Ringlorn Saga Gaiden is a 2024 spinoff game to Graverobber Foundation’s 2022 retro RPG Ringlorn Saga. If you haven't read that review, you probably should. Assuming the role of a nameless revenant, the player is called back from the grave to right the wrongs of the world. Like its predecessor, Gaiden is meant for those interested in enjoying the Japanese action RPGs of the 1980s, particularly fans of the game Hydlide.


The story begins in the temple of Morrigan, Goddess of Witchcraft. She reveals her motives for having brought the player back from the Cosmos. A Dark Lord has taken over the land and made things unpleasant for the population. Now you get to clean up the mess, but Morrigan doesn’t leave you twisting in the wind; she bestows upon you a special gift: the power to use the strength of your enemies. She also drops a hint that you should seek her children, the other gods. Finally, she kicks you out into the cold, unforgiving world.


The bump combat of Ringlorn Saga returns for Gaiden. Walk into enemies to inflict damage and avoid being walked into. The three damage types return as well: slash, stab, and bash. Monsters are vulnerable to one or more types, which means continually switching between them to defeat foes. Your strength determines how hard you hit; defense keeps you from losing your head. The attack/defense mode helps keep you safe when not in combat. Stay in defense when traveling around, and switch to attack when you need to make something die.

It’s when monsters die that things get interesting in Gaiden. Morrigan promised you the power to use the strength of your enemies. Whenever you kill a monster in your normal form, you become the monster and inherit all of its abilities for a time. If you’ve played Ringlorn Saga’s Temple of Rebirth mode, then you already have an idea of how this works. The only monsters it doesn’t work on are the spectral undead: wisps and ghosts.

Being a monster has loads of benefits. First and foremost is that while you’re a monster, you can’t die. If your hit points reach zero, you revert to revenant form. Second, some monsters are plain better at dishing out punishment and taking it than you are. Finally, some monsters have special abilities, which include flying, opening locks, and being able to squeeze into small spaces.

However, monster mode is temporary; your hit points drain while in monster form and eventually run dry. It’s best to keep an eye on your current health and plan on whose skin you’re going to jump into next. You can also release a monster form early, so there’s no danger in getting stuck with something you can’t use.

Even if you do meet your end, Morrigan sends you back at the cost of some experience because otherwise there wouldn’t be much of a game.



You’d think that the Goddess of Witchcraft would bestow you the gift of magic on top of changing into other stuff, but no; you start off devoid of magical talent. She’s left that to the other gods to handle, which is a major portion of your quest. Each one will give you some kind of relic, granting access to new spells. You’ll also see a memory of your past, filling in the backstory.

Spells are the same as before: stuns, heals, buffs, and the like. To be honest, I used magic very little except to heal myself, and the delay in recharging the magic meter makes casting of limited usefulness. Some monsters give access to magic as well, which means you can cast more spells when you switch, but even then it’s more of a side-grade.


Ringlorn Saga Gaiden’s world is as small as Ringlorn Saga’s, but the place is far more open. Mountains, trees, and water can block your path, but you have the power of transformation. Bats frequent most of the world and provide the power of flight. So, if mountains have you down, fly over them. This change also means no more having to dive into caves just to get to the other side of somewhere and makes gameplay a smoother experience.


While the previous game had some chiptunes alongside some moody pieces, all of the music in Gaiden is downright sullen, befitting the darker world. Again, nothing quite stands out, but all of it is decent.


Other elements make a return for Gaiden, like buried treasures and medicine to keep you from re-dying on the spot. People still don't like talking to you with your weapon out, even if they are all ghosts. Since the world is open, there’s no searching about for keys to get into each dungeon. Gaiden only has one boss to fight, and he’s not difficult to find.



The transformation mechanic plays a big role in the game. You’ll often come across locked doors or chests, and the only way to get them open is to either find a specific item or become a monster armed with a dagger to force them open (which is much easier). There are doors in one dungeon that require the strength of a golem to open. You’ll also find a lot of windows in the game, windows you can fly into and out of if you’re a bat. At one point, I ended up jumping down a well and taking a lot of damage I could have avoided if I’d been a flying monster at the time. It’s a nice mechanic, and Gaiden uses it well to keep things interesting.




Gaiden is shorter than Ringlorn Saga. I clocked an hour and a half from start to finish, and there is, once again, no replay value to speak of. While I had a good time, I don’t know if I had five dollars worth of a good time, which is what Gaiden is currently priced at.

Ringlorn Saga Gaiden is well made and a lot of fun for the short time you’ll get to enjoy it, and it's basically more of the same with an interesting gimmick attached, but if you’re concerned about getting the most for your money, then you’ll want to wait until it’s on sale.

Developed by Bromantic Games, this relaxing indie settlement builder—currently in Early Access—lets you construct and manage a village while meeting every need of your simulated settlers.

