Striking the right level of challenge in an action game is always tricky. If an experience leads to too much frustration, most players will just move on to something more immediately fulfilling. After all, who has time to sit around being miserable" Conversely, if there’s never any sense of danger then it fails to reach its full potential to truly grab the player. Thunder Lotus Games’ Sundered constantly flirts with being too unforgiving, but some great design kept me coming back for more.
Death in Sundered isn’t some indictment on the player’s skills. It’s presented as an unavoidable reality, and Thunder Lotus Games quickly teaches players that death isn’t something to get upset over. That’s because the player gets a chance to upgrade their skills after every defeat. Everything from making the protagonist’s attacks do more damage to being able to perform extra dodges can be purchased, and this creates a gameplay loop where the player’s odds at success are always improving. I found that individual enemy encounters weren’t to be feared. Eshe, the protagonist, can handle herself in battle as she can dodge out of the way of enemy attacks and her devastating attacks can wipe out most foes in a combination. The real fear begins when the game starts to throw dozens of enemies at the player. It’s easy to get overwhelmed during these seemingly random attacks, and I found that it wasn’t uncommon to go f...