With the Metroidvania subgenre stretching back decades, it can sometimes feel like the well of innovation is running a little dry at times, with the high points of the genre such as Hollow Knight and Dead Cells seemingly so far and above their peers when it comes to a richness of imagination. Enter Gestalt: Steam & Cinder. Yes, it’s a Metroidvania, but it makes grand use of its Steampunk setting to fashion a new entry in the Metroidvania subgenre that is far more compelling than a great many of its peers have seemed to be in recent times. This is how Gestalt: Steam & Cinder has managed to leverage its Steampunk setting to stand out in an increasingly crowded genre.
A Colourful, Varied Steampunk Dystopia Like No Other
One look at any of the screenshots or assorted media that’s been released for Gestalt: Steam & Cinder will inform both your eyeballs and your brain that this isn’t your regular Steampunk setting. Sure enough, though some of the areas in the game can be found filled with the expected arrangement of bronze-gelded pipes that twist into the sky, such locales are just one in a veritable kaleidoscope of varied locations that Gestalt: Steam & Cinder presents to the player.
Arguably the locale where this diverging bounty of Steampunk colour and style can best be witnessed is in the Steam City of Canaan, an area which both serves as the hub and the centrepiece of Gestalt: Steam & Cinder’s story campaign. A bustling, vibrant metropolis that is much more than just a mess of pipes, cogs and steam outlets, Canaan’s bustling streets and rumour-filled taverns with their 19th-century era stylings and gaslight lamps are an evocative and brightly hued sight that immediately dispel that usual misty and somewhat darker visual stylings that the Steampunk setting usually conjures.
Peel away at the corners of that somewhat unconventional idyll however and a deeper, more complex Steampunk world reveals itself. From the vast mechanical wasteland known as the Scrap Sea, to the vast pools of molten lava of the Fornax furnace and the decaying streets and stalls of the Irkallan Black Market, Gestalt: Steam & Cinder is not lacking in retina-stroking locations that are both varied and compelling to explore.
It all adds up to a Steampunk effort that isn’t just more visually arresting than other titles that have adopted a similar aesthetic, but one which keenly stands out from its peers in the Metroidvania genre. Pointedly, you might reductively think that one Metroidvania is as similar as the next, but in both form and function Gestalt: Steam & Cinder’s Steampunk setting is one that allows it to stand out in both aspects. Oh and before I forget – yes, there are doggo folk in Gestalt: Steam & Cinder and yes, you can absolutely stroke and pet them until your fingers fall off.
Prepare Yourself For A Murder’s Row Of Clanking Machines And Bloodthirsty Foes
Aside from the main protagonist Aletheia and her merry band of allies who all wish to see the Steam City of Canaan free of the evil that encroaches upon it, Gestalt: Steam & Cinder has a more than capable cadre of villains that each reflect a nightmarish vision of the Steampunk setting that serves as its creative touchstone. Numbering among Gestalt: Steam & Cinder’s burgeoning cast of baddies are all manner of horrid foes, including towering automatons with rocket launchers for arms, ferocious mutants and screen-filling arachnid machine constructs to name just a couple. So if you were hoping to get into it with a cast of familiar and relatively dull enemies, Gestalt: Steam & Cinder has you absolutely covered.
Fire And Ruin – An Array Of Deadly Industrialised Weaponry And Armour
Of course, neatly balancing the equation of all those scary folk you’ll be scrapping within Gestalt: Steam & Cinder are the various weapons and combat styles that you’ll have at your disposal. From the start, Aletheia has access to a deadly, razor-sharp sabre (in keeping with the aesthetic, of course) which she can deploy not only in single, powerful strikes but can also chain together a combination of standing combos, juggles and power moves.
Beyond her trusty sabre, Aletheia can also use her trusty hand cannon to finish off foes should she so wish – but its uses extend beyond that of a mere combo ender. By upgrading the weapon, through salvaging parts littered throughout the world and upon fallen enemies, Aletheia can turn her firearm into a devastating weapon with extremely powerful charge plasma attacks that can punish a sizable hole in all but the most robust enemies. In a sense, the combat in Gestalt: Steam & Cinder comes across like a 2D Devil May Cry, with Aletheia making the most of her industrialised melee and firearms-based arsenal to swiftly send her foes to the scrapheap.
Of course, Aletheia’s offensive gear is just one side of the equation, because in Gestalt: Steam & Cinder, our heroine can also loot, equip and upgrade various pieces of armour as well, with each protective piece not only boosting her stats, but can also provide additional buffs and status effects as well. As such, Aletheia is very much a soldier that is emblematic of her industrial age.
Thickly Layered Lore That Enriches The World
Much more than just merely an aesthetic choice, the Steampunk setting of Gestalt: Steam & Cinder also supports a substantially fleshed-out world that has been generously stuffed with its own detailed lore. Put simply, there’s a *lot* going on in the world of Gestalt: Steam & Cinder that you might not necessarily appreciate at first glance.
Both beneath and within the neon-lit walls that serve as the illuminated flora of Canaan, the Comitium are lurking – a conclave of nihilistic overseers that will stop at nothing to change the very nature of existence through their unnatural experiments within the Steam City. With a massing army of Clockwork golems, twisted messes of flesh-metal and many other grotesque fiends at their disposal, Aletheia must stop at nothing to put a stop to the Comitium’s schemes and a big part of that effort are the different characters she’ll meet along the way. From shopkeepers and fellow rebels to forgotten faces from her past, all of them will take Aletheia deeper into both the history and the current plight of Canaan and its surrounding areas.
If all this talk of Steampunk Metroidvania goodness has gotten you excited about what Gestalt: Steam & Cinder is bringing to the genre, be sure to check it out over on the Green Man Gaming store.
