I think Soulslike as a genre is more or less done. With a few exceptions the combat that comes from lesser developers means that every game becomes a chore. The latest example is Robots at Midnight (with a title like a Sci-Fi William Faulkner) made by Finish Line Games.
I’ll start off with the story. The player takes control of Zoe; she is on a failing ship where the robots are revolting. She searches and fails to rescue her father as the ship crashes into the planet Yob. Zoe wakes up to find Yob has advanced in years and is now influenced by the robots on her ship.
So, Zoe gears up and tries to find her dad.
In practice, this means running across the large world, fighting the robots, doing a little bit of platforming, and upgrading her kit so that she can destroy more robots.
This is done with a trusty piece of scrap, and her MITT (a mechanical fist) that gains powers along the way. There are light and heavy attacks, charge attacks, and parries. There is a slew of items to collect that help Zoe: consumables, new equipment and crafting bits and bobs.
The art style was appealing to me. There is a fusion between cartoon and realistic proportions. The scenery is similarly bent with sweeping grassy fields, and glinting metallic buildings.
All of these things work together, mostly.
I played a number of hours of this on the ROG ally, and it is actually a pretty solid way to play it, as long as the device is plugged in. Framerate is steady and the controls are responsive. If you do choose to play it on the ROG, do not play it unplugged – things get choppy, jumps are harder to calculate, and parrying is hit or miss. I would not consider this one for long plane flights but it is something to consider if you want a mindless battler while the television is on
AJ’s ROG ALLY CORNER
This is what kills me about Robots at Midnight. The developers seem to have a checklist of things they think need for a “good” game rather than what it takes to create something memorable. Each Boss is imposing but the system for beating them (despite different routines) was basically the same for me – back off from them, charge up an attack and disable them, rinse and repeat.
The exploration is perfunctory, I know people joke about turning left if the main story of the game is indicated to be on the right. However, Robots at Midnight feels so transparent that I resented it whenever I encountered a forked path.
About midway through the game, there is a series of platforming sections over a destroyed highway. This requires Zoe to jump and boost across them with her MITT, the landing spots are pretty small, and it required me to be more precise. This section made Robots at Midnight sing, it was more challenging but, in a way, where the verbs felt tight and evocative.
It is a fleeting moment, and it was sorely missed when that glimpse was gone.
Instead, there is lots of simplistic combat, and drawn-out walking. The worst being when the world turns to ‘Midnight’ and the player is forced to retrace their steps and you it emphasises its worst parts.
Conclusion
Robots at Midnight brings little to the genre that is new. It is decent enough but lacks the spark to elevate it.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
