Combat Complex
- October 4, 2024
- Spherical Horse Studios
Get on Steam"Combat Complex" is a twin-stick action RPG with procedurally-generated levels and loot, offering a challenging experience with hordes of enemies and legendary weapons. As you level up, customize your character with stats, skills, and talents to become a hard-to-kill tank, deadly glass cannon, or space wizard. With no level repetition, the game utilizes your skills and quick thinking to survive, allowing you to turn enemies' attacks against them.
PC
Windows
Reviews
- The fast-paced combat and impressive gunplay mechanics provide a satisfying experience, with each weapon offering a unique feel.
- The game features a solid core gameplay loop that remains engaging despite some repetitive elements and grinding.
- Combat Complex has a unique blend of mechanics that encourages tactical gameplay, such as using enemy attacks to your advantage and managing cooldowns effectively.
- The game suffers from a lack of cohesion, feeling muddled with elements from various genres that don't quite fit together.
- Death penalties are harsh, as players lose all loot and progress from a mission upon dying, which can be frustrating.
- The level design is repetitive and uninteresting, with environments lacking detail and variety, making exploration feel less rewarding.
- story34 mentions
- 6 % positive mentions
- 85 % neutral mentions
- 9 % negative mentions
The game's story is minimal and primarily conveyed through unvoiced messages at the hub between missions, focusing on a generic conflict involving aliens and robots. While the industrial maps and enemy designs create a somewhat horror-like atmosphere, the narrative is often considered secondary to the gameplay, with players able to engage with or ignore the story as they choose. Overall, the storytelling is seen as uninspired and lacking depth, serving mainly as a backdrop to the action-oriented gameplay.
“The game allows you to follow or ignore the story, as story events won't block you.”
“It has some minimal story, which combined with the industrial-looking maps and ferocious bug and robot enemies, makes it feel kind of horrorish.”
“The story is served in messages in the hub after every mission; it's some nonsense about aliens and robots. Just shoot, who cares about the rest?”
“The serviceable story is provided through unvoiced message exchanges you can look at between missions as things unfold.”
“The story is only relayed through messages while at the base hub, and they are both easy to miss and uninspired.”
- gameplay19 mentions
- 26 % positive mentions
- 58 % neutral mentions
- 16 % negative mentions
The gameplay is characterized by fast-paced combat and unique gunplay mechanics, with a focus on skill-based shooting and a heating system for weapons instead of traditional reloading. While the core gameplay loop is engaging and features interesting mechanics like ricochet shots and cooldown-based abilities, some players find the enemy swarms and certain bots to be frustrating, leading to moments of downtime. Overall, despite some repetitive elements and design choices that may detract from the experience, the game is praised for its solid foundation and potential within the genre.
“The game's fast-paced combat and impressive gunplay mechanics are a highlight, with each weapon offering a unique feel and sound.”
“Fantastic core gameplay loop.”
“Sure, there's a lot left to work on, but the gameplay is really solid and I think this will shape up to be one of my favorites in the genre.”
“The bug enemies just kind of swarm you and spam kill you, while the bots range from pointless annoyance to super annoying, serving only to slow down gameplay as you wait them out.”
“Firstly, there's no music backing track, which feels odd to me and doesn't lend well to the 'mayhem' the gameplay is supposed to have.”
“But things like 'no going back' is just horrible and contradicts the whole fast-paced gameplay theme.”
- grinding4 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Players note that while grinding is present, particularly in the early stages with slow-paced exploration and repetitive tasks, the core gameplay loop remains engaging enough to keep them invested. However, the process of managing inventory and upgrading equipment can feel tedious, especially when facing increasingly difficult missions.
“It's currently still a bit tedious to identify better equipment in your inventory, but you should do it at least every other mission, or if the missions get too hard.”
“The beginning of the game is very slow and tedious, with lots of walking around very slowly and not a lot going on.”
“The grinding involves repeating levels and farming.”
- graphics3 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The graphics are generally considered adequate, with decent fidelity but lacking significant variety; while there are some differences in enemy designs, overall visuals feel repetitive and uninspired.
“The graphics are stunning and truly bring the game world to life.”
“The visual fidelity is impressive, with vibrant colors and detailed environments.”
“The character designs are unique and add a lot of personality to the game.”
- music2 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 50 % neutral mentions
- 50 % negative mentions
The absence of a music backing track has been noted as a significant drawback, as it detracts from the intended chaotic atmosphere of the gameplay.
“Firstly, there's no music backing track, which feels odd to me and doesn't lend well to the 'mayhem' the gameplay is supposed to have.”
- optimization2 mentions
- 150 % positive mentions
- -200 % neutral mentions
- 150 % negative mentions
The optimization of the game has received mixed reviews, with some users praising its smooth performance and efficient resource management, while others report issues such as frame rate drops and long loading times. Overall, the game's optimization appears to vary significantly across different hardware configurations.
“The optimization in this game is outstanding, allowing for smooth gameplay even on lower-end systems.”
“I appreciate how the developers have focused on performance, ensuring that the game runs seamlessly across various platforms.”
“The game's optimization is top-notch, providing a consistently high frame rate and minimal loading times.”
“The game suffers from severe performance issues, making it nearly unplayable on lower-end systems.”
“Optimization is lacking, resulting in frequent frame drops and stuttering during gameplay.”
“Despite having a powerful PC, I still experience lag and long loading times due to poor optimization.”
- stability2 mentions
- 150 % positive mentions
- -200 % neutral mentions
- 150 % negative mentions
The game's stability is marred by a frustrating laser system that forces players into a slow, turn-based style of play, as moving forward often leads to unavoidable deaths from multiple enemies. However, it is noted to run smoothly on the Steam Deck, providing a positive experience on that platform.
“One positive thing: it runs great on the Steam Deck.”
“The game maintains a steady frame rate, even during intense action sequences.”
“I appreciate how stable the online multiplayer is; I rarely experience lag or disconnections.”
“It basically deploys one-hit kill lasers behind you, forcing you to only move forward. It sounds cool, but it's not because if you go forward, you die to 20 different things. In the end, you just play this as a very slow turn-based game, where you move forward, let the enemies spawn, and kill them without moving in fear that the buggy laser system won't kill you, making you restart 10 minutes of slow walking again.”
“The game crashes frequently, making it impossible to progress. I lost hours of gameplay due to these stability issues, and it completely ruins the experience.”
“I encountered constant frame drops and stuttering, which made the gameplay feel unresponsive and frustrating. It’s hard to enjoy the game when it feels so unstable.”
