Having already made its Kickstarter goal, indie CRPG Sui Generis only had one more hurdle to jump: Early Access on Steam. Developer Bare Mettle Entertainment took care of that today and are celebrating with an introductory 15% price cut, bringing the game down to $12.74 from its normal $14.99.
By now the question has to be asked “What makes this game any different?” Certainly, we have a lot of throwback CRPGs and a few that claim to spice up the old formulas by adding clever gameplay quirks…but Sui Generis, now simply going by the name “Exanima“, should convince you of its uniqueness just by merely viewing the above video.
In much the same way Penumbra stood out amongst other first person adventure games by incorporating heavy use of physics in its gameplay, Exanima uses movement and force in a very similar fashion. Owing a bit to the sword combat in the classic action game Die By The Sword (And maybe a little Draconis: Cult of the Wyrm as well), Fighting relies on physics and weapon swings that have a heft you don’t find in most other games of this type. Just watching the animations as the character struggles to wield a great-sword and pushes past enemies while knocking them over in the process was enough to pique my interest. It’s also nice seeing weapons get knocked out of people’s hands by hard blows and watching them fly across the hallway only to hit another person behind them.
It’s not just the physics based combat either, since the game promises to have a strong statistical side to its fighting system as well. In the words of the developers:
- Features include a deep skill based combat system, complex and smart AI, fully interactive environments, an advanced damage model with accurate collisions and locational protection, roguelike elements and an arena mode to hone your combat skills.
Exanima is a prelude to an even bigger, more open world title they plan to develop in the future. If it features the same combat system, they might have struck gold. There is also a thread discussing the game on NeoGAF with some screenshots not available on the Steam storefront.