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Gameplay

Folklands delivers a complex gameplay loop that will feel familiar to fans of city builders, but its intricate systems can make it more demanding than expected. You start small, with just a Town Center and a handful of settlers, and must meet specific criteria—like gathering enough resources or building certain structures—to grow your settlement into a larger village. Key to this growth are Builder’s Huts, which serve a dual purpose: they provide builders to construct new buildings and maintain existing ones, but only within the hut’s limited range. These huts require a steady supply of planks to function; without them, builders can’t perform maintenance, causing buildings to deteriorate and eventually collapse, forcing you to rebuild from scratch. Buildings are also prone to catching fire, requiring you to construct fire stations—also with a fixed range, meaning you’ll need multiple stations for larger settlements. Fire stations, in turn, need a constant supply of water, adding another resource to manage. One standout feature that sets Folklands apart from other builders is the Exploration Tower: you must actively construct this building and send explorers beyond your settlement’s borders to expand your territory, adding a layer of intentional progression that feels rewarding when you’re not overwhelmed by other tasks.
Sustaining your settlers adds yet another layer of challenge. They live in their huts, but simply building a berry hut or fishing hut isn’t enough to keep them fed—you must construct market stalls and manually stock them with a set amount of food and water. If these stalls aren’t consistently filled, settlers won’t survive, which feels tedious. They could easily fetch water from a well or gather berries themselves. This micromanagement, combined with the need to balance resources like stone, wood, and planks, makes the gameplay feel more stressful than soothing, despite the absence of combat or external threats. The Exploration Tower adds yet another responsibility, as you must manage explorers while keeping the village running smoothly. While the core loop of building, gathering, exploring, and growing your village has potential, Folklands currently feels more like a demanding settlement builder that requires constant attention to avoid collapse, rather than a cozy and relaxing city builder.

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Maps

The Game has procedurally generated maps, adding variety to each playthrough by allowing you to influence the landscape through in-game options, like map size, water level, and resource amount. These settings let you tailor the experience—smaller maps with fewer resources might feel more manageable, while larger maps with higher water levels could offer more space but also new challenges, like limited building areas. I don’t recommend anything above a small map size, due to significant performance issues. Larger maps cause the game to drop to 11-15 frames per second, regardless of whether you’re using a high-end gaming PC or a low-spec machine. The developers are aware of this issue and have been releasing daily hotfixes to improve performance, but at the time of this review, even small maps experience occasional frame dips, with larger maps consistently struggling at 15 FPS.

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Sound

Folklands features a cozy and relaxing soundtrack that provides a soothing backdrop as you manage your settlement, offering a welcome contrast to the game’s currently demanding mechanics.
The Soundtrack is cozy and sounds relaxing while you listen to your settlers mine stone (which has a sharp and high pitched sound) and chop wood (which is a pleasant chopping sound). Overall nothing to complain about, and it gets its job done quite nicely.

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Visuals and Art Direction

Folklands welcomes players with a delightful low-poly art style that feels both modern and nostalgic. Viewed from an isometric perspective, the game’s world is a cozy blend of vibrant greens, warm browns, and autumnal reds and oranges, crafting a whimsical, storybook-like atmosphere. Trees and stones are rendered with simple geometric shapes, giving the game a clean, minimalist look that prioritizes clarity over realism, while the buildings and settlers are far more detailed looking. I really love how the visuals don’t feel cluttered or overwhelming—I can easily tell what each building, like the wooden huts or the storage, is meant to do just by looking at it. The settlers move with basic animations, bringing the settlement to life without adding visual noise, while the soft color palette—lush grass paired with fiery fall foliage—enhances the game’s relaxing vibe. Bromantic Games’ art direction ties this aesthetic together with a clear vision: to create a calming, manageable world. The lack of clutter and easily understandable building designs—like the central storage standing out clearly—make the gameplay feel intuitive, ensuring the player’s focus remains on building, while reinforcing the game’s relaxed pace, perfectly aligning with its promise of a stress-free, creative escape.

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Conclusion

As mentioned, Folklands is in Early Access, and the foundation seems promising. The graphics feel nostalgic, and the colors are vibrant and inviting. The soundtrack adds a cozy layer, and the visuals are a highlight with their clear, uncluttered design. The gameplay is solid but can be improved upon—it’s currently more stressful than relaxing for me, with constant micromanagement and performance issues that detract from the experience. For these reasons, I would not recommend the game at this stage, despite my somewhat positive review. There’s potential here, but it needs more polish to truly deliver on its promise of a cozy settlement builder.

Ringlorn Saga is a top-down, action role-playing game developed by Graverobber Foundation. The player assumes the role of Gerhard the Brave, whose father, King Wilhelm, went missing in a nearby land overtaken by a mysterious magical barrier. It’s a short, retro RPG with simplistic story, gameplay, and aesthetics, designed for those longing for the style of games from the 1980s.



