DESYNC is a first person arena shooter with a flashy, retro-futuristic style that has you going from level to level circle-strafing manic enemies and combining weapons, abilities and traps not just to get though each level but to score big on its leaderboards. If that was all gibberish jargon, that translates to “it’s a bit like if DOOM and TRON made a baby”.
The core play loop has you moving between relatively small arenas and taking on enemies as they spawn around you from out of thin air in successive waves of difficulty. To do this you have slowly growing armament of weapons and abilities, including a dodge mechanic that is crucial to your survival. You will absolutely be following the classic five “D”s of high energy shooters; Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive and Dodge.
You’re locked off from leaving each arena while you’re in combat so fights become a high-speed juggling match between getting hits in and avoiding melee and ranged attacks without stepping into the many traps found in each arena. There’s relatively no room to cheese anything here, you can either get used to the combat pace or get used to seeing the death screen regularly. It’s a hard game. It’s too hard, actually, and increasingly I found myself wanting a whiny baby easy mode so I could just settle in and enjoy myself without repeatedly having my face stomped in. High difficulty is definitely a genre staple here so I can see how this would appeal to fans, it’s just not for me.
To complement the scoring system, you are awarded extra points for pulling off “desyncs”. These are combinations of different moves and attacks such as killing an enemy after they’ve been stunned or after narrowly dodging their attack, or knocking them off the arena or into a trap with your shotgun blast. The only way to discover these combos is to accidentally pull them off, and the first time you do time slows to a glorious crawl and the game gives you an explanation of what you whilst you watch each dispatched enemy fly backwards and fizzle into nothing. There’s a very satisfying play feel around this and it reminds me of the underrated gem that is Bulletstorm, only with the bro-fist humour removed.
It’s surprising that such an important feature, the title feature in fact, relies so much on random chance in discovery. Experimentation might be what the developers where looking to encourage but I can’t help but feel having a few more guide lines would have improved the experience. It’s an issue that runs across the board.
On top of getting extra points for “desyncs”, the scoring system can measure and rate even more subtle elements of how you’re playing – mobility, situational awareness and apparently even your mouse movement patterns. I regularly scored straight Ds and I don’t think I’m close to good enough at this game to have an good insight into how effectively I’m being scored – although in fairness I think D’s are about right.
Stylistically DESYNC is similar to titles like Heavy Bullets and Paranautical Activity, with an aesthetic of futuristic computing systems as imagined by the 80s film industry. Visually, it’s dark in temperature with bursts of neon colour cutting through. Enemies pop and gun effects are like fireworks against an evening sky.
It’s full of digital artefacts and fuzzy glitches and may boast the most chromatic aberration I have ever seen in a video game. It really looks great, and the combination of a driving synthetic soundscape along with these visuals when you’re in the middle of fighting is fantastic. It never quite captures the sense of panic and urgency of something like Devil Daggers but it encourages a sense of flow that is crucial to this type of game and it’s a fun setting either way. There’s a big but here, as there are definitely times where presentation becomes a problem. The developers have stuck so rigidly to the retro aesthetic that you have to trudge through these clunky interfaces that might amuse at first but easily become an irritation when you’re stuck trying figure out exactly how the systems interplay.
There’s weapon upgrades, abilities that trigger when you pull off certain desyncs and a useful core ability you can chop and change but so much of this is introduced with no explanation and is relegated to these ridiculous terminals that you can only access outside of the main levels. No real information is provided about how to upgrade your guns, or what those upgrades even do. It takes trial an error just to figure weaponry out when you first pick them up, so when faced with the prospect of a variety of abilities and weapon upgrades I found myself letting it all go over my head. Again, experimentation might have been the original intent here but there’s a certain point where being obtuse becomes an detracting factor and DESYNC doesn’t seem remotely concerned that it passes that point before you’ve finished even it’s first hour.
Adult Swim Games has fast become a publisher with an eye for a certain type of game. It’s hard to really put a pin in what it is their published titles really share in common but if you’re a fan of their general catalogue you will probably enjoy DESYNC but for my tastes this is a true genre title. Fans of twitch-shooting mechanics and leaderboard heavy games will find something interesting here, I have no doubt, but I couldn’t enjoy more than a fleeting few hours.
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