Cataclismo is the new game from Digital Sun, the team behind Moonlighter, so I was waiting for the twist from the moment I started. Moonlighter’s a straight-up dungeon crawler, until you crawl out of the dungeon with all your loot and have to face a far more terrifying foe than any monster you encountered in the depths: supply and demand. Moonlighter was a dungeon crawler, then, and also a game about stocking a shop and making a profit. Risk your life to find stock, and then return to the surface and try to find the right price for it. The horror!
So what’s the twist with Cataclismo? My recent demo began in a dark autumnal woods. I’m controlling an archer, clicking to move them through forest paths between spectral, bronzing trees and dark abysses that make the whole thing feel very claustrophobic. Is this an action RPG? No, up ahead I find another troop type, a lobber, who flings bombs or rocks or somesuch. Height and distance come into play as we fend off an attack by mysterious horrors, who all look like plucked but uncooked turkeys. Oh, this is an RTS!
And it is. But then we come to a clearing with a broken bridge and no way to get across. Here is the twist! It’s an RTS in which you can build. It’s an RTS in which you have to build, in fact. Pretty soon I’m fixing the bridge with wooden pieces, making sure that each piece I place is supported and safe. Further on I get a staircase that needs repairing with stone, so I’m dealing with cheap, flimsy wood, and heavy, more dependable stone. Next comes a proper castle, already built, and night is falling so I place my troops and fend off hordes of those turkey enemies. It’s tower defence! Stop it already.
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