In my previous venture into the Serious Sam realm, I stated that boomer-shooters are the “balm of the soul.” It’s something I still stand by —if you’re having a cruddy day, you can load up a Doom or a Quake, shoot some demons, and I guarantee you’ll feel at least slightly better. I can’t say that I felt that much better after spending time with Serious Sam: Tormental. I didn’t hate it — I just wish there was a little more available in visuals and gameplay than what is offered.
Tormental differs from the main franchise, instead of a first-person shooter, you are instead playing a top-down roguelite. Excursions from the tried-and-true Serious Sam formula are nothing new — in 2011, Croteam partnered with indie developer Vlambeer to create Serious Sam: The Random Encounter (a turn-based RPG) as an example. While the game received mixed reviews, allowing a studio to take your franchise and spin it out of the FPS genre is unique. I will always applaud studios that take chances — even if those chances don’t always pan out.
The most immediate thing I noticed in Tormental is how boring the game looks. Low-res polygonal models reminiscent of Roblox for gameplay and flat 2D MSPaint-style character art don’t do this game any favors. Art is subjective, of course, but the models made processing information and feedback very difficult — shots fired and explosions are often hard to parse out from the backgrounds, especially when a deluge of enemies fill the screen. This is especially apparent with the second boss, Brainstorm, which constantly revives entities throughout the fight. As for the character art, it’s just…boring. Boring to look at, boring to think about — it reminds me heavily of clip art.
The soundtrack is up next on things I noticed, and thankfully, the music bangs. The first track you hear after passing the tutorial is a remix of my favorite Serious Sam track: Boss Strings from Serious Sam 3. Damjan Mravunac, the lead composer for Serious Sam since inception, really can do no wrong when it comes to making energizing, fitting music that I’ll inevitably be humming for weeks on end.
If you’ve ever played Enter the Gungeon or The Binding of Isaac, then you already know what the gameplay is like. Sam, or one of the many unlockable characters, progresses through levels while finding chests and unlocking randomly generated weapons and upgrades. Your primary weapon, a pistol, can be modified after every boss fight with extra effects (such as Burning, Split-shot, and so on.) Extra weapons can also be acquired, and these “Serious” weapons typically have limited ammo but heavy firepower.
The enemy design isn’t stellar — you have shooting enemies, enemies that rush you, enemies that explode, and really, if you’ve played any roguelite in the past, you already know what you’re getting into. I was hoping to see more variety from the vast bestiary that the Serious Sam franchise has, but I feel that the art direction limited this as well. After all, enemies only seem to have differently shaded blocks as their core defining visual trait.
There isn’t really much more to say about the game — it has plenty of unlockables that can be acquired via collecting hidden keys, completing missions, and so on. However, the visuals gave me such a headache that I couldn’t really fathom trying to 100% complete all objectives in the game — and I have Platinum God in Binding of Isaac. Tormental is only $10 on Steam, which is a pretty good deal in my opinion. If you have a hankering for roguelite gameplay, but are burnt out on existing choices, Serious Sam: Tormental isn’t a bad way to spend your afternoon. Just set your expectations accordingly.
Published: Apr 13, 2022 09:05 pm