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.
Reviews
- The story is well-written, engaging, and features interesting characters and political dynamics.
- The game offers a rich world with extensive lore and character backgrounds, enhancing the overall experience.
- There is a high replayability factor due to the numerous choices and potential outcomes available.
- The stat and chart system is overly complicated and poorly explained, leading to confusion during gameplay.
- The romance options are underdeveloped and often feel forced, limiting player choice and emotional connection.
- The game frequently interrupts the narrative with political commentary, which can detract from the overall story experience.
- story49 mentions
- 16 % positive mentions
- 82 % neutral mentions
- 2 % negative mentions
The story of "Versus" is described as engaging and rich, with well-developed characters and intriguing mysteries that draw players in, though opinions vary significantly on its execution. While some praise its depth and emotional connections, others criticize it for being too short, lacking coherence, and overly focused on political commentary that detracts from the narrative. Overall, the story has potential but is marred by gameplay frustrations and uneven pacing, leaving players divided on its effectiveness.
“The characters of the Versus series are well diverse, and the story around the characters with connected backgrounds adds to the conflict, giving it an intense feel around the already intense world.”
“The second book in the Versus collection, this story is rich, engaging, and beautiful.”
“As to the story itself, without bringing any margin for spoilers to the table, it expands on the Versus universe, ties some loose ends, creates more loose ends, the main story unfurls wonderfully and continuously, and leaves you wanting more.”
“The game was too short, with the story being non-existent 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 versus front, as there was no backstory or emotional connection with the elite group.”
“Story does not progress; there were a lot of characters but no good ones. Romance was horrible, and the setting was limited.”
“However, the story comes to an absolute stop the moment it decides political commentary is an absolute must. It happens so often that it very easily shoves me out of the story, making me roll my eyes and groan loudly.”
- emotional6 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The emotional aspect of the game has received mixed reviews, with many players feeling a lack of depth and connection to the characters and story compared to its predecessor. While some appreciate the introduction of societal concepts that aim to provoke emotional responses, others find these elements abstract and disconnected from the main narrative, leading to a forced emotional experience rather than an organic one. Overall, the game struggles to create meaningful emotional bonds, leaving players feeling disengaged.
“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.”
- gameplay3 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 67 % neutral mentions
- 33 % negative mentions
The gameplay in Versus is criticized for being frustrating and irritating, detracting from an otherwise good story. 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—both in gameplay and story.”
“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 development2 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 50 % negative mentions
Character development in the game is largely criticized, with many players finding the characters uninteresting and lacking depth. While some moments focus on specific characters, overall development and emotional connections are minimal, leaving players wanting more.
“On a further note, there's not much character development either; there are certain parts that pay special attention to certain characters, but it left a lot to be desired.”
“The character arcs feel rushed and underdeveloped, making it hard to connect with anyone in the story.”
“I was disappointed by the lack of meaningful growth for the characters; they seem to remain static throughout the game.”
- replayability2 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 100 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The game offers high replayability due to its numerous secrets and expanded mastery and growth concepts, encouraging players to revisit it for deeper exploration. However, the need to adhere to specific roles and paths for success may limit players' freedom of choice, potentially complicating the experience.
“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.”
“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.”
