The Surge fixes a lot of the things I disliked about Dark Souls
I've always liked the idea of the Dark Souls series, but found the execution awkward and, frankly, often boring. Enter Deck 13, who after publishing Dark Souls rip-off Lord of the Fallen, decided to make something a bit more unique.
The Surge is set in the nearish future, where automation is leaving many unemployed, the world's resources have been nearly drained, and a company called CREO (who definitely aren't Google, Amazon, Microsoft, or any other contemporary tech giant) is leading the world in tech innovation, especially in regards to their rigs, modular exosuits that can increase the user's speed, strength, protection etc. You play Warren, a new, wheelchair-bound employee for whom everything goes horribly wrong almost as soon as he reports for the job, and soon finds himself waking up in the ruins of CREO's manufacturing and office complex, now able to walk thanks to his shiny new rig.
While the Souls feeling is there from the start, The Surge is eager to show you how it's different. After bopping a couple of bots with a lead pipe and being introduced to Operations, or OPS, the central hub of each area, Warren learns that most, if not all, of the other rig users at the complex have been driven violently insane, and we're introduced to the combat proper.
Combat differs from Souls in a few ways. It's still a game of careful approach, baiting out attacks and timing yours, and stamina management, but you also need to manage your energy, generated by attacking enemies and used to activate a variety of abilities, your stability/poise, and where on the enemy your attacking.
Energy gain is affected by your weapon and some pieces of equipment, and degrades over time - one of the most important uses is in executing enemies below a certain health percentage, but it also powers your drone and can be spent on powers granted by implants.
Stability is granted by equipment, and I feel is much more forgiving than Souls. Once you're wearing some equipment, you're unlikely to be staggered by the first attack of most enemies, giving you a moment to change tack if you decide you've made a mistake, but also the opportunity to keep up your momentum and stagger the enemy before they can stagger you.
As for where you're attacking an enemy, once locked onto an enemy in the Surge, you can scroll through which specific body part you want to lock onto. Enemies have semi randomised equipment, so while attacking the head of one enemy might be best, a different one might have armour there, reducing your damage. That doesn't mean you don't want to attack that guy's head though - if he's wearing a helmet you don't have, smashing his head up enough before executing him will let you tear his head off, and take the helmet to reuse how you wish, which brings us to items and equipment.
After tearing your enemies armoured limbs off to eat and gain their powers salvage back at OPS by dealing enough damage to that specific limb before executing the enemy, you can build your own parts, and equip them however you wish. With options for head, body, both arms and both legs, you can potentially have equipment from 6 different sets on, each with different bonuses and drawbacks. Combined, they'll affect everything from how much damage you absorb to how fast you move and attack, how much more or less you damage armoured and unarmoured body parts, even how much energy certain abilities require.
Wandering around, you'll also find various implants which can be slotted into your rig to change some of its functions. If you want to increase your health to take more hits, you can find an implant. If you want to see the enemies health bars, you can find an implant. Gaining more energy, losing energy slower, gaining health when performing an execution, and half a dozen different ways of healing (from a stock of injectibles that are replenished at OPS to a heal that draws off the rig's built up energy) all exist as implants, and the only limits to implants and armour are the number of slots you have and amount of power your rig can provide.
Because Dark Souls' entire levelling up system was consolidated into a single stat, your rig power, you aren't locked into any builds at any point in the game. Levelling up is achieved through the standard collecting of souls and spending at a bonfire (scrap and OPS in The Surge), but it doesn't affect your other stats - if you decide you're good enough at dodging that you don't need any bonus health anymore, you can just swap some implants, and turn that health into stamina, or more skill with certain weapons. Combined with a weapon proficiency system that's based on the amount of damage you do with each of the 5 weapon classes, The Surge is a soulslike that really encourages experimentation, instead of just finding something that works for you and sticking with it.
Finally, I vastly prefer the level design. While the Souls series does a fantastic job of interconnecting the different areas, The Surge opts to gradually connects more parts of an area to it's OPS. As you progress through an area you'll find doors to open and lifts to power that provide shortcuts to different parts of the area. For me, this lead to much more of a sense of exploration, and more choices on how to move forward, rather than the Souls experience of following a relatively direct path to the next bonfire and finding shortcuts by exploring the few side paths along the way. You also have more direction, knowing something about where you should be going next (even if you don't), rather than vague hints - compare the crestfallen soldier's instructions to ring bells above and below to a holographic executive just asking you to come rescue her from the executive suite, which you can find by looking for the "executive suites" signs.
