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This means that items are picked up and cabinets are opened just as you walk by. Furthermore, interacting with things happens naturally when you hover over it as opposed to actually clicking on it. Your character moves very slowly, making the teleport a necessity to get over the boredom of walking when you might need to backtrack.
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The Persistence isn’t helped by its occasionally frustrating movement controls. They hide in the corner until spotted, before teleporting randomly around, often coming toward you when you’re not looking and doing lots of damage. These deliver a nasty mixed dose of the witch from Left 4 Dead and the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who.
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These are complemented by brutes who take lots of damage, lurkers who wait in the right locations to attack, and one of the worst, weepers. They are dumb and dont take too much notice to their surroundings, however they can overwhelm you in numbers if you’re not careful. Initially you start by seeing hollow mutants reminiscent of zombies. This is helped well by the enemies you encounter. This essentially means you can stand next to a machine until you are well-stocked enough to take on anything. Furthermore, ranged weapons, combined with the short range teleport, make the combat rather easy, especially considering weapons can be bought for cheap at stalls which regenerate in a small amount of time. This base system is a fine idea but the general melee combat feels a little clunky, often ending in not hitting enemies that are right in front of you or parrying enemies who haven’t even attacked yet. Those who don’t wish to block can use melee weapons acquired on the ship, or ranged weapons if you are lucky enough to have some. This can be followed up by a stealth attack, rewarding your blocking prowess in a nice way. You have a block ability that can only be used for a few seconds at a time, working as a fairly lenient parry. There are a few main ways of addressing this combat. If you approach them just right, you can stealth kill them and acquire materials for leveling up. The majority of the early game will be spent stealthily making your way around enemies until you find yourself to be courageous, or stupid, enough to take them on. The base loop is great but the moment to moment gameplay is, unfortunately, a bit of a mixed bag. This naturally weaves us into the gameplay. The majority of these pieces are vital too, used to get into or out of the sticky situations that you find on board The Persistence. The upgraded items can then be purchased with your currency, making each life just a little stronger. These include guns, melee weapons and some more experimental ideas.
The persistence enhanced review upgrade#
The currency and tokens on the other hand can be used to upgrade useful items. These are more long term goals than the other upgrades, as they take much longer to save up for.
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From there, it’s a case of upgrading that body’s health and dark matter with a hefty chunk of cells. When it comes to yourself, each new crew member you find can be harvested, allowing you to use a clone of their body which costs cells to respawn. You can get tokens and currency for a variety of machines, utilizing stem cells to upgrade yourself. This is a fascinating concept that plays up well. Whilst you keep a multitude of upgrades, that character and their items are essentially expendable cannon fodder used to get your bearings. When you die, your body there is gone and you must trudge on past the point of no return. The Persistence is a rogue-lite horror title where you constantly go in and out of the hull of the ship to solve your problems. In a sense, one could see this as indicative of the entire game as a whole.
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