Hydlide was originally developed by T&E Soft in 1984 for the PC-88. From there, it received several ports to different systems, including the NES—the version most people in the West know. Hydlide featured open-world exploration at a time when nearly every RPG was a closed dungeon ecosystem. The game also featured attack and defense modes for protecting the player outside of combat and passive health regeneration instead of having to rest at an inn. Hydlide received several sequels, and the third game was remastered and released on the Sega Genesis as Super Hydlide in 1989.


The game begins with Fiona, Gerhard’s daughter, asking to hear the story of her father, which serves as exposition about King Wilhelm, the barrier, and how the captured lands belonged to an old friend of the family. The good king went off to the barrier and told his sons to wait a month for his return and to assume the worst if he didn’t. A month passed, and, sure enough, no Wilhelm. Gerhard takes it upon himself to look for his father and heads to the barrier, barely making it across the threshold before being clobbered by a sorcerer. He regains consciousness in the home of Adele, a young maiden who has nursed him back to health.






Ringlorn Saga uses bump combat, a mechanic in which you collide with an enemy to decrease its health while preventing it from doing the same to you. All monsters follow a basic “move and turn” pattern, and each time you strike, your power meter decreases; hitting an enemy repeatedly will do almost no damage.

The best tactic is a “stick and move” fighting style: When you approach a critter and attack, it will start following you. Hit the enemy then move away; rinse and repeat. For stronger enemies, this means not getting boxed in while leading them on a merry chase across the battlefield. The faster a monster is, the more dangerous it becomes to hit it more than once per move. Gerhard starts out weak, with basic equipment, and, like all good wimpy heroes, must venture out to kill things and survive to become stronger. Character stats are straightforward and don’t require much explanation: Strength determines how hard you hit, and defense gives you an idea of how much punishment you can take.


Like the original Hydlide, you can switch between defense and attack. While defending, your defense rate goes up and enemies have a harder time killing you. However, you do almost no damage. While attacking, you land harder blows, but you take more damage in return. The best policy is to stay in defense mode while traveling and only switch to attack when you know you can kill something. Gerhard can do three types of damage: slash, stab, and bash. Most monsters are vulnerable to one or more types, so you’ll need to adapt. One caveat to this are the undead, like vampires and ghosts, which are invulnerable to your attacks without a cross item. Once you have that, they take damage like any other monster, which makes the cross a gear check for progression.





Killing monsters nets you experience only; enemies in Ringlorn Saga aren’t unionized, so they don’t get a paycheck. All the gold you find is just that: found. Cash is tucked away in chests, buried across the world and sometimes earned by selling old items to the local merchant in the starting village. Cash comes into play when learning magic, and there was a ring for sale in the village for an outrageous sum of gold that I never could afford. It seems like finding all the gold in the game is a mini challenge. As you level, stronger enemies will appear on the playing field as a crude form of level scaling. The game begins with slimes and spiders, but they are later replaced with tougher beasts like ghosts and sorcerers.

Ringlorn Saga's era-appropriate chip tunes intermingle with synth, bordering on industrial instrumental. As someone who has played most of Graverobber’s other games, I found the music is similar to previous GR titles in style: melancholic and moody. All of the game’s music is decent but not quite memorable.




Gerhard can learn the secrets of magic during his adventure. A local temple will send him on a quest to visit the statues of the gods dotted across the world. A donation of one gold coin to each statue and a final visit back to the temple to the Statue of Morrigan, the Goddess of Witchcraft, will unlock the mystical arts. The priest at the temple taught me several spells and then sent me to another guy to learn more, until even he couldn’t teach me anything else. When I returned to the original guy, he told me I wasn’t strong enough to learn more despite reaching level 15 and being close to finishing the game. So, if there was one last spell for me to pick up, I never received it. Spells offer a variety of tactics, such as: temporarily stunning all monsters, shielding yourself as long as you stay on the current screen, or speeding up health regeneration. Unfortunately, some monsters can do the same magic, too. In combat, it pays to take out spell-casting enemies quickly.



Ringlorn Saga’s world is small. You don't really get lost as much as you get blocked. You often see places you want to go, but mountains wall off certain locales that can only be reached through underground passages. Caves are dark and nasty places, and you’ll need a lantern to see; some caves have items tucked inside as well. Certain areas are locked with keys held by bosses that you eventually encounter.


Boss battles in Ringlorn Saga are the same: You have a conversation with a bad guy, the screen fades, and then some monsters appear. Bosses perform magic and summon extra monsters during the fight. Otherwise, they're like any other monster that can be defeated with the same tactics. Once dispatched, they drop a plot coupon that Gerhard will pick up, after which he passes out, waking back up at Adele’s house, reinforcing the Florence Nightingale Effect.



