Test - Synduality: Echo of Ada: Test: In the Mechensbad of Feelings

Excursions in dangerous worlds have to be worthwhile, so it wants the unwritten video game law. Whenever a game sends you into external districts crowded with opponents, the loot must be worth the risk. Extraction shooters drive the thrill to the extreme with a simple game element: You lose any loot and your equipment if you bless the time in use. Despite the hype, only a few titles manage to establish themselves in the genre. Now Bandai also tries it and even brings a unique selling point to the table.

Obor, one thing has pretty much all the top dogs of the extraction shooter genre in common: human protagonists. You go as a soldier, revolvering or other meat lumps and try to survive in malignant environments.On the other hand, you put you in the hard shell of a Mech. Apart from that, the title also screws on some of the genre.

Kit without claim

We know and love it from titles like Mechwarrior or Armored Core, it is the oil in the gearbox of the mech genre: the adaptation of the fatal metal colossi. Depending on the installed parts, special advantages and disadvantages are revealed. In contrast to the colleagues mentioned, Synduality presents itself: Echo of Ada comparatively reserved. You change your body, arms and legs of your Mech, which only has a minimal effect. Ultimately, your configuration determines the maximum payload and boost speed as well as life energy. As a result, the game feels much arcadier, which of course is not automatically bad.

However, this also lacks the finesse, which makes the mech genre so exciting. Where I am inDue to the smallest adaptations of almost unexpected missions suddenly made Sunday walks, Synduality: Echo of Ada every build feels very similar. As a result, the mechanical curiosity quickly dissolves in pleasure and you simply choose the components with the obviously best values, without paying attention to special attributes or skills - they simply do not exist.

In any case, the focus should be on a value, otherwise your excursions into the outside world will be very short: the supply weight turns out to be enormously important, after all you have to harvest crystals in Synduality: Echo of Ada to make money. These also have a certain story relevance, but I will come to the completely irrelevance of history later.

In any case, you are looking for the precious material on the surface of the destroyed earth and defend yourself against the eternally of the same three or four extraterrestrial monster types. Either your evil dogs, flying jellyfish or sandworms from the screen or just different colors and thus stronger versions of them.

You deny the firefights with the usual suspects of the shooting bracket group: shotguns, machine guns, machine guns. To do this, you choose between energy and projectile ammunition, which affects the recoil. After all, not only the dreary monsters stand in your way, other Mechs also stand by your prey-of course, extraction shooters do not do without a good dose of threat. Sufficient ammunition and repair kits belong in every well-stocked loadout.

A world in the end

In keeping with the opponent monotony, the world itself is not particularly spectacular. Arbitrarily placed building complexes tie up seamlessly to the same forest. The generally slightly washed -out graphic (on PlayStation 5) rounds off the optically mixed overall impression. After all, the color palette of the world is pleasantly varied, there are not only mouse -gray cities, the scenery repeatedly break the scenery.

A game mechanical design decision by Synduality: Echo of Ada regularly left me back shaking my head. In addition to your life energy, you also have to keep an eye on the weather strength of your Mech. Rain turns out to be dangerous. As soon as the cool water falls from the sky, it is important to find shelter quickly. This ensures sometimes forced breaks or you accept damage.

With your trips, you always accompany you a Ki buddy, which you can optically adapt more diverse than the mech. The hologram of your accompaniment comes in the classic style of an anime-lady, which should quickly be clarified by the target group of Synduality: Echo of Ada. After all, the microtransactions are fair to my impression. There are no objects in the Battle Pass that make the game easier, instead you will receive new outfits for your AI companion and skins for the Mechs.

However, your assistant is not mere ornamental work. You can also choose special skills. For example, a mighty multi -puss, which also likes to sweep enemy Mechs off the screen with one sudden. Or a protective shield through which you are immune to the effects of the rain. However, the cooldown of the skills is far too long, which is why you only use them once or twice per expedition, which makes them almost useless.

All entry is easy

Extraction shooters are primarily known for their tough basic principle. This mostly reveals itself at the first start of the game. In vain, you seek explanations, the first big opponent is understanding. Where to take normal titles on your hand and guide you through the dark forest of the entry hurdles with a flashlight, the hardcore shooters let you run blindly and even put a leg.

Syndualiaty: Echo of Ada, on the other hand, packs your own entry so frustration that it almost hurts at times. The game conveys all the basic mechanics in the necessary detail and even PvP only unlocks in the game after a few hours. However, the developers sometimes overdo it with the tutorial messages, which sometimes disturbs the game flow enormously.

Elsewhere, the game explains too little, especially when it comes to your basis. You can only expand this in dry menus anyway, but Synduality: Echo of Ada rarely reveals you, for example, which the bedroom or the kitchen provide for advantages. But among us, most of the rooms can be left behind anyway, the workshop with which it produces its own parts and consumption objects is really exciting. However, you can unlock this anyway in the course of the story.

Of course, the required resources for the expansion of your base can also be found in the course of your expeditions. Most of the time you collect the stuff in a relaxed manner, but blow yourself when you are looking for something specific. Objects on the wish list mark your AI companion on the map and refer to her, but it is anything but reliable. Especially since you often need so much that you wander through the area for hours before you get all the necessary.

Where we would be with the story: it is hardly worth mentioning. Humanity moved underground after a great disaster, only the "drifts" dare to take the surface. Correctly get to this mech-riding, crystal gathering daring troops also belongs to her. However, humanity does not live underground alone, even a AI is up to mischief, which accompanies you in the form of your lovely anime assistance.

While the starting point of the history of Synduality: Echo of Ada is not wrong, the narrative itself does not knock on any level. In some places there are strange cartoon intermediate sequences with fallout relatives, then you will find lore-relevant objects again, the texts of which reveal more and you will also find out more in the charging screens before an expedition. So of course the touch of narrative momentum does not even come up.