Exoprimal Impressions From Open Beta
If you've read about this game somewhere, yes it's world building is inspired by Dino Crisis, but not related to the series. In fact, the devs can deny this, but there's too much evidence out there proving otherwise.
It's a weird setup, the premise of it taking place in a city, overtaken by an A.I. where soldiers from the future don mechs to fight dinosaurs. It could have been any different creatures, anything else, space aliens even, but they picked dinosaurs instead.
Through the open beta, I've seen this play out like an Overwatch team based mode, with gameplay as lean and flexible as Warframe. And it actually plays great, I really did dig the foundations they put in. Each class caters to a specific playstyle, playing either nimble fast and loose fighter classes, active support units, or giant tanks that uses katanas to dish serious damage.
Sadly, all I can talk from my impressions is based solely on one specific mode; Dino Survival. Which, has a list of 6-different objective based modes under it. But the main design is the same as a PvEvP, fight dinosaurs, and then fight both dinosaurs and opposite team.
And there's a big problem with this mode, and it's spelled out as inconsistent and unbalanced. I wanted to play more just to give a more thorough articulation about this, but the short time I spent felt was enough.
Bit Of Fun, Bit Of Bore
After getting past the absolute barebones of a character creator and tutorial section, finally, the overseer A.I., with its indifference towards the human players before it, states that it wants to see our combat skills put into the test. Thus, begins the Dino Survival game match. With the other players right on the other side of the platform.
Credit should be where credit is due, the gameplay feels solid. Controls are fluid, easy to control my mech, and dispatch my abilities. I can also switch them on the fly, as well as selecting rig abilitis. I can switch between ones that dodge, deploy shield, or fires cannon for AoE effect.
In start of the mode, the dinosaurs are spawned by this luminescent orb in the air and then dropped on the ground. Like, sugar pallets, the unit count was big, but these raptors were easy to dispatch, that was before a whole army of them were lampooning on us later in the match.
This part of the game got tricky, because in large numbers if they weren't cleared fast enough, they could do serious damage together. Tricky to get out of, and even out of dodge, they would be on my scent.
The dinosaur mob crush, the A.I. design around, it felt like I was battling actual dinosaurs. There are even the various types introduced that spices the fun. Listed here. After the Raptors, our team started facing off against Pteranodons, my melee based fighter was screwed, then came one or two Ankylosaurus that had hard shell armor, until hitting enough would flip it over, easily damaged exposed.
And then there are the genetically designed Neosaurs. Can shoot ice, camouflage, carry molten lava waiting to explode on their backs, and throw acid too. There's plenty more, and they don't kid around with these. Gets worse when the PvP part of the mode starts.
Fighting Back Is Hard
The first 3 matches I played, I was figuring out the choices of mechs I have and how to play them. I am also being judged, along with my teammates, as to how fast we are clearing them. Because we would be told whether we are faster or slower than the other team.
The indicator above showing how far each team has progressed clearing areas. Before finally being teleported into the final round, the PvEvP round. The confusing part of the game that has messed up the flow very much.
Even after a round, it would show red silhouettes of the enemy team. The winning team gets to have the upperhand, before the real game starts. This was the part of the mode I kept getting confused over, because my team and I had no freaking clue what we were supposed to be doing.
Overwatch PvP worked, because there's this balance and fair play exists because of how each character can have counters to certain enemy types, and also allows different playstyles thanks to how nimble the characters are to control. In here, I have no idea what I am doing or supposed to do.
The only way to win, is to do the objectives better than the enemy team. Which isn't always clear, because I have a difficult time understanding the announcer. He's this robot that is so nonchalant intructing us, he lectures us after losing. I would really well, because of all matches I played, I lost, even when I thought I came close to winning. The announcer got my nerves so badly.
So infuriated because of this, I was doing everything I can to get the edge on the game. And then the last match, playing a mech unit full of ballistics, I managed to grab a Dominator summon. Meaning I get to play as a mean, bad T. rex, pummeling opposition off. The best respite I could be granted, and it was a fun one.
And right at the end, we came close to pinning the enemy down. The objective was to protect and deliver the dataset. And both team's dataset met, and we were finally at a showdown. I did my best, putting as much pressure possible. My team made a mistake and I died as a result. Before I know it, they got to 100, and it was game over. Another loss.
To sum up, I called it quits after that. The game mechanics are not flexible enough for pushback. I could easily get countered by a team with better choices in mech, and then loss no matter what. It didn't help that the PvE part was infuriating on the way. That was supposed to be fun, but not when we didn't know what else to do.
Also, the level design felt kind of anemic. We were being guided to taking summoned dinosaurs, all we did was clear waves, and then faced the bigger ones later on. The lack of visual feedback, and the staleness later on, kind of dampened my expectations.
I can still see a good game here, the solid bedrock can work if there were more game modes. Especially more PvE ones in particular. I wouldn't mind mowing down more dinosaurs. For PvP, better level design, instructions, and match time would help quite a bit. They have time till July release, Capcom can do better.
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The concept looks interesting where you need to fight the oldest animals with latest equipment's. And the fighting part do look hard.