Ringlorn Saga, overall, is short and sweet. Some content is optional, like getting that ring I mentioned. A few side quests may also be optional and strictly to earn experience. The basic loop comes down to finding a key to a dungeon, clearing it, and killing the boss for the next key until you reach the last dungeon. Bosses always provided some helpful insights on where to go next before they die, so you shouldn’t get too lost, and if you do, there’s always the town bard.

When you reach the final boss and get all the exposition, you stab him until he dies. Towards the end of the game, most monsters couldn't put a dent in me. The final boss still proved to be a challenge, and I relied on healing magic to keep me alive during the last battle.

In addition to the main game, there’s one extra play mode: Temple of Rebirth. In this mode, you start out as a lowly slime in a normal dungeon. The twist? You transform into whatever enemy you kill. You need to work your way up the monster food chain while navigating the dungeon until you reach the final boss.



I enjoyed the game quite a bit, clocking three hours from start to finish, including Temple of Rebirth. At the time of this writing, Ringlorn Saga is $8 on Steam, which is asking a lot for a game with only three hours worth of gameplay and no replay value. Even if I were to track down every scrap of gold to buy that ring I missed and hunt for any other potential secrets, that effort might add an hour extra, at most.

Ringlorn Saga is fun, and a great deal better than the game it takes cues from. It does the retro shtick well, but eight bucks for three hours is way too much. Get this on sale.

Door Kickers 2 is a top-down tactical squad-based game with real-time-with-pause (RTWP) mechanics, thrusting you into the high-stakes world of SWAT operations where every move could be your last.
Developed by KillHouse Games, the studio behind Door Kickers and the spin-off Door Kickers: Action Squad, this sequel builds on their knack for delivering tense, strategic action that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

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World and Background

Set in the real world, the player commands Special Operations Units in daring raids to rescue hostages and neutralize or capture terrorists in a fictional Middle Eastern country called Nowheraki. Single missions include briefings that provide a bit of lore; for example, the FNG missions feature a ranger scouting party discovering small insurgent camps, bases, or workshops that need to be cleared. Campaigns, however, do not have a story, only a theme.

I’m not a big fan of the whole “let’s invent a country” approach. Just use one of the real Arab countries, where conflict has happened or is still ongoing, like Iraq or Syria. I can’t stand developers tiptoeing around these things. I remember how the modern Medal of Honor had to rename the Taliban to “Opposing Force” because, as some put it:

The game sparked controversy among pundits and military families who took umbrage at the notion that gamers could take the role of the Taliban and pretend to kill U.S. soldiers.

That’s nonsense—nobody who fought in Vietnam or World War II ever complained about players being able to control Nazis or the Viet Cong in those games. It is fictional; it's not like every time you kill an online player suddenly a US Marine drops dead.

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Gameplay

The gameplay revolves around planning and execution: you can pause at any time to issue commands, adjust movement paths, and coordinate actions such as breaching doors, deploying flashbangs, or covering angles. The AI reacts dynamically, meaning enemies don’t always behave predictably, requiring adaptability. The game emphasizes careful positioning and synchronization over pure reflexes. You can choose to play in real-time, with the option to pause.

It features a realistic damage system, where both your units and enemies can be taken down quickly if caught off guard. Weapons, gear, and tactics vary depending on the faction you play as, adding variety to your approach.

However, some aspects of the gameplay are less polished. For example, crouching prevents operators from shooting, which can leave them vulnerable to being overrun and shot—potentially ending your current attempt, depending on how you play. This is especially frustrating, because enemies can crouch and blindfire from cover, while your operators sometimes fail to shoot at all, leading to frequent restarts.

One feature that I liked a lot was the grouping.
Take a typical insurgent hideout: you pause, set Group A to breach the door with a charge, Group B to toss a flashbang through the window, and sync it so they hit at once—unpause, and it’s controlled chaos. Campaigns layer on more, with objective chains like clearing a workshop then hitting a supply dump. The maps don’t shuffle, meaning several tries can result in you having the perfect plan. It’s not endless like some roguelikes, but the mix of single missions and Ironman runs keeps you hooked.

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Squads and Equipment

Door Kickers 2 gives you three factions to choose from when forming your squad for missions: US Rangers, Nowheraki SWAT, and CIA. You start with the Rangers, unlocking SWAT and CIA after completing a set number of single missions. US Rangers are well-rounded for direct action, capable of deploying a large number of operators to overwhelm enemies—perfect for the early game. You can enhance them with doctrines, like “Long Range Drills,” which boosts accuracy and engagement speed for long-range targets, or others that improve handguns, rifles, or support roles. Nowheraki SWAT, with older equipment and less training than the Rangers or CIA, still fight with determination, making them a solid choice. The CIA is the toughest to play, operating undercover amidst terrorists with limited equipment and weapons, demanding careful strategy. I like the Rangers best, maybe because of a weird obsession from military movies and Call of Duty games—they look the coolest and have the best gear, from guns to gadgets.

