14 DAY TRIAL // When I saw the gameplay trailer for Killsquad, I had to admit I had flashbacks from my old Diablo days, and I thought to myself that I had to get my greedy little hands on it ASAP. I love ARPGs with a burning passion and I have to admit I will give pretty much any title a shot.
Path of Exile meets Warframe
I rarely get to play Sci-Fi themed games that are well made, so that was pretty much the only thing that may have given me second thoughts about trying this title. However, I have to admit that everything felt just right and I was pleased by the end result. The premise is pretty simple; you get to choose from a roster of 4 heroes, and you have to complete various missions, a.k.a "Contracts" in order to gain credits and level up.
It’s too dangerous to go alone
I did a speed run through various mission types with each hero just so I could gauge how they all fared, and I reached one very important conclusion; this game isn’t made to be played alone. The characters are designed in such a way that they belong to the common archetypes you would see in MMOs (the ranger, mage, tank etc), and while some may be better at soloing, they all eventually fall short at one point or another during missions. If that isn’t enough of an incentive, the bosses you’ll find are a real pain to deal with, so having some friends to act as backup firepower is great if you don’t want to grow old in front of your PC.
Hack and slash like there's no tomorrow
I like the fact that each time you try out a new mission, you start over from scratch, and your character is level 0, so the game’s difficulty curve stays the same without the need to inflate numbers over time as you level up. The skill system is pretty sweet and if you’re quick on your fingers and figure out how some of them work with each other, it feels easy to play like a pro. More so, the character leveling system provides you with talents that improve your active skills in one way or another, with each talent being situational and equally viable.
Memorable bosses
They didn’t put much of a budget in the boss design department as far as visuals go since many of the bosses are just reskins or regular units, only bigger and maybe in a different color tone. However, If i’m to say anything about their mechanics, that’s a whole different story. I’ve never experience such elaborate boss fights in a long time, and some of the bosses have such complex attack patterns and they chain them up together in such a way that you’ll feel like playing a top-down version of Darksouls. These bosses get even more deadlier if they are the targets of the missions themselves (assassination contracts). More so, they have so much HP that they will have plenty of time to display their full arsenal many times over before being killed (that is....IF you can kill them).
There are contracts to be fulfilled
As mentioned before, games are based around randomly generated missions that can involve one of many things, such as assassinating a key target or defending a key-point, This means that there is no overarching story, but then again this also means that you can pretty much do whatever best suits you. One thing worth mentioning is that your performance during missions is monitored, and the better you do, the more credits you get at the end. Credits are a form of in-game currency which you can use in the shop to buy a variety of things, including character customization items. I actually loved this since it meant I didn’t have to invest any actual money into the game to make my toons look any different.
Death comes to all
One thing you might want to know is that death is permanent during missions, and you will be exited immediately once that happens. You won’t lose your character, but you’ll lose all progress from that mission without any form of compensation, so try to think ahead instead of going all berserk mode in a room full of enemies. One final friendly tip: if the urge to kill things is really that big that you can’t help being reckless at times, at least choose one of the two ranged characters, you’ll die a whole lot less.
