Genre: Action, Strategy
Developer: Sushee
Publisher: Square Enix, Forever Entertainment S. A.
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC [reviewed]
Initial release date: March 6, 2018
Fear Effect Sedna is a game that left me really conflicted. Right off the bat, I’m not someone that played the original games, but I was aware of them at the time, especially with the ads for the series that still linger in my memories. So I’m coming into this review without any connection to what made the first two games in the series so special to so many people.
That said, Fear Effect Sedna is a really pretty game, with really fun characters, a wonderful sense of style, and interesting story. But even noting all that, I really dislike the experience because the game seemed to be more focused on its aesthetic than on its gameplay.
Fear Effect Seda is the sort of experience that looks best on paper and in slick advertising. Doing my research into the first two games for this review, it seems people felt that way about the series back in the days of the original PlayStation as I do with this installment today. Where the game just falls flat is in the gameplay department. And boy, does it really fall flat.
I’m a big fan of tactical experiences, but there isn’t any to be had in this tactical game. Fear Effect Seda drops the Resident Evil styling of the series and goes for the isometric style instead. It’s an interesting change, but one that the developers didn’t really seem to have a firm grasp on. I say this because no matter what the game says, there is nothing really tactical about the experience.
The game trains you early on to hide behind objects and even features a pause mechanic so that you can direct each character on the battlefield in advance. All fantastic concepts, but none of these really work, are developed, or ever really come into play during the experience. A lot of this is because enemy AI is broken on a level I haven’t seen in quite some time. Whenever you are spotted, enemies will simply rush down your location negating any sort of tactical gameplay.
If they catch you in their line of sight, be prepared for an enemy to run at you guns blazing. They’ll also bring along all their friends, so the tactical aspect of the game devolves into mad, chaotic shootouts. The pause mechanic is neat, and something common in tactical games, but since everything goes fubar when spotted, you’ll never use the system because there simply isn’t any benefit to it. So chances are you’ll stick to one character while your friends simply wait, or follow along.
Then there are the boss fights that are about as primitive as it gets. Take the giant possessed robot mech-suit (I told you the story was interesting) that chases you around and you simply click to shoot as you run around in circles. These boss segments are also painfully difficult as the game does not prepare you for them. Everything you learn and everything the game teaches you is thrown out the window for something more akin to Robotron than a tactical experience in these segments.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Fear Effect Sedna is a tactical game at its most watered down level[/perfectpullquote]Within an hour of starting the game I had forgot, or ignored, everything the tutorial tried to show. Then there’s the titular “Fear Effect” that does, well, nothing, but is there because this is a Fear Effect game and the developers needed to tie it all together somehow, outside of the sexy assassins. And that’s a real shame because the idea of the mechanic is an interesting one, especially in the scope of a tactical based game.
The Fear Effect works by boosting your damage output when you take damage from one of the various supernatural baddies that inhabit the world, hence the fear thing. The more scared your character is, the bigger the boost. Using health packs will lower this, so it makes for an interesting gameplay mechanic by forcing you to make choices when in battle. Too bad it simply doesn’t work.
Battles are quick because you and your team are about as strong as rice paper. This is only exacerbated when multiple enemies rush you, leading to almost instant death. There’s no advantage to not be at full health, but since health is fairly rare, you’re simply going to end up dead rather than use the Fear Effect in any meaningful way. In fact, I totally forgot that it existed as getting into firefights kills you and the game. How many other games can you remember that ditch the main gameplay mechanic, one that is the name of the series, right from the get go?
Fear Effect Sedna is a tactical game at its most watered down level. Even the instant-death puzzles that the game likes to play up aren’t anything but mind-benders intended to piss you off. Look, I like a good puzzle, but like the gameplay, there isn’t any real difficulty curve. From beginning to end they are all high-level puzzles that require a lot of mental gymnastics to figure out. It’s unfortunate that you will most certainly need a walkthrough to get through this game, something the developers seem to understand as they link to one in the Steam discussions page.
And yet, after all my complaining I still really like what Fear Effect Sedna is trying to do. The story is really fun and and characters are all charming and interesting. Sure, you have to experience some really amateurish tactical gameplay to see the story unfold, but I’m trying to look on the bright side here. The games stages are also really well laid out and feature lots of interesting things to do when you aren’t being killed. In fact, the most fun I had with Fear Effect Sedna was in areas with little to no enemies.
But at the end of the day, Fear Effect Seda is a game that punishes the player with deaths aplenty, without offering up enough to make said deaths worth it. It just goes to show that gameplay is the name of the game, and creating something just to be cool can only get you so far.
Fear Effect Sedna is a tactical game that’s anything but
2.5/5
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