Xenocrystalloid: The Eradications Demo

After Skyrim and The Witcher practically took over the RPG genre in terms of gameplay and story, it’s pretty difficult for new concepts to penetrate the market. Both of the aforementioned games have huge budgets and large development teams working on them, which makes it that much more difficult for indie productions to make a name for themselves and capture the public’s interest.

Xenocrystalloid: The Eradications is a role-playing game with an emphasis on combat and teamwork, which actually behaves a lot like an MMO in some regards. In short, you have to form parties with other players and complete a variety of quests, all of which involve the killing of enemies. In exchange, everyone receives experience and access to better skills, which in turn makes the gameplay more fun.

Speaking of which, the game is played from a third-person perspective, and it’s rather basic gameplay-wise. Although there are some good ideas at work here, the overall experience is very boring and repetitive. The combat system is the main culprit for this, because all you can do is swing a sword around and watch the enemy's hitpoints drop if you are close enough to hit him.

There is only one attack animation, and almost every enemy and mercenary looks the same, which contributes greatly to the boredom factor. Each quest is basically about killing enemies and clicking on a random object every now and again. Thankfully, at least the enemies get stronger every minute, but the repetition is just too much.

To make things even more difficult to swallow, the game features old and disappointing graphics. This would not be a problem in most cases, but when everything else is sub par as well, the awful visual presentation has a greater impact. The maps are open to exploration, technically, but they are mostly featureless and full of invisible walls that shatter the illusion of freedom.

All things considered, Xenocrystalloid: The Eradications still has the potential to turn into something worthwhile. However, a lot of work is needed to iron out all the mistakes, and the genre is rather difficult to tackle by a small development team.