There's also some pretty cool narration in levels when you pass specific points or objects.like in the first level you pass a super nova and the ship's computer tells you about it. It definitely takes a back seat to gameplay (which I like) and is told mostly through cut-scenes narrated by the ships computer between missions. Story is an area I really don't care much about (especially for ARPG's), but so far the story is just ok.
Lot's of nice effects for all the skills as well. Hitting an enemy has the appropriate weighty feel and gives the right amount of feedback. Enemies have their own sound effects, so do each of the heroes. Music is very sci-fi and fits the game perfectly. Things look good, but I think a more coherent design and more set unique set pieces would have benefited the game a lot. One complaint I do have is the level design itself sometimes is too sparse and can be visually repetitive and uneven. Lot's of contrasting colors, bioluminesence, and light sources. I think the best comparison is kinda like the world in Avatar. Everything from the animations, level objects, enemies, skills all look great. Enemies explode into clouds of blood, hits have a lot of oomph behind them.the combat is very satisfying. It's also very satisfying to kill the Dark Spore. There's even enemies that turn normal Dark Spore into their champion variants making them high priority targets. There's enemies that are "squad leaders" in a sense that buff their allies. Enemies charge you, knock you down, put you to sleep, teleport you, debuff you. I think the game really shines in the department, and I have played TONS of ARPG's. There are tons of enemies in the game, and many of them have unique abilities. Skills have nice graphical effects and feel powerful. Skills are easy to use and there's tons of different kinds from buffs, AoE, heals, pets, targeted, crowd control, and even really unique stuff like dimensional warping. Left mouse moves and attacks, right mouse is locational attack, and you can use number keys to activate skills. I do think it takes some time to really get this though, but once I really starting looking at way to maximize and compliment my squad/heroes the beauty of the system became more apparent. Mix and matching the different heroes and skills really opens up a lot of customization. You can access all of your heroes squad skills no matter which hero is selected, and you can switch heroes in level on the fly. Each hero has 2 active skills, a main attack, a passive, and a squad skill.
In reality there's 25 heroes with 4 variants each, but this still offers TONS of options. Each squad has three om which you can fill from a pool of 100 different heroes. When you equip more and better items you increase their stats (and abilities) and the total counts toward their hero level. This is how you increase the power of your heroes. There's a great random item system with tons of stats and varying quality levels. There's two elements that take the place of this.one is the item system and the other is the squad system. After a while I started to see the beauty of the system though. One of the things that originally concerned me about the game was there was no leveling, no skill trees, nothing. I think this is a really interesting and unique setup.but most importantly it works. If you die you loose all the loot (at the end of the chain) you would have 's a lot like a game show where you are asked "do you keep the $100,000 or are you going to go for the cool million?". It's a loot driven game and does a great job of balancing risk vs reward.the more levels you chain the more difficult each new level is. Each level has a nice visual theme, and while the level layout is static, the enemies, loot altar locations, and other events are random and change each time. Each level has The basic setup of the game is you go from level to level chaining them together to receive better bonus percent for new items. The basic setup of the game is you go from level to level chaining them together to receive better bonus percent for new items.