Xbox Review Code Provided by Massive Work Studio.
I had nothing but high hopes going into Prime Media and Massive Work Studio’s latest title, Dolmen. This was a game that was set up to win. Touted as a Soulslike with aspects reminiscent of the Dead Space franchise, it had a lot of potential. Melding intense combat with horror? Sign me up!
Having spent a lot of time with the game though, it fails to fully live up to either game that it pulls inspiration from. While I really liked a lot of the ideas that the game offers, its inner workings and the overall feel aren’t anything more than a cheap knockoff of either IP.
Story
As with most Soulslike titles, this game is very light on its actual story, especially in cinematics or dialogue. The game really failed to propel me forward as a player. I wasn’t sure what the point of certain things was most of the time and just kept moving forward solely out of instinct alone.
Basically, you create a custom character who is thrust onto the world of Revion Prime to bring back samples of the Dolmen crystal. However, upon landing on Revion Prime, you find that things aren’t as they seem and that this world is as hostile as they come.
Gameplay
At face value, Dolmen offers players quite a bit in terms of gameplay. Of course, there are the traditional trappings of a Soulslike such as its take on combat which is heavy on knowledge of enemy patterns, dodging, and parrying. On top of that, you have things like terminals that are similar to bonfires from the Souls games. They act as a checkpoint of sorts and can get players back to top performance when talking about health, stamina, and energy.
While that type of stuff is kind of expected with a game such as this, the thing I was most excited about was its gunplay. The game does a fair job of offering a few different melee weapons but its guns are where it actually makes combat feel a bit more like a Dead Space title. I really liked how it worked overall, though there are some heavy caveats with combat, which I’ll get into later.
Another aspect that makes this game unique when compared to others is that it offers some crafting. As you trudge through the game you will collect crafting materials that you can bring back to your ship and use to create a variety of different items. There are armors for different parts of your body, each made from different technologies. Each offers different effects like resistance to certain elements and so on.
You can also craft a variety of weapons that can exude these elemental effects. It’s a pretty great crafting system that isn’t too confusing though goes deep enough to warrant its existence. Each item can even be upgraded further with more materials, depending on what it is. There’s also some light customization in terms of your character’s armor color which is a nice touch as it doesn’t cost anything to just change stuff up.
Audio and Visual
This title can be hit or miss in both areas here. There are some really great enemy sounds but most things you hear are just ok. The same can be said about visuals. It’s nothing great and I found it a bit surprising that my Xbox Series S had to choose between performance mode or quality mode and not a combination. It really isn’t a looker.
In performance mode, the game runs alright though with obvious optimization issues. The quality mode on the other hand feels near unplayable. It doesn’t look all that much better and runs horribly to boot. You’ll want to take motion sickness medication if playing it that way.
Replayability
As with any game in this sub-genre, there’s replayability if you look for it. You can upgrade your character immensely through skills or craftable items and there are many enemies to kill and locations to explore. Though, I don’t really feel like most people would really play this more than once due to some of the issues I’m about to explain.
What It Could Have Done Better
While I really liked the ideas that Dolmen introduces here, there are a lot of misses in the final product. The game’s main element, combat, is shaky at best. Targeting enemies with ranged weapons is god-awful and will get you into more trouble than if you just ignored its existence altogether. That’s not to say that melee combat is great either, because it isn’t.
Locking onto enemies is a joke as it often will disconnect that lock on you have, resulting in you taking damage or even a fatal blow. It also doesn’t help that combat feels unresponsive and shallow too. There’s no satisfying feel to it most of the time and it actually seems as if the game can’t keep up most times.
Switching between a ranged attack and a melee attack quickly is a no-go as the game just recognizes the attack as whatever your last one was. What I mean is; say I hit an enemy with a heavy melee attack and then wanted to blow them away with a ranged one. My first attack and the second attack would both just register as melee.
It’s a huge problem considering the type of game that this is. Combat should first and foremost be the most fully realized and fluent part of the gameplay with any title in this Souslike category. I really cannot believe that the devs thought that it was ready considering it feels like an alpha at best.
As I mentioned, the game also runs like crap too with frame rate drops and a jaggedness to the camera that too makes it feel unfinished. These aspects here don’t make traversing the boring dungeons on Revion Prime any more fun because of it.
Verdict
Dolmen unfortunately fails to live up to any of the Soulslike games I’ve ever played. Even though it honestly had my attention at times because of its crafting system, it’s a sorely unoptimized title that was not player-ready. Had the dev team been given a few more months to polish things, this could’ve been a different story, even with its sleepy environments. Though it has some glimmers of intrigue, this title is not worth its full $39.99 price tag. It’s clear that this title needs massive work.
