VERSUS: The Elite Trials
- December 16, 2016
- Choice of Games
- 4h median play time
Get on Steam
Get on Apple StoreIn "VERSUS: The Elite Trials," players engage in a series of challenging trials, competing against other elite warriors in fast-paced combat. Each trial offers unique objectives and enemies, testing players' combat skills, tactical abilities, and adaptability. With a variety of playable characters, upgradeable skills, and intuitive controls, "VERSUS: The Elite Trials" delivers a thrilling and immersive action experience.
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Reviews
- The story is well-written and engaging, with interesting characters and a rich world that expands on the previous installment.
- The game offers a variety of choices that can significantly impact the narrative, enhancing replayability and depth.
- The political themes and moral dilemmas presented in the game encourage players to reflect on their beliefs and choices.
- The stat and chart system is overly complicated and poorly explained, leading to confusion and frustration during gameplay.
- Romance options are limited and poorly executed, often forcing players into choices without adequate character development.
- The game can feel preachy and overly focused on political commentary, detracting from the overall narrative experience.
- story98 mentions
- 16 % positive mentions
- 81 % neutral mentions
- 3 % negative mentions
The story of "Versus" is described as rich and engaging, with well-developed characters and intriguing mysteries that enhance the overall experience. However, many reviewers criticize the gameplay decisions that detract from the narrative, as well as the excessive political commentary that interrupts the flow of the story. While some find the sequel a worthy continuation of the series, others feel it lacks the emotional depth and coherence of its predecessor, leaving them wanting more from the plot and character development.
“The second book in the Versus collection, this story is rich, engaging, and beautiful.”
“Even as a short story on its own, the Versus tale would be worth the read, but watching as your choices shape the world in your mind's eye makes it something that each person should experience several times over.”
“That being said, Versus: The Elite Trails is an amazing story, still one of the best from the Choice of Games platform, and it explores the universe imagined by Zachary Sergi quite well, deepening its lore and creating new relationships with new characters.”
“The game was too short with the story being non-existent, unfortunately, when compared to the first game's excellent setup. The 'trials' included a fetch quest filled with exposition with other aliens, an interesting but boring party game, and finally using the stats you built to have an outcome of picking only two sides, which is obvious the vs front, as there was no backstory or emotional connection with the elite group.”
“Breaking the main story to introduce politics many times over actually detracts from the experience.”
“However, the story comes to an absolute stop the moment it decides political commentary is an absolute must, and it happens so often that it very easily shoves me out of the story and makes me roll my eyes and groan loudly.”
- emotional12 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The emotional aspect of the game has been criticized for its lack of depth and connection, with many players feeling that the story is underdeveloped and characters lack meaningful development or emotional bonding opportunities. While the game attempts to introduce complex societal concepts that could provoke emotional responses, the execution often feels forced and disconnected from the main narrative, leaving players feeling unengaged. Overall, the emotional impact is diminished by a short story and a failure to create compelling character relationships.
“Secondly, this game - as in others written by Zachary - tries and introduces his imagination of societal concepts to the reader, and these new concepts are often well introduced, being part of the game's world and provoking emotional responses within the player through events.”
“In this game, the author attempts to do the same with even more concepts on a much grander scale, and the experience may cause the player to feel disconnected by how abstract the descriptions are, how unconnected to the main story they seem, and especially, by how the emotional responses are provoked (more like forced) into the player's character, instead of the human reading the story.”
“You are basically a human space alien that is able to temporarily copy other people's abilities and dive into their memories by touching them.”
- gameplay6 mentions
- 17 % positive mentions
- 50 % neutral mentions
- 33 % negative mentions
The gameplay in Versus is criticized for being frustrating and irritating, detracting from an otherwise strong narrative. While the game's development shows improvement in complexity, the combat is described as short, predefined, and lacking depth.
“The continuation develops on itself quite neatly, and the author's gain in experience is shown in the game's more intricate nature - gameplay and story-wise.”
“Versus is a good story that is ruined by irritating and frustrating gameplay decisions.”
“Combat, while we are still on the matter of gameplay, is short, predefined, and generally speaking, weak.”
- character development4 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- -25 % neutral mentions
- 75 % negative mentions
Character development in the game is largely criticized, with many players finding the introduced characters uninteresting and lacking depth. While some moments focus on specific characters, overall development is minimal, leaving players wanting more emotional connection and potential for romance.
“There's not much character development; certain parts pay special attention to specific characters, but it left a lot to be desired.”
“The character development is lacking; while some characters receive focus, it ultimately feels underwhelming.”
“I found the character development to be minimal; despite a few moments of attention, it didn't meet my expectations.”
- replayability4 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- 25 % neutral mentions
- 25 % negative mentions
The game offers high replayability due to its numerous secrets and expanded mastery and growth concepts, encouraging players to explore different stat variants and goals. However, this complexity can limit freedom of choice, as success often requires adhering to specific roles or paths aligned with personality types.
“The replayability value is quite high - the game teases many secrets, and I know I’ll be playing it again in the future to try and uncover them.”
“Taking further steps in the mastery and growth concepts utilized in the first book, you now have more stat variants and more goals to focus on, which, while they give you plenty of replayability, also complicate your freedom of choice. If you want to actually succeed and thrive in the game's world and score systems, you need to follow a role, an idea, a specific path that the author believes most closely matches a personality type.”
“Taking further steps in the mastery and growth concepts utilized in the first book, you now have more stat variants and more goals to focus on, which, while they give you plenty of replayability, they also complicate your freedom of choice. If you want to actually succeed and thrive in the game's world and score systems, you need to follow a role, an idea, a specific path that the author believes most closely matches a personality type.”
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