It's been a long time coming. A LONG time. But it's finally here. A character that deservers, nay, needs to be the star of his own game has finally received his just desserts.
It's been more than 30 years, but Ultros finally has his own game! I mean, it's right there in the name! Final Fantasy VI's resident octupus, the true breakout star of that legendary game, is finally a leading man (or leading cephalopod, as it were). I can't wait to dive into what I am sure is going to be a tentacle-riffic adventure! But, hey, wait a minute...where's all the stuff from the world of Final Fantasy VI we all know and love? No Serpent Trench, or opera house, or colosseum or anywhere else Ulty likes to hang out? And what about the other characters from the game? Where's Terra? Or Edgar? Or Sabin? Or anyone? Why are there bugs everywhere? And why is everything neon? I'm starting to think that I've been mislead.
In all seriousness, this week's game has, unfortunately, nothing to do with everyone's favorite virtual octopus. Developed by a company called Hadoque and published by Kepler Interactive, Ultros is a 2D Metroidvania title released in 2024 on modern consoles. It seems like I've been playing a lot of those recently. The game is described as a "psychadellic, sci-fi" adventure, which will make sense as soon as you look at a screenshot of it. It features a trippy, neon color pallete, a space inspired setting and a whole bunch of faux philosophical jargon that makes little sense to probably about 95 percent of us. Many years ago when I wrote about Hollow Knight, I talked about pretentious indie Metroidvanias and Ultros is exactly the kind of game I was talking about. Of course, just because the game is pretentious doesn't mean it's bad, so I needed to dig deeper before I outwardly dismissed it.
And that lead me back to yet another review, one I wrote even longer ago than Hollow Knight. It's been a long time since I've levied this very specific, but very damming, criticism to a title that I am about to throw at Ultros. In fact, you would have to look back to my very first year, when I looked at Star Fox Adventures on the Game Cube. And like that title, Ultros doesn't have bad controls or horrible graphics. It doesn't have broken gameplay or idiotic progression. It doesn't have a glaring, in-your-face flaw that buries a lot of games, sans for one...it's painfully boring.
Sometimes, a game can do a lot right and just not be fun in any way, and that was the case here. But before I get into why I think that is, I need to call out two things about Ultros that I do think were actually interesting. The first were the graphics, which I do think were really nice and incredibly unique. It's combination of bright psychadellic colors and dark backgrounds was truly striking and it pops off the screen in a way that a lot of games don't. It's animation is very smooth and it has some truly gross-in-a-good-way enemies and bosses to battle.
The other is the experience system, which requires your character to eat different nutrients to spend acquire skills. Every enemy you defeat can be eaten, with "cleaner" kills resulting in more nutrient rich food, which is kind of cool. This also heals you, which I'm not sure was a great choice but was very understandable. I like that this forces you to use different attacks and not just slam square every time you see an enemy. I also think it forces you to be cognizant about your build, because you have to make sure you have the appropriate diet for what you are trying to do. Overall, it's a cool system.
But now, we have to discuss the issues, at least the issues I had with Ultros, and it starts with the story. You control Ouji, an intergalactic traveler of some kind that wakes up after crashing her ship. Ouji quickly learns she has crashed into the Sarcophagus, a drifting mass that serves to contain the ancient evil known as Ultros. As she explores, Ouji will meet a variety of others who seem to be stranded there, many of whom seem incredibly familiar. And she quickly realizes why...apparently, she's and everyone else aboard the Sarcophagus are stuck in something of a time loop. While they are trapped in a neon, sci-fi version of Groundhog Day, the Sarcophagus itself is not, as any action they take persists between cycles. This allows Ouji to dig deeper each time, exploring more of the floating tomb as she attempts to make her escape.
While it's okay on it's face, the way in which the story is told is incredibly, offputtingly pretentious, allegedly "digging into themes like loss, mental health and karma" while actually feeling like more of "I looked at the Rigveda once and I read Kafka so I'm better than you," kind of faux philosophy. There isn't too much text here, but it felt like every time I interacted with another character they immediately starting spouting poorly written and thought out philospophy that lacked any real coherence. A lot of "philosopher" types do this kind of stuff in their writing, throwing a bunch of big words they learned in Philosophy 101 together without understanding of what they actually mean. That's the way Ultros felt to me and I typically check out every time I start dealing with this stuff. Many moons ago I criticized Hollow Knight for this kind of stuff, but even that was different. HK was more of a situation of a well written game with a nice story that I think was read too much into. Ultros was a case of a game trying to convey some deeper meaning that, in doing so, completely lost itself up its own rear.
