Gestalt: Steam & Cinder is A LOT More than a Castlevania Clone – PAX East 2020 Preview
At a glance, Gestalt: Steam & Cinder appears to be similar to classic 2D Castlevania in the mode of Symphony of the Night or Aria of Sorrow. Instead of high bred gothic elegance and towering European castles, our characters are draped in a layer of workshop dust, bound in brass buckles and the setting covered with pipes and rivets. Essentially, vampires masquerading as steampunks.
There’s a lot of surface level similarities between the two. The attractive, anime style 16-bit pixel art graphics, side scrolling action adventure gameplay with deep combat, and even the way the main character, Aletheia, runs, leaps, and dispenses frontier justice with a sword, a projectile, or a whip feels achingly familiar. But it’s where Gestalt diverges from the formula that made me take notice during our preview.
For one thing, Gestalt is verbose and exceedingly well written. A colorful array of characters from barkeeps to librarians fill the screen with their lively blabber that open up dialogue trees to help the player shape their character and the world around her. It’s not just quest givers you can talk to either, even small talk with a local lollygagger lead me into a full blown conversation.
Once I had a couple of quests open up, that’s when I discovered another key way in which Gestalt stands out from the crowd… it’s big and sprawling. The town I started in had a number of branching paths on multiple levels – some of which were out of reach with my current abilities. This lead me to believe that there may be Metroidvania-like progression elements as well. Truth be told, I got lost trying to find one quest and sort of stumbled on another by accident. Not the game’s fault. That’s just the natural outcome of trying to explore a hub area this large in the short amount of time I was allotted and with my terrible sense of direction.
I chose to advance into the smelting factory, descend into the Scrap Sea and recover something called a Mega M.E.S.S. core. That’s when I learned the third way in which Gestalt was most definitely NOT Castlevania. There is far more traditional platforming in Gestalt including moving platforms, timed hazards and instant deaths. This was also my first chance to encounter enemies which come in a good variety of Steampunk friendly types. There were automatons armed with lasers and laser staffs, mutants carrying machetes and bows, spinning death wheels and of course, the Mega M.E.S.S itself; a big ol’ traditional boss that looked like one of those spider-like machines from Ghost in the Shell – but designed as if a crossbreed between an old timey flash camera and an observatory.
The inventiveness and charm of the design had a handmade quality that begged to be admired and studied… which made for a perfect excuse as to why I failed so miserably to retrieve the core and complete my mission.
“It’s all just too handsome and entertaining” I said to no one in particular. If you like the steampunk aesthetic, classic Nintendo DS era graphics and gameplay and you love to read and explore, Gestalt should be on your radar. Judging by the polished product I played, you won’t have too much longer to wait. Gestalt: Steam & Cinder is expected to release this year.