All in all, I can totally understand why hardcore Souls fans would still see it as a cheap and easy imitation, but I've always felt that too much of Souls' difficulty came from its flaws. Combat in particular involved too much waiting for the right opening, almost to the point of being an incredibly slow rhythm game, but the Surge rewards a lot more approaches as long as you aren't being stupid about it. I actually feel that deaths are my fault for doing something stupid or getting complacent, rather than not quite pressing a button at exactly the right time. I guess ultimately it's a Souls game that rewards you for doing well rather than punishes you for not being perfect.
Posted Jul 17, 2021, 1:24 PM UTC · edited
I respect your opinion, but I disagree with pretty much everything. First, while Dark Souls might be a logical comparison, it would be much fairer to compare The first Surge game to Dark Souls 3 since they are much closer together release-wise.
The only reason the combat in The Surge is hard, is because enemies attack much quicker than you, hit harder (insta deaths) or have some weird ass movesets. Combat just didn't feel rewarding at all and every death felt meaningless because I never really learnt something. So no comparison to DS there.
The level design is extremely bland and uninteresting. There are no memorable places, only boring factories and corridors which makes any shortcut pretty unexciting aswell since everything looks the same. I can still memorise pretty much every corner in the first Dark Souls on the other hand.
I gave this game multiple chances and I can't get myself to finish it. They didn't put nearly as much thought into it as From Software, which is one of the reasons why their games are so beloved. The Surge 2 seems to fix a lot of these issues though and I might give that one a chance.
The Surge 2 has solid gameplay, but I think it's still relatively boring level design wise. It's a generic sci-fi town instead of a generic sci-fi factory. It has more variety, but it still has that "discount Dead Space" style.
It's still one of the better Souls-likes, but I'd say only Nioh 2 and Blasphemous are on par with FromSoft's games. Partly because they feel less like Souls and more like their own things.
Have you ever played Salt & Sanctuary? I really enjoyed that one personally. I found it pretty astonishing that it was developed by two people (I think?)
S&S was great as a budget 2D Souls experience, and it's really cool how it implemented so many RP/Souls mechanics with such a tiny team. But it didn't really do anything outstanding, so while it was good, I still found it a step down from the FromSoft/Nioh 2/Blasphemous tier.
Yeah you're right, I really enjoyed it anyway though. I'm looking forward to Blasphemous if it is really that great! I'm still playing the first Nioh
I have one big issue with Salt & Sanctuary. A 2D modern Metroidvania needs a map system. I think that and the better boss design sets Blasphemous a step above S&S.
I liked the gameplay, but hated its flash-game aesthetic. Had to stop playing it.
I have had the exact opposite experience, I had significantly more fun playing the Surge than I did Dark Souls
And thats totally fine, I'm not here to tell what you should or shouldn't like, but I'm also not going to tell anybody that The Surge has better atmosphere, Level Design, Lore and combat than Dark Souls.
Well, I tell people the combat is better, it's true. Dark Souls 100% wins in atmosphere and lore, but the Surge wins in Combat.
Honestly I feel the level design isn't that different, only thing you miss out on are the vistas but they have that in the Surge 2
Subjectively, sure.
Again we should rather compare Dark Souls 3 (2016) or Bloodborne (2015) with The Surge (2017) than with the original Dark Souls (2011) and if you do that, the combat isn't all that much better, if at all. All the Surge has is the sluggishness it carried over from Lords of the Fallen.
It couldn't be more different imo. I can't remember one memorable place from the Surge.
Surge 2 pretty much improves all around as it takes place in a city, but I'd say it loses a lot of the atmosphere that the first one had.
The areas are a bit better/varied, but I wouldn't particularly call them memorable. Combat is better once you get a hang of the deflection system they added, though its quite a bit more clunky than Sekiro's at the start.
If I had to rank non-fromsoft souls-likes Nioh is #1 and Surge is #2, similar to what the other guy said. Though if you're big on the lore and story aspects Surge 2 is disappointing in that regard, imo.
Would you recommend The Surge 2 to me if I didn't really like the first one?
Based on the reasons you disliked the first one you might like it, but its still not really at the level of where Fromsoft games are. I guess it depends on how much you enjoy non-fromsoft souls-likes in general, could be worth playing once or twice.
Thanks, I will probably give it a try at the very least