And that whole "karma and reincarnation" thing also manifests itself in the gameplay in a way that I was not a fan of. Like most Metroidvanias, Ultros has you explore an expanding map as you learn more skills, allowing you to progress forward. Unlike most of these games though, you learn most of your actual abilities through leveling up. Additionally, you can acquire seeds, which can be planted throughout the game and can gradually grow to open up new portions of the map. And how do you get these things to grow? By defeating bosses. Which will then cause Ouji to be reincarnated. At the start of the game. Without all of the abilities you just learned. Now, to be fair, you can find items that will allow you to keep certain skills. However, that doesn't change the fact that you are losing most of your progress and getting sent back to the beginning of the map. This basically means you are repeating the same sections over and over, with mininal differences. Sure, your plants have grown, but you still have to walk all the way back to where you planted them to reach new areas. Again, backtracking is par for the course for Metroidvanias, but retracing your path step by step, over and over again is most certainly not.
Maybe this would be mitigated if the map were more interesting, but it just isn't. There are so many big, open areas that feel identical that it just isn't fun to explore once, much less five times. Ultros may be visually striking, but that just servers to further drive home just how bland it's world is mechanically. I will say combat is at least somewhat interesting, the game rewards you for mixing up your attacks which keep it from feeling repetitive. But actually moving from place to place feels like a chore, especially after you've gone through the same thing so many times. While boring, at least the map is coherent and you typically know what you are supposed to do when. But the format of the game really pushes you away from exploring and trying things, electing instead to just sort of push you from point a to point b. That's not a good thing in games like this.
At the end of the day, I just couldn't feel anything but bored by Ultros, despite its excellent visuals and unique style. Its bland map, repetetive nature and pretentious narrative had me groaning every time I had to sit down and play it. There aren't a lot of technical flaws here, the controls are solid, visuals and sound are good and its not buggy or broken or anything like that. But for all the sins a game can commit, being boring is the most cardinal. It might be technically proficient, but there really isn't any reason to play Ultros, especially in a genre filled with games that do what it set out to do far better.
4.5/10
It's been more than 30 years, but Ultros finally has his own game! I mean, it's right there in the name! Final Fantasy VI's resident octupus, the true breakout star of that legendary game, is finally a leading man (or leading cephalopod, as it were). I can't wait to dive into what I am sure is going to be a tentacle-riffic adventure! But, hey, wait a minute...where's all the stuff from the world of Final Fantasy VI we all know and love? No Serpent Trench, or opera house, or colosseum or anywhere else Ulty likes to hang out? And what about the other characters from the game? Where's Terra? Or Edgar? Or Sabin? Or anyone? Why are there bugs everywhere? And why is everything neon? I'm starting to think that I've been mislead.
In all seriousness, this week's game has, unfortunately, nothing to do with everyone's favorite virtual octopus. Developed by a company called Hadoque and published by Kepler Interactive, Ultros is a 2D Metroidvania title released in 2024 on modern consoles. It seems like I've been playing a lot of those recently. The game is described as a "psychadellic, sci-fi" adventure, which will make sense as soon as you look at a screenshot of it. It features a trippy, neon color pallete, a space inspired setting and a whole bunch of faux philosophical jargon that makes little sense to probably about 95 percent of us. Many years ago when I wrote about Hollow Knight, I talked about pretentious indie Metroidvanias and Ultros is exactly the kind of game I was talking about. Of course, just because the game is pretentious doesn't mean it's bad, so I needed to dig deeper before I outwardly dismissed it.
And that lead me back to yet another review, one I wrote even longer ago than Hollow Knight. It's been a long time since I've levied this very specific, but very damming, criticism to a title that I am about to throw at Ultros. In fact, you would have to look back to my very first year, when I looked at Star Fox Adventures on the Game Cube. And like that title, Ultros doesn't have bad controls or horrible graphics. It doesn't have broken gameplay or idiotic progression. It doesn't have a glaring, in-your-face flaw that buries a lot of games, sans for one...it's painfully boring.
