Entropy Effect
Game Title: Entropy Effect
Released: February 14, 2024
Game Length: 18 Hours
Grade: B
Characters
Background: Are you familiar at all with the BlazBlue franchise? What if you were to take the characters from that series and made a game that revolved all around building attack patterns? You don't need to know much of the story, the characters, or the background since an entirely different team pulled the existing elements of the intellectual property into a glorified test ground. You can play by yourself, with another character next to you, or online with another player. Not all characters are available from the start, but unlocking one of them is as easy as completing a full run or two of the game.
Menu: To access certain parts of the game, you run this little bot around the office. These include setting up the difficulty and character of a run, installing modifiers, accessing small Phenomena cutscenes from an unusual character, listening to a girl who talks about your situation, making cosmetic changes in your environment from completing achievements, and boss runs. For those who were around for Early Access, they were given free a purchasable avatar exchange room to change your little guy's appearance.
DLC: There are 10 characters to choose from the base game. Since the mobile version is free to play from the start, only 3 characters are available with every other character purchasable. 4 characters were made available to purchase individually for the game after launch. Two characters were introduced with their own hour-long story narrative for free as crossover events. Platinum the Trinity was added a mere couple months ago as a free update.
Setting: The game offers you a chance to push the limits of the difficulty system to even easier settings on normal or harder ones in the advanced mode. The differences between the two modes are the additional rooms that will offer covenants (or contracts) that permanently limit you a certain way in exchange for bonuses, trials that reward you with something after surviving a number of combat rooms with some restriction, and the black market that cuts your health down in exchange for perks. Elite monsters (bosses at the end of each region) will have advanced moves and one final Alpha Stage region becomes available at the end. There is also a third Extreme Mode with mutations that modify game mechanics for those looking for a challenge.
Potential
Basic Skills: Before you start a run, choosing a character comes with two basic abilities that fit their style of attack. The first is a flashy skill that generally cannot be used all the time like Es that summons a crest of spinning blades. The second is a passive perk like how Hibiki as an assassin gains bonus damage when attacking enemies from behind. To view these abilities, you must check the intel of a character before choosing them.
Mechanics: Each character can perform a certain set of moves that you slowly build upon. Most of these universal attacks include your standard strikes, heavy attacks, jump, and dash. Each time you upgrade a potential, your basic attack goes up 20% as indicated in the green at the top-right corner. There are two types of universal skills that requires something to use: MP that slowly regenerates overtime for special attacks or SP that requires something to be done (mentioned in the skill description) to regenerate for your ultimate attack. Every character starts with 100 MP at the beginning of a run.
Upgrades: Each potential can be increased for further abilities. For example, jumping can be increased to be used 3 times instead of 2 or able to add an attack while you are in the air. What choice becomes available first is random, but each known upgrade will be made available eventually whenever the option comes up. Every character is uniquely different when it comes to each upgrade. Some upgrades might make you invulnerable that prevents damage while you perform a move but enemies are still able to interrupt you. Others might make you invincible where nothing stops you from performing the attack. Some skills are required to break enemy shields. There are quite a few that will shorten or reset your usage limit that lets you chain multiple times in a row.
Tactics
Family: Before we dive right into the elements, we need to cover the different categories. You can only have one tactic per slot. These include attack, skill, dash, legacy, and summoner. Once you lock your tactic in, the option to switch your tactic to something else becomes difficult. This lets you know when your element activates. Attack and skill are rather simple where something might slow down with a cold element when you hit them. Dashing hits nearby enemies with something like lightning. Legacy refers to using the skills you obtain from saved evotypes from previous runs. Summon elements call forth something tangible that aids you in battle like a little slime pet that goes after enemies.
Fire: Fire deals extra damage slowly overtime. So, something like Flamewalker will leave a flame trail on the ground that hurts anyone that walks in it. Oddly enough, Fire Assist is in the attack category where tiny little fire spirits spawn and chase after enemies. Fire projectiles and ring of fire are a couple of legacy skills. The summon skill lays mines that explode after awhile.
Ice: Cold attacks can slow enemies down to the point of freezing in a block of ice entirely. Dashing or using your legacy shoots out icicles or hail that deal some damage. Summoning Ice spikes is perhaps the more noticeable skill since they automatically spawn and shoot out at nearby enemies. The last unusual tactic is the Mystic Ice Sword that strikes in sequence with your heavy attack for damage. You can upgrade the sword to repair quicker or grows bigger.
Electric: Lightning likes to mark targets and link chains with multiple enemies. Damage hops from one enemy to the next. Thunderbolt is the easiest to recognize. You can summon Lightning Orbs that spin around you at a certain rate, dealing damage to anything they touch. The legacy Electric Pillar is the most unusual ability that creates a stationary lightning rod that shocks nearby enemies.
Toxin: Poison can have all kinds of effects from slowly killing your enemies to spreading to others like the plague. The Virulent Bomb when dashing or Venom when using a legacy or skill similarly kills enemies slowly overtime. The two unique aspects of this element include the happy little slime balls that hop out when you use summon or the pufferfish when using a legacy skill that wraps enemies into a toxic bubble that floats them up into the air.
Umbra: This element is just a fancy way of saying dark. Attacking, using a skill, or dashing creates a sort of shadow copy on the field. If you create a copy of yourself without hitting an enemy, that shadow becomes a dangerous foe that hurts your enemies. If you create a copy of an enemy, they can turn into a spike that explodes or a mark that chains to other enemies. The legacy version creates a blackhole that pulls enemies toward it. Summoning creates a tentacle that attacks anything that comes near it.
Light: Perhaps the most versatile category, using a legacy skill creates a Flash that blinds enemies. They don't stop attacking, but bosses and minions alike now miss with their strikes. The attack Lightwave initiates burst damage when you hit enemies multiple times. Summoning a Radiance circle can increase your damage and blind enemies. Using your legacy launches spears at your foes.
Blade: Some players might not realize that the attack skill Rend only hurts enemies when they move across the field. Meanwhile, flying blades and daggers appear when you attack, dash, or use a legacy. Summoning a Bladestorm is perhaps the coolest ability with the potential to pull enemies in.
Summary
Review: For someone who enjoys constantly learning how to get the most out of their character and adjusting the difficulty, this game has that in spades. There are tons of combinations and intricacies that will appeal to those who like to master flashy move sets. For the rest of players, the game is easy enough to get through a run in about 30-minutes and gives you enough breath that pressing buttons wildly without knowing any of your skills can still lead you to victory. Perhaps the biggest problem is the lack of variety in their stages or presenting a very minimal narrative that keeps you playing. In any case, the game was fun as each character felt unique and interesting to explore.