Krater Review

This is a brief review of the new game by independent game developer FatShark.

A game in the Steam store recently caught my eye.  Mainly because of the brightly colored title. Now, the game will only run you about 14.99, and will be reviewed not as a full 60.00 game but as a 14.99 cost game.  Although buyers should know that the game is still in testing phases, but FatShark has put it on the market early.  What does this mean?  Most likely that FatShark was running low on funds for further development or they just wanted a wider range of testers.  Regardless, that is one of my major gripes with the game, as you are paying for an unfinished product.  On the other hand you can expect frequent content updates. 

The game plays like an RPG with a top down view, similar to what we've seen form Diablo and other dungeon crawlers.  Although it is not exactly a dungeon crawler.  More of an old school RPG.  The combat in the game is squad based.  You are allowed 3 people in your squad at any time, and there are 4 classes to pick from.  A medic, tank, crowd control, and DPS character.  Each having their own gear and weapons.  Each class only has 2 abilities but they are upgradeable.  The abilites vary from unit to unit.  By this, I mean that two medics may not have the same two abilites and so forth for the other character types.  You can also hire new party members in the towns across the world.  The level cap for units is 15 and works in 5 level intervals.  By this i mean every five levels you need to rank up by buying the next set of 5 levels from a vendor.  

The overall gameplay is satisfying, but you will probably have to be a fan of dungeon crawler style combat to fully enjoy the experience.  Only have 6 abilities max is fairly frustrating after hours of gameplay.  The tanks have aggro moves, the medics obviously heal, the crowd crontrol stuns and slows, and the DPS well...does damage.  You'll find yourself venturing from city to dungeon to city to do tasks for various people along your journey.  

The story isn't all that immersive but it is still there.  Its the typical post-apocalytic speech, and everyone trying to dig into a "Krater" in order to find riches and other valuables.  Although some people have split off and created their own faction, these "evil doers" are your main enemy and you meet them rather early in the story.

All in all this game in my opinion is worth 14.99 would but not be worth say 24.99 or above.  Rated as a 14.99 game i would give it an 8/10.  Hopefully the development team can spice things up over the course of its testing stages to make the game a tad more deep and emersive.