RuneHeads bets on a RPG with roguelike overtones with a deep combat system that does not sit down to a poor level design.
The cyberpunk genre has enjoyed in recent years a new resurgence that starts from the Internet revolution and that finds its apogee in the current social panorama: the era of information overload, socio-economic discontent, the new boom of the extreme right, climate change. In fiction, dystopias are at the core of highly successful works like Black Mirror, which warns of the dangers of technology if it falls into the wrong hands. For its part, in digital entertainment we have enjoyed titles that explore transhumanism – the theory that humans can evolve beyond their physical limitations – such as The Red Strings Club or Detroit Become Human. Cyberpunk 2077 is also one of the most anticipated releases of the year, and CD Projekt Red is raising high expectations with a title that is predicted to be groundbreaking.
The Italian studio RuneHeads, creators of Fall of Light: Darkest Edition, have released their own cyberpunk play, in which we appreciate an obvious inspiration in the Cyberpunk 2020 roleplaying system, along with a classic roguelike featuring grid dungeons. Conglomerate 451 is available for PC (Windows, Linux and Mac) and, while it has a good background, it falls far short of the glory of other titles in the genre.
Declaration of war against corporations
We are in sector 451 of Conglomerate City, consumed by the dominance of corrupt corporations. As leaders of a special agency formed by Senate order, we must create our agents through cloning technology to reclaim the territory. From our base, we will invest in upgrades for our troops. Implants, regeneration tanks, DNA modification … Our scientific research will make our agents authentic artists of infiltration and combat.
Conglomerate 451 shines in its wide range of customization. We can create a large number of clones and specialize them into various classes based on the traditional role: offensive, defensive and support agents. Each clone has its own skill tree that we will develop as experience increases, and with the implants we will add very useful talents in combat. Of course, any combination of roles is possible, although we will discover that certain alignments are more effective than others.
Thus, with our team of three agents, we will enter a mission of our choice among several available, with the aim of undermining the influence of corporations and increasing the prestige of our agency, in addition to obtaining money and resources to invest in our research. technological. Each zone is made up of two parts: the city, where we will access the shops and hacking units to prepare for the next phase, that is, the epicenter of our mission. Likewise, we can dispense with the visit to the city and go to work, if we see ourselves safe and supplied enough to take action. Both in the city and in the mission area there will be enemies, which we can identify on the map and ambush if we surprise them out of sight. It should also be remembered that once we embark on a mission, we will not be able to leave the game, or such abandonment will count as failure.
The battles will take place in turns and in the most classic role-playing style, in which we will launch the skills of our agents and secondary actions such as mobilizing them or using their battery in secondary actions, such as recharging shields or hacking the enemy. Our enemies, although some of them very repeated, will not be negligible, and it is very possible that we will fall in combat if we do not create a good strategy, not to mention the trauma caused and that they can become permanent if we treat them in time. We will also have three levels of difficulty designed for all types of players. After completing our mission, we can restore the health of our agents in the regeneration tank, or manufacture new clones to replace the losses suffered.
During the exploration, we will find small hacking puzzles to unlock doors or extract a UPC that we can later use with our agents. Such puzzles will require solving against the clock, with some mental agility and good timing. The single participation, in addition, requires the consumption of battery of an agent, with which we must think if we prefer to save this energy for other uses.
Throughout the game we will be accompanied by Echo, a drone whose personality will be the most sparkling in the game. With her acid comments and references to other science fiction works, she will be the perfect narrator of our adventure. Also, we can find codices belonging to them that we can decode in our agency and discover very interesting fragments of lore.
A fleeting diversion
Each mission can take from about 20 minutes to just under an hour, depending on how extensive the map is and how complete we are. In Story Mode, we must defeat the rest of the corporations and make decisions throughout the game, while in Infinite Mode, we can continue with tasks with our agents after solving the main mission. Anyway, the fun that Conglomerate 451 offers has a short fuse: during the first hours of games we will be absorbed by its complex combat system and its possibilities when it comes to customizing our agents. During the first ones, a captivating sense of dynamism will be maintained, with a good rhythm between exploration and combat. But the excitement will die down as the game's repeatability starts taking its toll, and this is the big flaw of a title that could have been more creative in terms of level design and the narrative itself. Thus, the structure of each week within the game consists of preparing our agents and taking them on a mission where the only thing that varies is the scenarios of the second level. The script feels very cold, as the stories are transmitted to us verbatim and more visual sequences are missing. However, the excellent localization and legibility of the texts do achieve some immersion, where even the Echo jokes have their correct equivalent.
Another aspect of Conglomerate 451 that leaves a bittersweet flavor is the artistic section, which is a bit obsolete in modern times. The predominance of neon, and the visual effects of desynchronization of the image when we receive damage create an ideal setting. We also like the almost perpetual night in which the game takes place, the squalor of a city consumed by businesses of dubious legality and the claustrophobic rooms in which we will infiltrate. However, the non-player character design lacks charisma, and the rough animations make us feel like a previous generation. The electronic BSO is also halfway, since its few songs suffer the same effect as the lack of originality of the missions: their appeal ends up dissipating when we have heard the same songs over and over again.
All in all, we find ourselves with a game with a lot of potential that has been misused. Its complex combat system, and the creativity offered by the specialization and design of our clones could inspire fresh strategies to apply to new levels. However, disappointment comes when missions consist of going through dungeons until you click with the main object of our task, be it the computer that we must infect or the weapon that we must steal, or end the combat with the last enemy that we had to defeat. And, on the other hand, a dystopia can generate an even deeper story than that offered by this decafty cyberpunk title whose battery runs out too soon.
CONCLUSION
Conglomerate 451 captures the entire essence of the cyberpunk genre: a dystopia in which we fight against the dominance of corporations, a transhumanism that translates into cybernetic implants for our characters, a wide diversity of specializations, a complex combat system that includes hacking into the enemy … However, the spark that arouses in the player goes out after a few hours of play, when we discover that each mission is almost a carbon copy of the previous one, and when the narrative does not finish connecting with us beyond development of a story whose depth remains in collectible fragments of lore.
THE BEST
- A very well done setting, full of neons and interesting visual effects.
- A complex combat system.
- Multiple possibilities in the specialization of clones.
WORST
- Very repetitive missions.
- A very cold narrative.
- An obsolete artistic section.
Right
It is not the latest or most original, nor does it have the best execution, but it can be fun if you like the genre. Good, but upgradeable.