Equipment’s key to making any squad work, unlocked with stars from missions. You get Primary Firearms (ARs to SMGs), Secondary Firearms (pistols for backup), Headgear and Chest for protection, Tactical items like drones or flashbangs, Lethal options like grenades, and Field Upgrades for tweaks like faster reloads. You start basic, but completing missions and campaigns builds your arsenal, letting you go loud or silent as needed.

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Enemies

Door Kickers 2 throws a wide range of enemies at you, mostly terrorists with a few rogue factions mixed in. Turncoat Militias—Nowheraki SWAT gone rogue—are rare but pack the same stats as grunt insurgents, wielding AK-47s. Poor Recruits, armed with double-barrel shotguns, SMLE bolt-action rifles, PM-63s, or AK-47s, aren’t skilled but can ambush if you skip clearing closets or toilets where they cower. Most Insurgents carry AK-47s, wearing white robes and turbans, while a deadlier version in black with AKMs are more professional. Pistol Insurgents, using TT-33s, are the weakest—no armor—but still hurt up close. Veterans, in black garbs with chest rigs, use AKS-74u or FALs, carry two frag grenades (rarely thrown), and blind-fire heavily from cover; grenades are your best bet against them. Rocket Insurgents wield RPG-7s, or a variant with RPG-26s and backup AK-47s—wildly inaccurate, but can wipe a squad with a lucky shot. Sniper Insurgents, also in black, are long-range threats with quick aim, high crits, and armor-piercing shots; smoke helps you close in, or grenades can clear their nests. Machinegunners carry RPK-74s or RPKs with drum mags, some with ammo belts, others with 200-round RP-46s that pierce armor—they blind-fire often, but fall to grenades. Foreign Advisors, in brown robes and white turbans, have sharp senses (110-degree FOV, 2m sight radius), making stealth tough; their SR3-M carbines with AP ammo shred armor fast, backed by rarely-used TT-33s.

Then there’s the Forbidden Tree faction. True Believers, fanatical foreign fighters resembling Advisors, use AK-47s and detonate themselves when badly hurt or close to you. The Emir, a special foe with a vest, uses an AKS-74u (4x scope, 45-round mag), has a 2m sight radius, and self-detonates at 20 HP or less. Executioners are a nightmare in hostage missions—spot a dead ally, and they’ll rush to kill a hostage, or blow themselves up with suicide vests. Suicide Bombers (S-Vests), in white robes, charge you in tight spaces and explode, making them hard to stop without quick shots.

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Sound

Door Kickers 2 has voice acting for the operators, with lines when you pick them, move them around, take out enemies, or leave them idle for a bit. It’s simple stuff—gruff callouts and quick orders—that fits the tactical feel. Gunfire and explosions fill out the rest, keeping things lively without overdoing it. Gunfire sounds different depending on which guns are shot and even silenced weapons have their own distinct sounds. Airstrikes sound impactful and even the A-10 Thunderbolt II has its iconic BRRRRRRT sound.

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Maps

Door Kickers 2 offers maps that range from small to large. Small ones, such as hideouts or backyards, are designed for fast breaches and close calls. Larger ones, like compounds with guards and machine guns, make every decision critical. They vary in size and atmosphere, and although the layouts remain consistent, different enemy patterns provide enough variety to keep the experience engaging.

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Visuals

Door Kickers 2 shifts gears from the first game’s style. Where Door Kickers 1 had a flat, board-game look—simple maps and characters like a Dungeonmaster’s setup—this one goes fully 3D. Environments and operators get more depth: compounds and hideouts have a rugged, lived-in feel, and gear stands out sharper. It’s still top-down, but now it’s got the grit of an FPS, but still keeping things clear and focused.

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Difficulties

There are no selectable difficulty levels; however, the game becomes increasingly challenging the further you progress.

Campaigns do, however, offer an Ironman mode in which you cannot restart, troops face permanent death, but you earn double the rewards.

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Conclusion

Door Kickers 2 is an intense and tactical strategy game that captures the Middle Eastern conflict well, both in audio and visuals. Quick thinking is key, but the ability to pause and issue commands keeps the pressure manageable. Despite minor flaws, like the crouching mechanic, it’s a solid experience with plenty of depth. I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys strategy games with a focus on planning and coordination—it offers plenty of variety to keep you engaged.


