Thanks to games like Axiom Verge, Hollow Knight, and Dead Cells, the Metroidvania genre found a renewed sense of life back in the late 2010s, and it seems like the genre is here to stay this time around, with Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown setting a new bar for the genre just a month ago. But somehow, Ultros - a debut title from Indie studio Hadoque - manages to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the genre's best.
A psychedelic, Sci-Fi 2D Metroidvania, Ultros has some incredibly stiff competition, but its gorgeous art style, beautiful music, and vibrant world manage to set it apart instantly. In Ultros, players take control of a mysterious figure who wakes up aboard a corrupted space station known as The Sarcophagus. The player has one simple goal: escape from The Sarcophagus, though how they do that is the central conceit behind Ultros and its meta-narrative that ruminates on life, death, and purpose.
At first, Ultros' plot can be a bit difficult to get into. With no real in-game story setup, Ultros throws players in at the deep end, and though the player meets several characters quite quickly, the amount of Sci-Fi technobabble that's spewed in their direction can be very overwhelming, especially for non-Sci-Fi fans. That being said, after an hour or two, the vagueness of Ultros' narrative becomes one of the game's biggest highlights.
Ultros' Core Mysteries Become a Driving Force
Practically everything in Ultros starts as a mystery. From some more obtuse gameplay mechanics, such as the game's surprisingly in-depth gardening system, to the game's overarching narrative, Ultros is filled with mysteries. And while this can be risky for a genre already as mechanically complex as Metroidvania, the pace at which Ultros unravels its mechanical and narrative mysteries feels near-perfect, with each little tidbit of lore and hidden combat tutorial fueling a constant sense of progression that works in tandem with one of the game's biggest twists, its loop system.
Another large facet of Ultros that can be extremely off-putting at first, but quickly turns into a major net positive, is the game's loop system. Not content with being just a Metroidvania, Ultros also borrows a few rogue-lite elements, with its loop system being the main one. The general objective of Ultros - without spoiling too much - is to find a number of Shamans strewn across the map, and free them from their sarcophagi. Doing this will push the narrative forward, but begin a new cycle for the game, putting the player right back at the start.
The first time this happens, players might feel as though the rug has been violently pulled from underneath them. At the start of a new loop, the player loses all of their upgrades and all of their consumables, and they're thrown right back to the start of the map. For those unaware of this loop system, this can feel pretty unpleasant, as though the last hour or so of gameplay didn't accomplish much.
But much like Ultros' narrative, this loop system becomes another major highlight of Ultros the more players delve into it, and it soon becomes one of its defining features. While having a loop system in a Metroidvania is nothing too novel, it's how Ultros handles it that makes it so impressive. Though it can be disappointing to lose every upgrade each loop, Ultros quickly introduces a rare resource that lets players permanently keep an upgrade, which adds a nice layer of strategy to the gameplay, as the vast majority of Ultros' character upgrades genuinely matter, from map markings to new combo strains to important stat upgrades.
Returning to the very start of the game after each loop also becomes far less frustrating as the game goes on, with players retaining access to their marked-out map through each cycle. And thanks to the intuitive level design, by the time players hit their third or fourth loop, they'll already have a pretty good idea of where they are and how to get where they need to be. Ultros' loop system is far from just a cheap gimmick, and the developer has gone a long way to ensure that there are enough new gameplay mechanics and evolving story beats to keep players coming back for just one more cycle.
Ultros' Environmental Design Plays to Its Biggest Strengths
Another key strength of Ultros - and one of the biggest reasons why its loop mechanic remains so engaging - is the game's environmental design, both in terms of gameplay and presentation. Gameplay-wise, each area in Ultros offers a very distinctive challenge, which is often tied to the new ability that players have unlocked at the end of the prior loop.
These abilities are a tad more unique than the usual Metroidvania affair, ranging from abilities that let the player slice through plants obstructing a pathway to the ability to fly across portions of the map, as opposed to just a heavy attack that smashes a breakable wall. However, it should be noted that while these abilities remain unique throughout Ultros' 10-hour runtime, they lose their novelty and momentum towards the end, with the last few abilities feeling redundant at best, and actively damaging to the game's pacing at worst, slowing the game's platforming down to a crawl.