Sometimes, a game can do a lot right and just not be fun in any way, and that was the case here. But before I get into why I think that is, I need to call out two things about Ultros that I do think were actually interesting. The first were the graphics, which I do think were really nice and incredibly unique. It's combination of bright psychadellic colors and dark backgrounds was truly striking and it pops off the screen in a way that a lot of games don't. It's animation is very smooth and it has some truly gross-in-a-good-way enemies and bosses to battle.
The other is the experience system, which requires your character to eat different nutrients to spend acquire skills. Every enemy you defeat can be eaten, with "cleaner" kills resulting in more nutrient rich food, which is kind of cool. This also heals you, which I'm not sure was a great choice but was very understandable. I like that this forces you to use different attacks and not just slam square every time you see an enemy. I also think it forces you to be cognizant about your build, because you have to make sure you have the appropriate diet for what you are trying to do. Overall, it's a cool system.
But now, we have to discuss the issues, at least the issues I had with Ultros, and it starts with the story. You control Ouji, an intergalactic traveler of some kind that wakes up after crashing her ship. Ouji quickly learns she has crashed into the Sarcophagus, a drifting mass that serves to contain the ancient evil known as Ultros. As she explores, Ouji will meet a variety of others who seem to be stranded there, many of whom seem incredibly familiar. And she quickly realizes why...apparently, she's and everyone else aboard the Sarcophagus are stuck in something of a time loop. While they are trapped in a neon, sci-fi version of Groundhog Day, the Sarcophagus itself is not, as any action they take persists between cycles. This allows Ouji to dig deeper each time, exploring more of the floating tomb as she attempts to make her escape.
While it's okay on it's face, the way in which the story is told is incredibly, offputtingly pretentious, allegedly "digging into themes like loss, mental health and karma" while actually feeling like more of "I looked at the Rigveda once and I read Kafka so I'm better than you," kind of faux philosophy. There isn't too much text here, but it felt like every time I interacted with another character they immediately starting spouting poorly written and thought out philospophy that lacked any real coherence. A lot of "philosopher" types do this kind of stuff in their writing, throwing a bunch of big words they learned in Philosophy 101 together without understanding of what they actually mean. That's the way Ultros felt to me and I typically check out every time I start dealing with this stuff. Many moons ago I criticized Hollow Knight for this kind of stuff, but even that was different. HK was more of a situation of a well written game with a nice story that I think was read too much into. Ultros was a case of a game trying to convey some deeper meaning that, in doing so, completely lost itself up its own rear.
And that whole "karma and reincarnation" thing also manifests itself in the gameplay in a way that I was not a fan of. Like most Metroidvanias, Ultros has you explore an expanding map as you learn more skills, allowing you to progress forward. Unlike most of these games though, you learn most of your actual abilities through leveling up. Additionally, you can acquire seeds, which can be planted throughout the game and can gradually grow to open up new portions of the map. And how do you get these things to grow? By defeating bosses. Which will then cause Ouji to be reincarnated. At the start of the game. Without all of the abilities you just learned. Now, to be fair, you can find items that will allow you to keep certain skills. However, that doesn't change the fact that you are losing most of your progress and getting sent back to the beginning of the map. This basically means you are repeating the same sections over and over, with mininal differences. Sure, your plants have grown, but you still have to walk all the way back to where you planted them to reach new areas. Again, backtracking is par for the course for Metroidvanias, but retracing your path step by step, over and over again is most certainly not.
Maybe this would be mitigated if the map were more interesting, but it just isn't. There are so many big, open areas that feel identical that it just isn't fun to explore once, much less five times. Ultros may be visually striking, but that just servers to further drive home just how bland it's world is mechanically. I will say combat is at least somewhat interesting, the game rewards you for mixing up your attacks which keep it from feeling repetitive. But actually moving from place to place feels like a chore, especially after you've gone through the same thing so many times. While boring, at least the map is coherent and you typically know what you are supposed to do when. But the format of the game really pushes you away from exploring and trying things, electing instead to just sort of push you from point a to point b. That's not a good thing in games like this.
At the end of the day, I just couldn't feel anything but bored by Ultros, despite its excellent visuals and unique style. Its bland map, repetetive nature and pretentious narrative had me groaning every time I had to sit down and play it. There aren't a lot of technical flaws here, the controls are solid, visuals and sound are good and its not buggy or broken or anything like that. But for all the sins a game can commit, being boring is the most cardinal. It might be technically proficient, but there really isn't any reason to play Ultros, especially in a genre filled with games that do what it set out to do far better.
4.5/10
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