Link to game on Steam: https://game.page/doorkickers2/RPGHQ

Sonar Shock is a first-person survival horror RPG that takes place on a gigantic, top-secret Russian submarine designed during the twilight years of the Soviet Union. Made in the style of System Shock 1 and other Looking Glass immersive sims, Sonar Shock tries to follow in their footsteps. The game world is the Utopia, a gigantic submarine powered by nuclear reactors. Utopia’s maiden voyage and secret mission is to sail from Murmansk down to the tip of Africa, and back through the Arctic Ocean, to prove the glorious power of the Soviet Union. Naturally, something goes wrong.


Character creation involves picking three stats, which function like System Shock 2’s career choices. You get four possible choices for each slot, which are more like perks. Each one has benefits, e.g., picking Free Stuff lets you scavenge more ammo from each pickup, while choosing People’s Opium lets you pray at crosses to restore your sanity. There are enough perks for each slot to liven things up for a replay or two.

There are eight stats, though some of these are skills, but hey I didn’t do it, blame the dev:

Strength - Determines melee damage and hit point total, also determines how far you can throw things. Also a requirement for one melee weapon.

Faith - Determines sanity total, resistance to sanity attacks, and psi power. Also, determines what psi powers you can use.

Agility - Determines movement speed.

Hacking - Determines what (if anything) you can hack into.

Luck - Determines critical hit rate.

Small Arms - Requirement for using pistols.

Light Arms - Requirement for using SMGs, some rifles, and shotguns.

Heavy Arms - Requirement for using sniper rifles, flamethrowers, and other heavy weapons.

Once you’re done, you get your selection of difficulty: Oiler, Cadet, and Deck Officer. Oiler is game jurno mode with free saving and endless respawns on death. Cadet is easy mode with wimpy enemies and more ammo. Deck Officer is the way the game is meant to be played, with limited ammo, difficult enemies, and limited saving, so that’s what I took. On Deck Officer mode, you can only save your game with save disks that can be picked up around the submarine.


The first thing to talk about is the UI. Taking directly from System Shock’s full screen mode, Sonar’s UI is almost a 1:1 replica, but that’s where most of the similarity ends. In Sonar, there is no mouselook and no sliding or leaning. You'll also discover that there is no strafing, so you’ll be doing a lot of steering, and the game has a turn speed option in the menu. Another important thing to note about Sonar’s interface is that you cannot see your current health unless you’ve taken a certain perk. Your only indicator is the EKG in the corner, and it occasionally flips out and goes off-line. Your only chance outside of that to see your current and total health is with a diagnostic kit, but these are rare. Enemies and NPCs are represented in 2D sprites. However, almost every object in the game world is a low-poly model, including weapons, food, and everything else you need to find. I didn’t have too many problems distinguishing items from props because there aren’t that many in the game and because every interactive has a popup on your cursor.


Unlike Shock, you have an unlimited inventory and you can’t drop anything, so there's no reason not to grab everything in sight. In fact, I had no idea I was picking up consumables for a while, so I had a surplus of medical kits and pills to take. You'll also want to hoard all the vodka you can find to barter with an NPC on the first floor of the submarine later. Like Shock, you get contacted by a handler several times throughout the game. Unlike Shock, there are no audio logs and no voiced lines of any kind, save for two video clips. Exposition is given through scattered notes and NPCs spoken to along the way, which is another area where Sonar detours from the standard formula.


You aren’t alone on Utopia. Survivors are waiting to give you clues, hints, and quests. Some quests tie into the main plot; others are the usual busywork you do while everything is going to hell. The typical reward for finishing a quest is mikrochips (not a typo). Mikrochips play a role in several key parts of the game as plot coupons and bartering tokens. Some quests will also toss a few goodies your way. Once you get a quest it gets added to your log, but the log is very sparse with the details and you'll need to write all the door codes you get down. Unlike System Shock 1, though, the numbers don't change, so you can cheat and look them all up if you forget.


Light plays a big role in Sonar Shock. Utopia is blacker than Brezhnev’s butt at the bottom of Lake Baikal, and the only portable sources of light are flares which last fifteen seconds and a lighter which burns fuel cells over time. Fuel cells are used as ammo and for lighting fires later on, so you need to be mindful of how you use them. One of your psi powers can also be used to generate light for free, but more on that later. Enemies are easy to spot in the dark given their 2D sprite nature, but objects are almost impossible to see. Naturally, most of the loot is hidden in the dark. The last thing that sets Sonar apart is leveling. Killing monsters nets you experience and levels. Each level grants one point to spend on the stat of your choosing, giving you the freedom to build your character how you wish. So, is it Shock 1? With its different stats, psionic powers, and various plot twists, Sonar Shock is actually closer to Shock 2 than Shock 1, but it incorporates from both while being its own game.