The visuals on display in Ultros will immediately grab players' attention, and it's what Hadoque has been rightfully putting front and center of the game's marketing. Thanks to the game's Art and Creative Director, Niklas “El Huervo” Åkerblad, along with a talented team of artists, Ultros' visuals probably remain the game's most impressive quality, with an incredibly vibrant, psychedelic art style running through the entire game, and some excellent environmental design giving each area a distinctive feeling via specific color palettes and scenery details.
Presentation-wise, Ultros is simply outstanding.
But the visuals are far from the only impressive piece of presentation on display in Ultros. Primarily composed and performed by Oscar “Ratvader” Rydelius, Ultros' sound and music design go hand-in-hand with the visuals to ensure that each and every area in Ultros feels truly unique, and that every key moment evokes the appropriate emotional response. In the game's more peaceful, platform-heavy areas, Ultros' music is quiet and contemplative, during chase sequences and boss fights, Ultros' music is suitably loud and bombastic, and when players come face-to-face with eldritch horrors, the music is shrill and eerie.
Ultros' animations are also incredibly impressive. Going for a more grounded approach, Ultros' player-character animations are, ironically, actually quite similar to those found in the original Prince of Persia game, with the main character having very deliberate, yet fluid animations for jumping, climbing, and sliding. While the player-character's animations get a little less grounded and responsive during combat, they fit the game's faster pace quite well.
Ultros' Combat Can Feel Awkward and Unresponsive
On the subject of combat, that's where Ultros unfortunately loses its winning streak. At the start of Ultros, players are given a sword and just a two-string melee combo. Though players will only be fighting passive enemies during this first sequence, it isn't a great introduction to Ultros' combat, with the player being extremely limited in what they can do. It also doesn't help that Ultros' combat tutorial comes an hour or two into the game, by which time players will have probably figured out most of the game's general combat mechanics through trial and error, which isn't necessarily the most enjoyable experience, especially for genre newcomers.
Even when players progress through Ultros and unlock some impressive abilities, the game's combat can often feel a bit too unresponsive. For instance, a lot of enemies and bosses in Ultros require the player to time their dodge precisely, and use that window of opportunity to strike back. But the issue here is that the dodge mechanic itself doesn't feel overly responsive, and will often place the player-character too far away from the enemy for them to strike back in time.
This issue is felt ten-fold during enemy encounters that require the player to jump over the enemy at specific moments. While Ultros' jumping controls work well during its platforming segments, they can be a tad frustrating in the heat of battle. When Ultros' combat works, it can feel gritty, stylish, and powerful, but when it doesn't - which is unfortunately often - it can feel awkward and clunky.
On the whole, Ultros is another surprisingly great 2024 Metroidvania, and an incredibly impressive first outing for developer Hadoque. While its combat may leave a little to be desired, and some of its major gameplay decisions might be a tad off-putting initially, Ultros is a gorgeous game that should keep players well and truly engaged for its entire runtime.
Ultros
- Released
- February 13, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
You wake up stranded, after seemingly crashing your ship on The Sarcophagus — a giant, space-drifting, cosmic uterus holding an ancient demonic being known as ULTROS. Trapped in the eternal loop of a black hole, you will have to explore The Sarcophagus and meet its inhabitants to understand the part you play.
Are you the gruesome breaker of this cycle, or can you become a link from destruction to rebirth?
ULTROS is set in a multifaceted realm - a vast alien landscape teeming with life. Grounded in science fiction, ULTROS comes wrapped in an eccentric art style and a mystical soundtrack from the visionary El Huervo, renowned for his work on Hotline Miami. ULTROS explores meta-themes of mental health, life, death, and karmic cycles through deep lore and environmental storytelling.
Experience brutal, intimate, close-quarter combat with cosmic lifeforms, driven by a sense of urgency – where precision is paramount and every cut of your blade counts. Yet this intense combat is juxtaposed with cultivating the greenery and tending to plant life in The Sarcophagus, providing precious moments of contemplation and peace. In turn, this grants deeper access to obscured paths.
- Genre(s)
- Metroidvania, Platformer
- Incredibly unique and vibrant art style
- Some bold narrative and gameplay decisions
- Intuitive Metroidvania level design
- Music that enhances every key moment
- An often unresponsive and unsatisfying combat system
- Some disappointing late-game abilities
Ultros releases February 13, 2024 for PC, PS4, and PS5. The Best War Games was provided a PS5 code for this review.