➤ Lemnis Gate, the review of the brilliant turn-based FPS (yes, you read that right) by Ratloop and Frontier 🎮

It will also be an idea that can upset a long-time gamer, but the constant pursuit of publishers to simplify video games is not a push motivated solely by vile money. Huge slices of the playing public, after all, approach video games mainly to have fun in peace and therefore devote themselves to a greater extent to experiences capable of entertaining them without weighing too much on neurons. And let's be clear, similar products are not necessarily anathema to those who appreciate elaborate titles, since skilled developers are able to create games that are as accessible as they are valid, or systems that are layered to the point of being welcoming to all types of users.

However, the market is rarely capable of discerning similar qualities with great precision and it is therefore quite difficult to win over the masses, especially when what is on offer is not immediately understandable. Of course, some developers still ran the risk of going against the tide and achieved unthinkable success with video games on the verge of a university doctorate, yet following this path usually represents commercial suicide, unless you have as support a fairly powerful marketing machine or some big influencer passed by by chance.

Even without these "nudges", the Ratloop Games have decided to jump into the tumultuous waters of first-person shooters with lemnis gate, perhaps convinced that the uniqueness of their creature would be enough to guarantee him a certain notoriety, then amplified by the always useful presence on Xbox Game Pass.

Today, therefore, you can read ours Lemnis Gate review, because we are facing an FPS that is nothing short of unique within the genre, whose concept deserves all the attention of the world and has what it takes to give life to a monstrously competitive fanbase. But be careful: these ingredients of rare finesse may not be enough to decree the success of the final recipe.

Gameplay: A galactic brain shooter

Lemnis Gate, the review of the brilliant turn-based FPS (yes, you read that right) by Ratloop and Frontier — Lemnis Gate: Good aiming is also important here

Playing a game of Lemnis Gate allows you to understand its structure undoubtedly better than a written explanation, but we will still try to illustrate its peculiarities as clearly as possible. As mentioned above, it is one "turn-based shooter", where each player can choose between various classes - each with a single unique skill and a specific weapon - and each cycle of gameplay lasts exactly 25 seconds. The cycles played are stored, and are repeated throughout the game (the whose total "real" duration is just 25 seconds) for both you and the other team, until an overall picture is formed consisting of all the actions performed up to that moment. The goal is simply to get points, and normally you do this by completing extremely clear objectives, such as the conquest or destruction of certain structures through fire damage, or the recovery of some spheres scattered around the map which must then be returned to the teleportation of your team (the point from which spreads on the map at the time of hero selection).

Since you play in turns for 25 seconds, you don't have to deal with your opponent in real time, so you need to calculate your route as intelligently as possible and adapt your strategy by reacting to your opponent's moves (which can be comfortably observed from above thanks to a drone while not playing). To prevent the enemy from winning, the most basic tactic is to simply take out his heroes before they reach the goal, but obviously doing so in a predictable way makes you an easy target for the enemy's turn, which can do the trick. same with you.

This leads the game to quickly become something of a game of chess with firearms, where brilliant plays can reach truly amazing levels and it's not hard to be caught off guard by crazy strategies. To give you an example, it is possible to merge all of your characters into a single zone during the game, making them incredibly vulnerable in completing the objectives, but then protect them all in a single blow during the final turn with the placeable energy shield of one of the heroes. : a sharp move that suddenly allows the whole plan put in place in the previous rounds to be activated when the opponent was convinced that he could act undisturbed. Or again, if you have sufficient knowledge of the map, you can preemptively fire in certain areas with characters equipped with grenade launchers or toxin cannons, to create problems for enemies during the action in anticipation of how they will move, and so on.

Particularly good players in handling movement and weapons can even block kills of their characters by putting themselves in the opposing trajectories for a few moments, or make a massacre by perfectly memorizing their positions and hitting with maximum precision. Everything, of course, is facilitated by the fact that if a character dies his residual image remains on the field - showing his post-elimination moves anyway - and even if you are killed by stray bullets you can continue to play in ghostly form until the end of the round, because it never says that the next round those bullets can't be released. diverted or stopped in some way.

Contents: How long can the genius last?

As you can guess, it is a concept geniale for a title of this type, which allows the most creative and skilled players to indulge themselves. This is not a completely original idea, and had already been fielded by Quantum League (another similar and little-known shooter), but here the presence of the classes and a generally much more refined structure bring everything to Next Level. Also because heroes who in any other shooter would have turned out to be banalotti, in Lemnis Gate they quickly become fundamental pieces of the puzzle, the use of which ahead of time can easily cost a game that seemed to have already been won. Ah, to clarify, an already chosen character cannot be reused, so it is very important to choose the one that is most useful at any given moment.

They range from the simple Kapitano, equipped with grenades and automatic rifle, to Klaus, whose aforementioned energy shield can overturn the games by stealing a hero condemned at the last turn, passing through the positionable turrets of Vendetta, or the super shots of Lightning . Each of these moves can give you a huge advantage in the game if used wisely (Lightning is for example the best hero ever for quick ball recovery or quick elimination of some objectives), and the best thing is that the Ratloops they seem to have been capable of balance maps and characters properly so as not to overly favor certain strategies. To say, even the Reaper - a sniper capable of slowing down time, which if used and positioned properly can safely eliminate half the opposing team by dint of headshots - is usually limited by a careful positioning of obstacles and objectives (beyond which gives a considerable reload time) which makes it impossible for even the best shooter in the world to overuse it.

To understand, the game is even designed to combat the excesses of the characters capable of doing a lot of damage to the area (which some players use to make a clean sweep in some areas where you necessarily tend to pass), because the friendly damage exists, and to blow in the air your heroes of future rounds is anything but difficult if you fire in bulk. The presence of additional modes does nothing but rehash the cards on the table, because in addition to the excellent one-on-one (which in our opinion is the most successful and balanced mode of the game) there are also two-on-two games with alternating turns, two against two with pairs of players who face the loop at the same time (which are the ones where it is most easily mistaken) and even clashes with contemporary turns against the enemy, which amuse but tend to be much more chaotic and less reasoned than the others. It's a nice variety of situations, supported by a very structured ranked match system, with varying skill levels that are anything but easy to achieve.

There is only one problem: the title is completely multiplayer and its life depends exclusively on the community who will decide to support it and from the validity of the matchmaking. Unfortunately, both the latter and the number of contemporary players during our test were disappointing, despite the presence of Ratloop's work on Xbox Game Pass. In the first days the matches (classified or not) literally were not found; when the matchmaking was fixed, however, the queues were often lengthy, with ranked challenges easy to find only by selecting every single type of game. In short, it is not a good start, and does not bode well for a game that genuinely deserves much more attention from the public given its intelligence.

The fact that stylistically Lemnis Gate really is anonymous It sure doesn't help - it's a smooth and worthy optimized title, but its plasticky sci-fi look doesn't really have any distinctive elements, and this aesthetic flatness could weigh further on its future success.

Comment

Tested version PC Windows Resources4Gaming.com

8.2

Readers (5)

8.0

Your vote

Lemnis Gate is a brilliant concept shooter, which can really be pushed to the limit by a competitive community of a certain level, and is calculated with enough intelligence to avoid serious imbalances or unmanageable situations. A game like this would undoubtedly deserve more attention, but some problems with matchmaking and a number of contemporary players that are not striking do not bode well for the growth of its fanbase. Really a shame, but even if things don't take off, the quality of Ratloop's work remains undeniable. This is seriously a breath of fresh air in an overly inflated genre.