Developed by ACE Team and published by NACON. Clash brings us a game with an advanced and hilarious combat system, a colorful world full of the most bizarre characters. Where the combat is Law, and the super intense fights.
Clash: Artifacts of Chaos It is available on PC, Playstation and Xbox.
MARTIAL CREATURES
In this game we take the role of Pseudo, a strange warrior from an alien world. In an almost dreamlike sequence, we learn the basics of combat and are then released to explore the world of Zenozoik.
Our teacher emphasizes that we are not as strong as the creatures that inhabit these lands, so our speed and ingenuity will be the keys to survival. That and martial arts, of course.
Shortly after starting to explore we came across a scene in which a brute is looking for a fight with a poor old man, this old man is taking care of a small being that is like a little bird. The brute challenges the old man to a ritual combat, so this other one cannot refuse to fight, such are the laws of these lands. Unfortunately, the old one is very weak. In this sequence we are going to play as the old man and learn about “the ritual” and to fight, but we will detail that later. In the process they’re going to beat us to shit.
This villain kills the old man just before Pseudo arrives, and now challenges us to fight him. Once this one is defeated, we take into our care the Kid (the little bird, known in the game as “the Boy”, so it seems correct to call it “the Kid”) and inherit the old man’s artifacts, dice and tchaks. We promise the kid that we will take him to a safe place.
Our adventure itself begins now that we have this little one under our care, who will also help and accompany us on the trip. Along the way we’re going to learn a thing or two about friendship, and we’re going to take a VERY shitty smack with the weirdest, ugliest beings we’ve seen in a long time.
COMBAT RITE
The strength of Clash It is the combat, Pseudo will not be very physically strong, but martial arts are a lethal tool if we want to knock down a more physically superior adversary. Despite what the teacher says, his speed is not always better than our opponents, and the ingenuity is up to the player. Pseudo’s weakness is quite true, our hits are not going to do as much damage to our opponents as theirs, this sometimes resulting in longer than necessary fights.
To fight, we will first have to choose a style, or “Stance”, which determines what type of attacks we can execute. They are generally based on some martial discipline and there are several to choose from, some more useful than others. These consist of normal attacks, and some exclusive ones to do after dodging. Dodge is the classic dodge, very useful to reposition ourselves. And we have a parry, with which we can “counterear” a rival attack unfortunately almost all enemies can execute this and are very good at it.
To add variety and customization to the matter, we can equip up to 2 Stances to change at any time. And special attacks that have fighting game mechanics that work surprisingly well. To give an example, the hook or classic shoryuken, is an anti-air attack with all the letters.
We have a system in which we can level up and improve our attributes, as well as we can improve our Stances and special abilities, to be a little better off against our enemies.
With the attack button we will be able to do a quick sequence in a basic combo, they are our normal attacks and we can throw them often, with the special attack button we can do special movements, of these we can carry 3 at a time. Our enemies are a bit more ferocious than us, so our martial blows and techniques are going to be much more graceful, they’re even going to play quite dirty, sometimes pushing us to generate distance without much explanation and using projectiles. Despite how deep it can get Clashmost of the time it is reduced to the simple and effective, we are going to have several tools for different situations, but when it comes to fighting, repeating the best sequence of damage and stun is going to be the bread and butter of every day.
If we fill our aggression bar when attacking, we can start a sequence against a particular enemy, in which we will lock him in a closer combat in first person. our attacks become limited in this instance, but we will be able to shit them more efficiently.
Going for steaks is quite common in this world, and the most interesting thing we are going to experience are the ritual combats. We can do these with various NPCs in the world, these adversaries will present their artifacts to us to challenge us, and we will be able to do the same if they don’t do it first. Although we can fight with wilder and more monstrous creatures when exploring this world, the icing on the dessert is these ritual combats with more intelligent creatures.
The ritual begins with each participant presenting an artifact. If we win the ritual we will be able to apply the effect of the artifact on our opponent. If we lose, we have to receive the negative effect of the opponent’s artifact. These effects range from reducing the opponent’s mobility, to poisoning or debilitating them in various ways. If we want, we can let the Kid play for us. He’s surprisingly good at rituals, or at least better than me. The game consists of first rolling 3 dice each and then using tchaks to alter the numbers. Once all of them have been used, the player with the highest sum of his total dice will be the winner.
Winning or losing the ritual does not guarantee the outcome of the fight, but it will give you a clear advantage or disadvantage.
Sometimes we will have to fight against more opponents, or we will have some ally on our side. The Kid may want to help too, shyly biting and annoying our opponents.
A KICK TO THE TEETH
I really appreciate when a game comes with extra card games or mini-games like that, because they are often carefully designed and optional. In Clash, the game of dice before the fights is an integral part of the same within the ritual. It is a game that involves too much chance for my taste, there were few times in which fortune smiled on me, and I feel that I never got to learn it well. This added to the fact that in some fights it is optional, it can be very expensive if we start the fight losing a ritual that we could have avoided.
Death is no joke in Clash, at the first defeat we will come back to life in our second form, a wooden Pseudo. There we have to return to our body to be able to revive, if we die in this instance, it is Game Over, there is no second chance and we will have to reload from the last save. This is quite annoying, it feels vicious to the fart and I feel that it could have been less punishing, it is very easy to lose progress.
Combat takes a long time to learn, it’s one of those games where mashing buttons is the worst thing we can do. We have to have a more methodical and calculating mentality when it comes to fighting, and always be attentive. Once these systems are learned, it becomes highly enjoyable, added to the high level of customization of our fighting style that the game allows us. Part of what we will also have to learn are the hitboxes of our attacks, which are sometimes a bit questionable. The life bars of the enemies sometimes suffer from being very often with the famous “magic pixel” of fighting games, which makes us think that the last hit we gave them was lethal, but they are still alive at 1 invisible life point in the bar.
Knowing where to go and how to move through the scenarios is sometimes a problem. Luckily we have an objective system, and a map. That although it is not clear, it fulfills its function so as not to lose us. But there are some weird moments where it’s not always clear where to jump, or the way forward is a small gap where a piece of fence is missing.
THE BEST
- A different and interesting setting and designs.
- A martial arts system that doesn’t get boring, with a lot of variety and customization.
WORST
- Combat can be reduced to simple repetitions.
- It requires a lot of learning to be able to enjoy it well.