Maroc - 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - Aujourd'hui 03:31

CODEX MORTIS – Preview

With the quality of AI always improving, it was only a matter of time before the first game that was developed fully by AI would be released. That time seems to be now, with the Early Access release of CODEX MORTIS, a Survivors-like experience where the gameplay elements, the art, and the music have all been made with AI. For this short preview, we aren’t going to dive into the politics behind this, and we are solely going to concern ourselves with the actual quality of the game. While there is no real story to speak of in CODEX MORTIS, you’ll be playing as a necromancer, fending off huge hordes of monsters. The game does offer a few themed stages, which feel like you’re playing through somewhat of a campaign, but there is no real narrative value to any of them. Even so, as you progress, you’ll unlock more characters that can join your party, each with equipable skills and items, allowing for a decent amount of party management. This is already one of the defining (and more interesting) features of CODEX MORTIS. Most other titles in the genre have you only pick a starting character or a starting skill, offering you complete randomness after that point. In CODEX MORTIS, you’ll be able to build up interesting party compositions with specific skill synergies and more focused skill upgrades when leveling up during a run. The souls you collect during a run will also allow you to purchase permanent upgrades. We did notice a way to farm souls in levels, as there is no time limit to leave after completing your objectives. For the most part, the game plays the same as any other Survivors-like experience. You’ll auto-attack everything around you while roaming around the level, and killing enemies will grant you experience. When leveling up, you’ll get a few possible skill upgrades or passive upgrades to choose from, and that’s pretty much all there is to it. CODEX MORTIS does a formidable job of amping the intensity of the experience by making more enemies spawn and making you feel a lot more powerful. This all goes hand in hand with a fairly good audiovisual presentation. The pixelated visuals look nice, but they do lack animation. All characters and enemies are just static figures that slide over the floor, which is a shame. We do hope some animations are added in the future. Even so, it was kind of cool seeing so many enemies surround us, being blown to smithereens by our skills. The soundtrack is decent, and the rock tunes do set the mood in combination with the dark theme of the game. While we actually had a blast with CODEX MORTIS for the most part, there are still some clear issues with the overall game design and general polish. For example, the UI isn’t always that great, the screen can be really cluttered at times, and gamepad support in the menus is a bit clunky. There should be clearer highlights on what is selected in the menus or the level-up menu, and not everything feels very responsive here at times. When it comes to actual in-game issues, we noticed that our additional AI-controlled party members would constantly get stuck behind obstacles, and we would have no way to find them back easily if that happened. The same also happened with our summoned minions. Hitboxes aren’t always that precise either, and we also often got stuck behind obstacles that were not even touching our character sprite. Some environments are also a bit harder to read. While most of these are smaller issues and happen in Early Access projects all the time, we still felt it warranted a mention, as it can become annoying if your party is constantly getting stuck. Conclusion CODEX MORTIS is an interesting Survivors-like game that still needs a few layers of polish, but already proves to be rather entertaining. We loved the party system, enjoyed the over-the-top action, and the overall diversity of skills wasn’t too bad either. The presentation was alright, albeit a bit static in terms of animations. The soundtrack was on point, for the most part. We hope some new content and additional modes are added throughout the Early Access period, but as it stands now, you can’t really go wrong with this one if you’re a fan of the genre.