The multiplayer top-down action game that lets you play as a superhero has been in early access for a few weeks now and it offers a mix of good and bad quality. Stitch Heads Entertainment and Raw Fury made the right call to have an early build go live for Superfuse because this game has a lot of the right elements, but is a bit rough on the delivery.

Gameplay

Starting out, you pick your superhero from only a handful of build types and go through a quick training. If you are loading up with a friend, you are likely not to see them until you reach the town portion of the game. Run through the first little zone and reach the town that has the initial waypoint to activate and your first round of characters with shops and quests.

Your first mission will send you out to gather a certain amount of dropped items from enemies and bring them back to town. This wasn’t a great first mission choice to go with as it immediately showed an issue while playing online. My colleague and I had our lobby open and someone joined us, but then collected more of the corrupted items than they needed, leaving not enough for us to finish the quest on our end. Worse yet, we tried revisiting the location in hopes that enemies respawned and found it still deserted. So, right off at mission number 1, we had to restart the server just to do it again - this time locked.

As we leveled up, the ability points gained were usable in a skill tree that unlocked moves. You could also use the points to power up your character with the different options in the tree. However, these are permanently placed, so think before you select. At first, I didn’t notice that the different types of skills for my elementalist were hidden behind a tab and I put my first couple of points into the wrong element as I was going for an ice build.

Once you have abilities, you can place them in your quick-use slots. From then you can use those new powers quickly to take down foes with your much more powerful attacks. Next, you’ll need to keep on the lookout for fuses as you can attach them to your active abilities to make them even better. There are some fuses that power up the ability but have a rather annoying affect, but stronger is stronger. You can also stack fuses, so building a custom powerhouse attack is completely viable with the right fuse combination.

As far as standard actions go, you move around by clicking where you want to be on the mouse. Holding down the left mouse click button will make the movement continue smoothly. For ranged attacks, you need to be highlighting or simply facing in the direction of the enemy you want to hit. Melee attacks require you to be up close and should be reserved for the heavy hitters.

Along with fuses, you are able to find plenty of equipment and potions on your journey. You can utilize four different types of potions, but there are more than that. Simply swap out the container on your belt and find refills for that particular container. Equipment can be swapped out on your person, as well as sold and bought at the shops, Even if you don’t do melee attacks much, there are weapons worth holding on to for the stat boost.

Expectations

They need to work on their collaboration with other players. Putting things like a cap on how many key items for a quest you can collect would be an easy way to stop people from trolling or unobservantly over- collecting items that all players need. Personally, I think it is better just having quests ask players to clear a certain amount of a specific enemy. Although, I didn’t experience any issues with the quests that followed this one - so far.

I like that there are different shops for different things, but the first city didn’t have a shop with fuses in it. If it did, it was too easy to overlook because I am certain I talked to each NPC there. Seeing how fuses play a big role in this game, they should be available in every city area with shops. Plus, it would help introduce the player to using fuses on their characters properly and have a whole NPC ready to explain what they are, how they work, and what to do with them.

There are definitely going to be more superhero types to select from. The options available now feel very slim and even the ones that are available seem like they have room for improvement. There are so many possibilities to lean into with this genre of game and general content, so hopefully, they are planning on getting a full roster of options set up.

Verdict

Superfuse is off to a complicated, but fun beginning for a top-down action game! I really like the potential the game has and being a huge Diablo series fan, it is an easy game to enjoy. There are a few kinks to work out, improvements to be made, and general overhauls to increase the player’s experience still, but nothing that an early access game of this genre and caliber wouldn’t have to work on. I can’t wait for their next update and seeing what they do to improve the game!

Superfuse is available now on PC via Steam Early Access.