Necropolis – Review

Developed By: Harebrained Schemes

Published By: Bandai Namco

Platforms: Xbox One, PS4 (Reviewed), PC, Mac

Release Date: October 4, 2016

In the age of Roguelikes and Dark Souls ripoffs, it’s difficult to make a game that pays tribute but still manages to stand out from the crowd. How do you manage to make sure that the world is fascinating and the enemies are punishing without being overly frustrating? And including top notch writing? That just makes the process even harder.

Necropolis: Brutal Edition, or just Necropolis on consoles, is one of the newest entries in the field, and developer Harebrained Schemes manages to check off two boxes with a unique world and some entertaining writing. The action isn’t great, but it’s passable for the most part.

Describing Necropolis is a little difficult given that it doesn’t include a true storyline, so let’s just pass it off to HBS for a quick rundown.

“Necropolis combines third-person action with Rogue-lite dungeon-delving for a game that’s fast-paced and addictive, yet diabolically hardcore.” And to a point, HBS is correct. Necropolis is very difficult and can be addictive at times. However, the pace is decidedly slower than many games. Movement isn’t quick, even when hammering the sprint button, and combat is even slower. It doesn’t matter if you are playing as the new Brute character or the smaller Blackguard. Each character slowly swings the melee weapons. The heavy attack takes so long that enemies have time to knock you on your ass. The light attack, on the other hand, is slightly faster but still leaves room for enemies. No, Necropolis is less fast-paced and much more deliberate. That is, unless you find a potion that increases movement speed and makes Necropolis a far more enjoyable experience. Sadly, those potions are few and far between.

I had more success as the Brute

Honestly, there is only one method for success in Necropolis. You need to plan out attacks and avoid hammering buttons at random because if you do, the move queue will back up and cause your character to freak out a little. And hammering the dodge button doesn’t do much to stop the process. I lost multiple characters to panicked button pounding before I understood the better process of attack. It’s best to slam a shield into the ground and knock enemies back before methodically mixing up heavy and light attacks.

These shark creatures are brutal.

Of course, Understanding how to attack didn’t do much to prevent my multiple deaths. All too often I started with tier 0 or 1 weapons that didn’t do much damage and immediately ran into gigantic sharks of death, skeleton spiders, and clockwork robots. These enemies immediately destroyed my character. The only successful method I found for dealing with the overpowered enemies was jumping up on a ledge and hitting them once they got stuck on the environment as part of a weird glitch.

These spiders are super creepy and very deadly.

Actually, there are a couple technical issues that hold back Necropolis. Enemies frequently get stuck on or in the environment, as mentioned earlier, and the framerate sporadically drops to a frustrating crawl. The worst part is that you have no idea when the framerate is going to drop. Sometimes it happens during combat, but most of the time the framerate drops when switching weapons. Honestly, it’s very irritating when you are running around trying to pick up swords and kill enemies only to have the game just slowly chug along for a seemingly no reason.

These elevators take you between generated worlds.

These issues are very disheartening, especially when you consider all the enjoyable parts of Necropolis. HBS came up with a very unique universe defined by floating rocks, creepy enemies, and floating pyramids. Plus, the procedurally-generated worlds reset every time your character dies and bring about new areas. One playthrough may have multiple water dungeons while others will have weird forests.

And of course, these areas are filled with random voiceover and snarky hieroglyphs that show off the stellar writing. Necropolis may be similar to games like Spelunky and Dark Souls, but it forges a vastly different path with tone. Humor is everywhere you look. Sure, the world seems to be serious when you begin a new game, but the intro text quickly shows that humor is one of the key factors as the game calls someone a “freakin’ hack”. When you die, random messages appear discussing how it sucks to die. Even the floating pyramids make jokes about the world.

See?

This humor also appears when picking up potions and scrolls, the majority of which are unknown. Most scrolls have descriptions along the line of “words, words, flames, a picture of a dragon, words”, while potions are described with colors and smells. Technically, you can purchase the ability to identify these potions and scrolls, but that takes away the fun. It’s much more entertaining to drink random potions and watch as your character starts violently puking.

After days of consideration, I still haven’t truly figured out Necropolis. The game make sense from a mechanical perspective, but the emotional side is confusing. HBS has great humor and a fantastic world; it’s the action that’s extremely frustrating. Honestly, many people will find and love Necropolis, but it probably won’t be that massive hit like Spelunky or Dark Souls.