Game: Collapsed
Genre: 2D, Platformer, Action, Rogue lite
System: Nintendo Switch (also on PC, PS4 and Xbox One)
Developer|Publisher: Glaive Games | OverGamez
Age Rating: EU 12+ | US Teen
Price: UK £13.49 | EU € 14,99 | US $15.00
Release Date: August 29th 2020
Review code provided with many thanks to OverGamez
Search Your Memories
Collapsed is a title set in a post apocalyptic world. But what on earth happened? Its not the Hunger Games or Mortal Engines. To discover what happened to this world you need to find memory clusters scattered round the levels. But while you solve this mystery there is a pretty good game to enjoy as well.
The Rogue Lite Way
Collapsed is a 2D action platformer with rogue-lite elements. Unlike your usual rogue-lite formula you don’t necessarily have to kill everything in the level. The main objective is to find one of three portals in each level which activates a wave of enemies and potentially an exit. You can of course explore the entire level looking for better loot drops to improve your stats but if you just fancy speeding through that is most certainly a option. After all any loot collected will transfer to future runs. Of course you will die, its just the rogue-lite way. But when you do you can upgrade your abilities through a skill tree, making your next run possibly a bit easier. But that is only if the gaming gods are smiling down on you.
The four Horsemen
You select your grim looker character of choice. One does have a large scythe and a assault rifle which seemed like an interesting combination for a post apocalyptic world so of course that’s who I lead with. There are also three other characters, each of which have a unique ranged and melee weapon. It’s worth starting up multiple save files to see who your grim reaper of choice is and the good news any loot or abilities you unlock on the skill tree with transfer over to other characters avoiding the need for the extra grind. Grinding however is quit a theme of this game.
Loot and Grind
It might even be fair to say Collapsed is a loot grinding game. As you explore each level you will come across absurd amounts of loot dropped from crates and boss characters. This loot can be used to upgrade passive abilities to your weapons and armor. It didn’t take long for my inventory to be literally flooded with loot drops so much so it became quite the chore to stop the game and sort through what was useful and what wasn’t. This distracted away from the action and speedy gameplay. It started getting to the point where I would even just ignore loot as it felt so tedious to just pause every time to see what helped and what didn’t. The game does offer a compare function allowing you to see how each loot piece compares to what you have equipped. But this still just looks like a long list of numbers rather than clearly indicating what’s useful and what isn’t. Hey I’ve got weird post apocalyptic monsters to shoot, there’s no time to be looking at spreadsheets. Still if I did pause to think more maybe I wouldn’t have died so much.
Random Start
Since you’ll be dying a lot you may be interested to know that when you make another attempt to take down the big bad (or evil Cortana) the first level theme as well as the level itself is always randomly generated. This means you won’t always have to repeat the same first level over and over again until you go crazy and have to go stand in the shower for a while (but maybe that’s just me). No, sometimes you will be in a forest, sometimes a sandy area or maybe a bunker. They aren’t exactly happy holiday locations but it makes each new run a little more enticing to attempt.
Some Buggy Issues
Things started off pretty stable in terms of performance when playing Collapsed. But every now and then my character fell through the floor or an enemy would get stuck behind a barrier. This would of course happen when I was on a successful run. Unfortunately my only option would be to restart the game and since the game doesn’t save your progress between runs it was a bit of a let down. Hopefully these bugs will be ironed out in future patches.
If the Apocalypse Comes Beep Me
Collapsed is a entertaining rogue lite looter shooter. A fun mix of shooting and melee combat that kept me wanting to grind away at the game again and again. While it has a few bugs it makes up for it with solid controls and an enjoyable gameplay loop. It’s certainly a fun way to enjoy the apocalypse I’ll give it that.
Final Verdict: I like it
Notes
The developers recently got in touch and mentioned patches for the bugs mentioned in this review are on the way.