3) It’s Challenging
Okay, so its combat is no where near as balanced and elegant as say, Dark Souls III (my personal Game of the Year thus far), but it does do a lot of things right. For starters, the combat is pretty varied; three primary combat stances can be swapped in and out of on the fly and each of them feel distinct.
The Rogue stance makes use of your Rogue skill-tree points and focuses on agility, dodging and controlling the pace of the combat with your trusty pistol. The Warrior stance makes use of your Warrior skill-tree points and focuses on mobility and sweeping high-damage attacks that are perfect for swarms of enemies. Finally, the Guardian stance is your sword-and-board style defensive posture that focuses on blocking and parrying to inflict heavy damage in response to your attackers. It’s a solid system that builds upon Spiders’ previous RPG Bound By Flame.
Like the Souls series before it, The Technomancer’s combat is mostly built around repetitive encounters which I’m sure may turn many players off. Enemies respawn in the same positions every time you re-visit an area which is something that may irk some players, but for the most part, the multi-layered and varied combat is engaging, smart and intuitive enough to get you through some of the recycled encounters that the game throws at you. It can be incredibly sadistic though, even on the Normal setting. It’s the sort of game where it’s much better to start out on Easy… I know I did.