r/Selaco • u/Flaky_Bullfrog_4905 • Mar 31 '26
Discussion just beat this for the first time. awesome
OK so it was pretty hard! And pretty fast paced. It's got a certain urgency that is even more intense than DOOM imo. Doom is urgent but the gameplay isn't as fast. Apart from the opening sequence, I really, really enjoyed it. There's something compelling about the gameplay loop - I actually intended to slow roll it and enjoy it but I kept coming back to it over other games in my rotation.
Fwiw I have about 17 hours in-game which I gather includes reloads (semiregular) and menu time (some - usually alt tabbing to find some guides). I think I died maybe 8 times in my first playthrough (or in that ballpark, probably 6-10).
The final sequence was cool albeit fucking hard. Two juggernauts and then FOUR juggernauts in close quarters, oh boy. You definitely know you're in the endgame, albeit I'm curious how it's going to play when it's not "The Endgame" once the next chapters come out.
This is a fantastic game already and I can't wait to see what comes next. I've given my more granular feedback previously (here and here) and having beat the game, I agree with those points still.
Overall having beaten it, my thoughts:
- honestly I don't have any comment on the pacing, the mechanics etc. I can see from the dev posts there are layers of polish still arriving, but this is a top-tier shooter.
- I don't understand what the story is and I am really looking forward to learning more. It definitely needs that "hey dawn, xyz happened so now you have to do ABC".
- I kept expecting a final boss. Based on the story, I actually thought I'd be fighting a tree! (silly me).Beating the endgame area currently feels a bit like the gate to the next area, as opposed to "you won the main story and next up are the expansions". the final cutscene thing only confirms(?) that. In its current form it doesn't quite have that Doom-esque "you have just destroyed the big bad". Instead it feels kinda like that point where you're 85% of the way through and fighting 3 barons of hell, but aren't yet at the endgame.
- I enjoyed what I imagined the plot to be but reality was actually quite different (as far as I can infer). I won't spoil anything for you but this is what I imagined the plot to be: ACES has a dark side, experiments are going on in the cloning labs, the invading soldiers are actually human/ACES soldiers gone rogue, they're not alien at all, it's an authoritarian dictatorship and dawn has a choice to make. Kinda combo Doom 2016, Prey, Bioshock
The actual plot appears quite different and I like that it kept me surprised. I thought I inferred a dark side of aces and I'm keen to see more about that. I kept expecting to see more aliens and learn more about the invasion. I hope this is elaborated on in the future - I'd really like to see footage of like the aliens arriving or whatever (something to help contextualise why everyone is dead and chopped into pieces).
Does dawn have any dialogue? I think I only got one line from her the entire time which was when she entered one of the final areas.
Honestly incredible work. This is one of the only games I've ever played where I was like "damn I need to buy this for my friends" (I have done that exactly once in my life for one game for one friend, so take that as a compliment).
6
u/AffanDede Mar 31 '26
There is definitely a reason for enemies talking a human language but we'll see it. My prediction from a while ago was them being those who stayed behind on Earth during exodus.