The submarine consists of 5 decks. Four primary decks and then the bridge above that, at least that’s how I reasoned it. You start in engineering, where you’ve woken up from a head injury; helpful notes lay strewn about, showing you how to move. Utopia is a twisting, turning labyrinth and cobbled together from all kinds of things which you’ll find out about later on. Level 2 is crew quarters, 3 is recreation, and 4 is command. A lot of doors are locked, some with keypads. Some of those keypads can only be opened with codes, but a lot of them can be hacked, giving you a chance to use your trusty BONK hacking assistant. In fact, the only things that can be hacked are keypads. Every hackable keypad has a level requirement, but there’s a psi ability that will let you lower said requirement that you can find on level 3. One type of item you can collect are spikes that let you instantly hack, which sounds like a handy device for someone with no skill, but you can only use it if you can access the keypad, and you can only access a keypad if you can hack it, so they’re only for convenience.


Every hack is preceded with a pong minigame complete with little power ups like extending your paddle or speeding up the ball. It’s easy, inoffensive, and a hell of a lot better than most hacking minigames I’ve played. I'm pretty sure there's two jokes going on here. Wolf in Cyrillic looks a lot like bonk in English and the little character on your side looks like a wolf and the game is pong, get it? Bonk! Ha ha!


Horrors Lovecraftian and Russian stalk the Utopia waiting to put an end to you. The most basic of these are blubbers, a mass of writhing flesh which has to get close enough to bite you, and also comes in radioactive flavor. Later on, you’ll also face off against possessed crewmen who can shoot, stab, and even explode at you. Other fun enemies include the lost rusalka, who behaves a lot like the witch from Left 4 Dead; she sits stationary, and, if you get too close, she goes berserk. A single kiss from her ends your game. You can kill them, but they're fast and take a lot of damage, so it's a risk/reward scenario. Risk dying, and dealing with level elements resetting (more on that later), or creep past.


Shoggoths roam the darkened hallways of level 2 and require a quest to kill permanently. Another highly annoying group of enemies are the mobile statues that behave like weeping angels; they move when you have your back turned to them. By far the worst enemies come last: liquidators lower down from the ceiling and shoot you from afar with deadly precision, making the final stretch a nightmare.


Sonar Shock doesn’t hurt for enemy variety, and, on Deck Officer difficulty, they keep you on your toes, ducking behind corners, and trying to dodge their sanity-sapping attacks. Because ammo is scarce, I tried to bait most of my foes into coming to me so I could punch them out or cut them down. I also had the trait that gave me a chance to stun with my fists based on luck, so that helped.


Mother Russia has provided arms and armament aplenty. You can carry one primary weapon and one pistol/melee weapon. You can also punch things with your fists, which never run out of ammo. Old weapons get swapped out on the spot for new ones. If you find yourself getting low on ammo for your shotgun, you might want to remember where you put that rifle. Most weapons have two fire modes, but there are no secondary ammo types like in Shock 1 or 2 and there’s not that much ammo on Deck Officer mode. You want to make your shots count and use your fists or a melee weapon when possible. In a pinch, you can also throw things like crates, fire extinguishers, and exploding barrels at foes. There are several unique weapons hiding around the submarine waiting for someone to find them. Weapons like a magical sword, a harpoon gun, and the much maligned Chauchat, to name some. There are also knives that can replace your fists and do an instant kill, but they break after one use.



The shooting/reloading system is another thing Sonar Shock borrows and builds on from System Shock. In Shock 1, when you needed to reload your gun, you had to manually move the mouse cursor down to the ammo icon and click which ammo you wanted to load into the gun, mimicking the insertion of a new magazine. Sonar has added a few additional steps to this process. Now, you click the ammo, which takes the magazine/shell/clip out of the weapon as appropriate, and it makes you load it back into the gun. After a small waiting period, the firearm is reloaded, but some weapons require that you pull back the slide, rack the pump, or cock the lever. Furthermore, some guns require you to do this for every shot, which means moving the mouse over the gun, holding down the button, and moving the part far enough to chamber the next round. When you're in the middle of a fight with something that refuses to die in one shot, this will make you glad you saved a knife or two. You did, right?


The first psionic power can be found on the second level of the Utopia. There are eight powers in all, all of them written on blackboards. Some are in plain sight, some are a bit hidden. All powers require a certain level of the faith stat to use and all of them drain your sanity when cast. Your faith level determines how much sanity you have as well as how effective your powers are. Some of your powers include combust, which sets enemies on fire and can also be used to light up dark spots on the map, soma-mine, which lets you drop a sonic mine for enemies to trip over, and a typical heal power.


