The kind of Soulslike has certainly stood out in recent years. Born as something of a niche thanks to the games belonging to the saga of Souls due to their difficulty, over time this type of videogame has made its way into the hearts of gamers, consequently inducing various developers and producers to produce titles along the lines of those conceived by Hidetaka Miyazaki. The results have often been somewhat mediocre, and such titles looked more like characterless carbon copies, created solely to appeal to fans of the genre, than games created with actual love and passion. The task facing the development team Cradle Games which he set out with Hellpoint it is not at all simple, therefore. Will the Canadian studio, with this debut title, have managed to create a Soulslike with its own personality capable of shining with its own light? We are here to find out.
2560: A Souls Odyssey
Set in 2560, in Hellpoint we will be called to take on the role of one Progeny, a soulless being created through state-of-the-art technologies byAuthor, mysterious entity that will speak to us without ever showing itself. Our task, entrusted to us by the Author, will be to find out what happened on the space station Irid Novo, born with the aim of making our species interact with superior creatures called i Sum. As per tradition for the Soulslike genre, everything has gone down the drain and the space station has now become a den of creatures of all kinds. It will be up to us to collect information in order to understand what happened on Irid Novo.
Hellpoint, as you may have guessed from this premise, mixes the genre of Soulslike with that of sci-fi horror. The boys of Cradle Games they were inspired by the culture of the genre, declining everything in this work with strong Sci-Fi / Horror colors. The end result, reminiscent of films like Punto di non ritorno by Paul WS Anderson, Pandorum by Christian Alvart e Infinite by Shane Abbess, is an impactful, seductive, intriguing and obviously disturbing setting. The Soulslike genre fits incredibly well, against all odds, in the sci-fi context, and this is without a doubt an important arrow to Hellpoint's bow. In addition, the narrative incipit that sees the Progeny looking for data on the space station to be reported to the Author it will also be an active part of the gameplay. Each of our discoveries, between new creatures and messages, will in fact increase one percentage linked to the data we collect. The exploration will therefore not be an end in itself but an integral part of the play experience.
I know (u) laris
As you may have guessed, Hellpoint is set entirely on the Irid Novo space station. Like any good Soulslike that you respect, the various play areas will be labyrinthine and full of secrets. So get ready to go over the same area several times and take down the same enemies desperately looking for a way out that will take you to the next session. A significant peculiarity that distinguishes Hellpoint from the branded titles FromSoftware and from the others Soulslike is the mechanics of Black Hole Hour. The Irid Novo space station orbits a black hole, and at regular intervals this thing will lead to changes in the game areas, such as new explorable areas full of objects and upgrades or more lethal enemies. The moments in which the black hole will activate its influence on the space station are indicated by the two rings visible in the indicator at the top left of the game HUD.
Furthermore, another peculiarity that allows Hellpoint to shine with its own light is the mechanics of theUnderworld. In practice, by coming into contact with some monoliths we will have access to new more dangerous areas, which are the "negative" equivalent of the basic ones present on Irid Novo. These areas are very important not only for obtaining certain materials useful for upgrading our weapons or creating new ones, but also on a narrative level. Our stay in the Underworld, however, has a limit, and once we reach that threshold we will lose all the objects collected together with our life.
The save points in Hellpoint will be the Brecce, from which we will be able to level up thanks to the experience points collected (here they are called Axions) by defeating enemies and collecting items. Activating a breach will not restore ours healing items (which reset only by hitting opponents) and to teleport from one save point to another we should synchronize the various breaches with specific objects. We will therefore not be able to teleport at will, but we will have to intelligently decide which Breach is more useful than another; Furthermore, the Gaps will not bring the enemies of the area back to life.
