14 DAY TRIAL // Developed by Dutch studio Stich Heads Entertainment, Superfuse introduces players to a futuristic world in which some of the richest humans attained godhood status by gaining immortality. Humanity’s new gods spearheaded humanity’s colonization of other planets. However, the rest of the people have become slaves of a society ruled by megacorporations, which led to massive rebellions throughout the galaxies.
This is when the Corruption appears, a strange plague that infects humans and turns them into undead. No one knows where it comes from or if it’s controlled by someone, and the game isn’t clear about that either. We do know that the god have created the Enforcers to fight the Corruption and save the humanity from total annihilation.
Enhanced humans packed with cyberware, the Enforcers eventually manage to stop the Corruption from spreading, so they are now becoming the gods’ bodyguards. In Superfuse, you play as one of the many Enforcers send on various planets to fight the Corruption and save local colonies.
There are three classes available in the game at the moment, each corresponding to a different playstyle: Elementalist, Berserker, and Technomancer. At its core, Superfuse is a hack-and-slash action RPG, which plays very similar to Path of Exile, or at least it wants to.
In fact, the game borrows almost all the combat mechanics from Path of Exile, sans the polish required to work well together. The twist added by developers is the fuse mechanic, which allows players to alter their character’s abilities by fusing them with items they find throughout the game’s levels.
This specific mechanic appears in Path of Exile in the form of gems, which can be slotted in your gear to alter the powers your character uses. In Superfuse, you have a limited number of slots that can be used to fuse your powers, but they’re enough to offer plenty of choices.
Just like in Path of Exile, you can create shortcuts for your abilities and even remap the movement key to instead attack. It’s one of the best features in Path of Exile, and it’s equally great in Superfuse as well since it makes clearing maps a less frustrating experience.
When it comes to combat, I was a bit disappointed that it’s slower than what you’d expect from a traditional action RPG. Superfuse highly encourages ranged playstyles over a much closer approach, and I’m not necessarily talking about the Berserk class, which obviously focuses on melee.
There aren’t too many abilities that each character can unlock, but this is offset by the number of fuses you can create to change them and give them new effects. The problem is the abilities that require your character to be in melee range are so underwhelming. Not to mention that many of the spells are cast very slow for a game that requires the players to be very fast.
Moving on to the main reason you’ll want to play Superfuse, the gear, I have to say that this is one of the main issues. I did not find a single item that would look good or unique. Every piece of loot seems boring and uninspired, most of the weapons and armor looking the same just having the stats and the color changed.
To make things worse, a very high percentage of the loot dropped by enemies is not for the class you play. There’s also not a lot of enemy variety in the game, but that’s probably understandable considering this is an Early Access title.
As far as the quests go, let’s just say that you won’t be playing Superfuse for the story. Although the premise is very interesting, this early version of the game doesn’t elaborate on what’s happening and doesn’t explain anything other than what you’ll get in the short video that plays when you start a new character. It feels like a missed opportunity because the setting is pretty interesting.
Just to be clear, Superfuse is a work in progress, so it’s bound to have issues and missing features. One thing that can’t be changed throughout the development is what the game looks. For what is worth, Superfuse adopts a very stylish comic book art style, which is certainly its most precious advantage over similar games. The downside is that in an action RPG gameplay is always “king,” so visuals might not have the same impact on players as developers might want.
Conclusion
It feels like the fuse system is the core of the game, but it doesn’t have too much of an impact on gameplay because it’s not supported by the rest of the mechanics. Also, the skill tree doesn’t seem to be finished, but that’s probably going to be fully added in future updates.
That being said, Superfuse can be a lot of fun if many of the issues will be addressed in future updates. The game has interesting mechanics, very nice art style, and a cool story to tell. Sadly, it falls flat when it comes to combat, the most important aspect for an action RPG.
Even so, I’d still recommend fans of the genre to wishlist Superfuse on Steam and check how the development goes. Also, don’t forget that a demo will be available during Steam Next Fest between February 6-13, so give this a try if you dig the comic book style and games like Path of Exile.
Demo key provided by the publisher.
