Chorus

Preface: Do NOT play the demo - you will basically see the downsides ony. When it works, it's great. Fast action, great looks, controls are rather tight, although they take a bit of getting used to. When everything comes together, it's a very satisfying power fantasy. The problem with this game is, it does the worst job ever introducing its mechanics (even with the demo set aside). Honestly, it's such a shit show of failed design I have no idea how this passed play tests. YMMV, but some of the stuff that got introduced left me without a clue what I should actually do. There's also timed events which I personally hate with a passion. Combine that with the fact that you constantly need to re-apply your scanner (because your super duper AI ship cannot remember where stuff is for more than a couple of seconds) and the additional fact that there's no clear differentiation between current mission objectives

When this game comes together, when it works, it offers a seriously great time. Combat keeps you on your toes and can be genuinely thrilling - flying *through* a capital ship, guns blazing, only to have it explode around you counts as a peak gaming experience. I love the story, the characters, the original setting. It looks gorgeous, espeically if you have Ray-Tracing enabled; the alien architecture (for wont of a better word) is very reminiscent of the game "Control", which I adored, so it was fun to see that general aesthetic here too. BUT. Weird design choices abound. Your ship can't reverse or traverse in any direction apart from forwards, with exception of a very limited side-step function. Targettting ships and even mission goals is a bit of a nightmare, normal targetting functions are split off into obtuse pilot powers that need refreshed every few seconds. And the Boss fights....! I hate Boss Fights in most games but these are exceptionally obnoxious: enemies are given all the cheaty hand-holding trickery to nullify your advantages that you can think of, including -and I kid you not- an infinite tunnel of constant exploding obstacles that you have to navigate seemingly endlessly while still trying to find a way to land a shot on your feeling target. They feel desperately unfair, and what makes this worse if that when you die and try again you might still have unskippable cut-scenes or conversation to wade through. I did beat the game, with relatively few repeats but that generated a fair bit of swearing and I have no desire to play again now that I've done it all. Lastly, bit of a minor gripe: only two ships skins?? (one in game and one DLC) That's a bit rubbish. If a sequel could address all this it's probably be one of my favourite games. As it is. I can only recommended to PATIENT fans of space combat games.

Note: If I could, I'd rate this 4.5. First, I want to give my opinion on some issues brought up on other reviews. 1)The overall game is MUCH easer than the demo made me believe. 2)The lack lateral movement or "strafe": many of the best games have not allowed this, and I don't think it should be a requirement (Wing Commmander, X-Wing/Tie, Freespace, Starfox, etc...) In fact, this plays like the "all range" mode of Starfox but on a much larger stage. It's a free-roam but tightly focused arcade-combat space game. It does have a "drift" mode which is a very satifying interpretation of "newtonian" space maneuvering. 3) I strongly disagree that the game has a bad soundtrack. Might not be for everyone, but it fights the themes of the game perfectly. On to my own thoughs: It's very focused. This is a space combat game; its main goal it to provide tight space combat while delivering a pseudo-mystical high-tech power fantasy. At these things it succeeds brilliantly. It's also very pretty and it features some excellent mechanical designs for the various ships, fighters and weapons, with great visual effects, great lighting, etc. Cons? This is clearly a small team focusing on what matters so they can punch above their weight class, but willing to make compromises to do so. There's a lot of reused assets - there are like 4 civillian ships in the game, some of the pirates use the same kinds of ship as the main baddie faction, etc. There is also only one fully realized character model in the game - I found it very funny how much hwavy lifting they got out of that one asset. The story? Well told and interesting thematically, but shallow in execution. Again, due to how focused the game is on it's priorities. All in all, Chorus is a great game. Is it one for the ages? Maybe not. But it really knows what it wants to achieve and it does it with confidende and class. Bravo.

And i finshed the game. I loved it. I loved the visuals, the story, the characters, presentation, lvoed all of it. The game isnt perfect, Id say it has pacing issues, could have benefitted from better optimisation, specially on those choppy cutscenes. The "One Saviour" story is tried and true and somewhat tired, but, in this case, it works fine. The ame discusses interesting issues of loss, grief, guilt and i think that, for the most part, it does it well. The controls are slick and fun and once it gets going (ie you get most of your powers) it Really gets super fun. Prior to playing it and even during my pl, i tried top find more coverage on it and only find either "meh" reviews or negative commentary, be it around the story and/or controls and it baffles me because i don't get What the game does wrong. For what its worth i think it was a great experience that im sure at some point i'll revisit. Easy recommend.