeon Master games, therefore with fixed movements and rotations of ninety degrees for changes of direction. However, the comparison ends here because the combat system it's completely different. In fact, when our team encounters enemies, a turn-based system is activated that allows us to make the agents act one at a time directly on the battlefield (the view remains the same). The available actions depend on the agent class and the ability that have been selected during the creation phase (or modified in the accommodations).

Let's say that in principle each agent can have offensive, defensive, healing or support skills, with some specializations given by the class they belong to. There are therefore some classes more versed for combat, others that act above all as a shoulder and still others that are perfect for hacking operations, the latter useful against opponents equipped with cybernetic or completely robotic grafts.

Clashes are inevitable during missions, so it is good to leave prepared. Unlike other titles, here you don't have to worry so much about the consumption of resources, since each skill can be used without limits, but precisely which skills to use to have the best. Some are in fact more useful against robotic opponents, others against human ones and still others protect against specific attacks brought by certain enemies.

The latter are all taken from the perfect game sample cyberpunk: then we have the classic criminal gangs, various types of robots, agents of rival corporations, turrets and various dangers. Each of them can be equipped with melee weapons, pistols, rifles, machine guns, grenades and special weapons that are particularly effective against agents. In level 1 missions it is not easy to notice some nuances of the combat system, but already at level 2 things change and the choices to be made become more thoughtful.

To add another complexity layer the battery takes care of everything: each agent has a certain amount of energy that he can spend in various ways. One of these is to reload the shields, which are vital in order not to be immediately torn to pieces. However, energy cannot be used indiscriminately, because it is not only used to fight, but also to perform all the hacking actions of the game. Once the energy of all agents has run out, it will no longer be possible to violate terminals or use hacking in combat. The risk of getting stuck does not exist, but there is the risk of making life difficult and losing some important resources. To find the latter, you must essentially explore all the maps, even going beyond the set objectives. Each mission is divided into two maps distinct: that of the city, completely avoidable, and that set in one of the neighborhoods, which is where our target is, be it an enemy to be eliminated or an object to be found.

Maps are procedurally generated, so they change from game to game, however there are some fixed elements that can be found each time you log in. For example, in cities there is never a shortage of shopkeepers, that is, under-the-counter vendors of enhancement drugs, of illegal single-use software that give substantial bonuses, and of electronic chips to be grafted onto weapons or cybernetic parts. In addition to selling goods, shopkeepers can also buy the items in our possession, making us accumulate money e tech, the two main assets of Conglomerate 451. For this reason it is necessary to visit him every now and then, even at the cost of making a mission more difficult. The scenarios are not very interactive, but it does not matter since we are in the standards of the genre. Let's say that there are openable containers around, some hackable electronic object, switches that unlock doors, keys that do the same thing and little else.

The haphazard nature of the maps probably prevented you from creating puzzle more complex, although it must be said that the focus of Conglomerate 451 is mainly on the fighting, so everything else is considered a kind of extra.

Graphics and final notes

At the level technical the work done by Runeheads is excellent. Not only the objects that make up the scenarios of Conglomerate 451 are well made and spot on, including animated neon signs, metal corridors, gigantic buildings and so on, but they are used in a very intelligent way, so as to mask some limits, all of nature productive. As the hours go by, a bit of repetitiveness emerges, but it is a flaw that can be forgiven for a title made by a team of two people and which costs a third of a premium game. Even the human models, while not exceptional, are well crafted and detailed. The design of some robotic opponents is less apt, too standard to stand out from the rest.

The downside to Conglomerate 451 is definitely the colonna sonora. We are not just talking about the music, in this case, which tire after a few minutes and can be eliminated without too many regrets, but also of the chatty droid that we take ourselves on a mission and that constantly annoys us with his jokes. Unfortunately, the latter cannot be eliminated, unless you completely disconnect the sound ... or destroy speakers or headphones.

Goodbye drone

The developers tell us that with the latest patch, unfortunately published while they were finishing writing the review, the option to disable the chatty drone has been added. Now you know what to do ...

Comment

Digital Delivery Steam, GoG Price 19,99 € Resources4Gaming.com

8.0

Readers (1)

8.0

Your vote

Conglomerate 451 is a good product. If we were to describe it with a word we would define it as "concrete", that is, aware of some of its limits but capable of effectively masking them. In general it works and manages to render the typical atmospheres of the cyberpunk genre more than well, also offering some interesting ideas. Fans will surely appreciate it, as will those who are looking for a fresh and well-researched RPG. He's not flawless in everything he claims to do or be, but you can easily get over it if you get caught up in the combat system and team management.