During my playthrough I ended up maxing faith, but I only used a handful of the powers since I was also max strength. One power lets you summon a ghost that fights for you; I tried it and got no mileage from it. Another power lets you drain health from enemies at a cheaper sanity cost than healing. I mostly used psionics to heal myself and light enemies on fire, especially the mobile statues. A lot of enemies and certain areas in the game will drain your sanity. With the end of sanity comes whispers on the edge of hearing, inventory slots opening randomly, and stranger things I don't want to mention because they're very clever. Your sanity level can hit flat zero, but it won't kill you. However, you probably don't want to go around mad among the mad. Sanity restoration comes in the form of cigarettes and antipsychotics, which are sparsely located around the sub; this makes playing a pure psi build a tricky proposition. The People’s Opium starter perk also lets you pray at crosses for a full sanity restoration, but that’s one restoration per cross and there aren’t that many crosses on Utopia. One enemy can drain your sanity just by fighting with them, it's great.

Now here’s the catch: if you don’t take any psionic powers, you never have to deal with the sanity mechanic, at all.


As I continued to explore the submarine, I realized how much of a salute Sonar Shock was to Looking Glass. The similarities in level designs and concepts are taken right out of other LG games; upside-down rooms in Constantine's Mansion from Thief: The Dark Project, sprawling forests in Thief 2: The Metal Age, and the grav shafts that lead up to the Rickenbacker in System Shock 2. Also, certain plot elements that will become noticeable to anyone who plays the game, but to say more would spoil. The visuals start springing up a lot towards the later half of the game, which is also where the only real issue comes in.



The last part of the game is a slog. Enemy difficulty jumps from somewhat and very dangerous to insane. Liquidators attack from afar and do a ton of damage quickly. They can also man the machine gun turrets scattered about for even more damage. You also have to keep from freezing to death when you first arrive. You'll be spending fuel cells to light fires at designated points and then returning to them to keep your body temperature up. A lot of players complain about slowdowns, though I only experienced a few minor ones in my playthrough, but be advised that you might encounter problems. One of my biggest gripes was losing my keybinds every other time I started the game, and the only way you can rebind is to quit out to the menu. The other thing I didn’t like at all is how most of the level resets on reload. Crates and certain enemies will respawn upon death or reload, which can be a major drain on your dwindling resources. This is yet another reason why melee tends to be the king of Sonar Shock, since you never run out of fists, wrenchs, or swords.


As for limited saves, I never had a problem running out of save disks and ended my game with a surplus, but other people may be more save-happy than myself, so your mileage might vary. Otherwise, the only problems I had were in the very beginning; getting accustomed to loading my weapons and losing some early progress. If the sound of that is too much for you, there's always the easier difficulty modes.


Sonar Shock bills itself as an immersive sim and it’s trying hard to be one, but it isn’t quite there. While more than the sum of its parts, it’s not the total it wants to be. There’re multiple approaches for some problems, but the game world itself is too simple and provides no room for emergent gameplay (I hate that term). You can crouch, but you cannot jump, which takes care of a lot of design headaches for the dev, but also kills a lot of gameplay elements right there. You can grab crates, and I think there’s exactly one place in the game where you can make a bridge from them. Otherwise, they exist to block paths, be lit on fire for a temp light source, or be thrown as weapons. Psionics are a supplement to your playstyle due to the limited number of powers and sanity mechanic. You don’t have enough restoratives to main psionics as a weapon, and combust is your primary attack anyway—waiting for enemies to burn to death while you hide is inefficient.


Melee is a far more viable way to fight enemies because there’s a magic sword you can get on level 2 from solving a quest. It can hit enemies at range when you hold down the mouse for a few moments, and a full strength build does a lot of damage and also gives you more health. Meanwhile, ammo is very scarce on the intended difficulty mode, so bullets should be saved for dangerous enemies and dire moments. Other examples include the radioactive blubber which deals damage if you get close, and several areas in the game where you can hear your Geiger counter go off. For a while I was worried I might get radiation poisoning, but there isn’t any poisoning mechanic. The only environmental hazard is the freezing on level 4. The people in the sub all stand in place waiting for you to speak to them, they don’t work, they don’t get attacked by the monsters, and they gleefully stand there watching you die if you get ambushed. You also can’t do anything else to them so forget about mass murder. There are many books on the Utopia, and clicking on them gives you XP, but you can’t actually read any of them. It’s not that I think people want to read War and Peace or Masque of the Red Death in game, but even collecting a few pages into some kind of document folder would give more life to the world. It’s a lot easier for me to call this a survival horror RPG than an imsim; there are too many things missing for it to be a full-blown immersive simulation.


Sonar might not be an imsim, but it is fun. I enjoyed myself and I got about nine hours out of it. There are at least two endings and a number of secrets to uncover. The replay value lies in exploring the endings and approaching the game with different perks and skills.

Sonar Shock is a survival horror rpg worth the time for the money, and even when it’s not on sale, it’s dirt cheap. It capitalizes on the UI and weapon jankiness of the original System Shock while removing the cumbersome movement system. The sanity system is a nice detail, and the survival aspects of the intended game difficulty make you think about each bullet you shoot and each save disk you spend. Best enjoyed by people who play on the hardest mode and like challenging games.