{"id":122677,"date":"2020-12-30T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-30T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/synthetik_ultimate"},"modified":"2020-12-30T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-12-30T18:00:00","slug":"mini-review-synthetik-ultimate-a-high-speed-roguelite-which-offers-something-a-little-bit-different","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/12\/30\/mini-review-synthetik-ultimate-a-high-speed-roguelite-which-offers-something-a-little-bit-different\/","title":{"rendered":"Mini Review: SYNTHETIK: Ultimate &#8211; A High-Speed Roguelite Which Offers Something A Little Bit Different"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/a44e98a1e2884\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/a44e98a1e2884\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<aside class=\"picture embed pictures\" id=\"screenshots\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/111441\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/111441\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"SYNTHETIK: Ultimate Review - Screenshot 1 of 7\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/synthetik_ultimate\">Synthetik: Ultimate<\/a><\/strong> began its life on PC to high acclaim. Favouring realistic, methodical gun mechanics over high-speed action, it\u2019s a relatively fresh take on the roguelite genre, albeit one that feels a tad unpolished at times. There\u2019s no doubt that Synthetik: Ultimate has a <em>mighty<\/em> steep hill to climb when competing with the likes of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/hades\">Hades<\/a><\/strong> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/dead_cells\"><strong>Dead Cells<\/strong><\/a>, but if you\u2019re after something a bit different, then this might <em>just<\/em> be the game for you.<\/p>\n<p>Displayed from a top-down viewpoint reminiscent of classic <strong>Metal Gear<\/strong> titles, you play as one of eight different character classes with a vague goal of reaching the top of a structure called the \u2018Citadel\u2019, each class granting you with a specific loadout. The menu interface when loading up the game is frustratingly fiddly, relying on a slow-moving cursor to pull up the necessary information, with text that\u2019s just a hair away from being too small when playing in handheld mode.<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully, once you\u2019re spawned into the game itself, the gameplay is immensely satisfying. The controls are typical of twin-stick shooters, with a reticle present to assist with your aiming; naturally, the reticle expands and retracts depending on your speed of movement, and standing completely still is often necessary to pull off your shots with pinpoint accuracy. You also have special abilities linked to your chosen character class, and your overall stats also vary, including speed and defence. As you progress, you\u2019ll find plenty of items to assist you, and the weapon variety is particularly impressive.<\/p>\n<p>What sets Synthetik: Ultimate apart from other twin-stick shooters is its focus on realistic gun mechanics. We\u2019re all used to manual reloading in games with a simple tap of a button, but Synthetik takes it one step further, requiring you to manually eject your empty magazine with \u2018L\u2019 before loading a fresh one with \u2018ZR\u2019, implementing an active-reload mechanic to speed up the process. It forces you to rethink how you reload \u2013 particularly if you\u2019re a seasoned player of shooting titles \u2013 as manually reloading too often can result in plenty of wasted ammo.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the reloading mechanic, all of your weapons can jam at random intervals, and you\u2019ll need to fix this by rapidly tapping the firing button. This sounds like an absolute nuisance, but thankfully it doesn\u2019t happen too frequently, and resolving the issue takes just a couple of seconds. Of course, should you wish to disable these mechanics entirely, you can. The game features fully customisable difficulty settings in which you can add or remove certain parameters to your liking. Doing so will increase or decrease your reward yield respectively, so it\u2019s recommended that you play around with it to see what suits your play style.<\/p>\n<p>As with any roguelite, Synthetik: Ultimate requires an abundance of playthroughs in order to progress further into the game. Its overall length very much depends on your own commitment, but the strong gameplay is more than enough incentive to keep coming back, despite the poor menu system and less-than-stellar graphics. The addition of an Arena mode on top of the main \u2018Citadel\u2019 mode is welcome, though it doesn\u2019t offer anything particularly new, so you\u2019ll likely just stick to the main mode.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Synthetik: Ultimate began its life on PC to high acclaim. Favouring realistic, methodical gun mechanics over high-speed action, it\u2019s a relatively fresh take on the roguelite genre, albeit one that feels a tad unpolished at times. There\u2019s no doubt that Synthetik: Ultimate has a mighty steep hill to climb when competing with the likes of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122677\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}