EXARK
I like roguelikes. I guess this is hardly a revolutionary statement to any reader of his humble blog, but I just want to reaffirm that nothing changed over past few months. The whole formula of incrementally getting better just clicks in my brain. The rinse and repeat, armed with more power and knowledge to do just a bit more this run… and then do it a few dozen times until everything clicks! It’s a fun spot for my grey matter searching for things to make it sparkle with them good chemicals.
EXARK promised much, thanks to its robust mashup of genres. In fact, it’s one of those games that feels almost too much when it comes to being an eclectic collection of mechanics, because it has them all! It’s a base building, inventory management auto battler with a smidgen of city builder, engine-crafting and all made on the framework of roguelike numbers-go-up formula. Now that’s a sentence that would put any marketing team in a bit of a tizzy.
And yet EXARK, somehow, does it well! Very well, in fact, offering a rather uniquely feeling game with many moving bits that put in front of you a hearty selection of tactical decisions to make at each stage. What building to choose, using your very limited gold. What crewmates to add, what strategy to chase down. Locking things for the future income to buy, finding out bits and bobs that combo off each other to outrun the scaling damage variety of nasty enemies will try to inflict upon your ark on your journey. There are relics, there are items, upgrades, variety of rarities for each component, events to impact your ark as well as stage-by-stage decisions, always letting you pick the next step on your journey to better emphasize your game plan.
It’s a strange feeling, really. I get why some folks are not impressed – all this variety just hides a rather rudimentary core loop, which is a tug-of-war. You need a number to go up by generating literally any resource. And you need to make that number keep getting bigger and faster because each stage enemy fleet ramps up its damage output – by a lot. So, no matter which strategy you opt for, the end-goal never really changes a single iota. Wanna focus on production? Inspiration? Food? It doesn’t matter which way you go; it’s all just about keeping Morale high. The only relative deviation from this is going full military style, arm your Ark up the wazoo and take down the invading fleets… But even that is just a sideshow attraction, as you still need to keep generating enough morale to not go down while you whittle at the enemy aircraft.
But for me this is not a negative point against the game. When you cut the chase, most games could be argued have the same “issue” – that is reaching the same’ish end goal, just with different routes. What matters to me is how FUN and varied those routes can be, and EXARK delivers in spades here. Each clan has its own flavor, each reactor changes slightly your strategic beginnings. It feels fulfilling to achieve victory with a brand-new plan. I have won a game by creating a cannon that shot like 6 times every second and obliterated enemy fleets in a blink of an eye. I won a game with cargo hold crammed completely with tombs which generated enormous amounts of resources simply by being there. Once made a food generating machine that made food in the millions. Another time somehow assembled a setup with ever-growing crit chance that kept outrunning the game pacing. It always feels like there’s more little ways to win, if you only get a knack on what’s what.
And then, because it is roguelike, we get the meta-progression. Which is more about challenging yourself than anything else and I admit – lacks a bit of content to be truly engaging. It won’t take more than 5-6 hours to unlock everything from the rank progression, and then all you have left for now is crafting new Stars in the Star Atlas. Which on itself is a clever system! You get those little mods that alter the way your ark produces resources, and you can assemble multiple of them to skew your strategy the way you want. And of course, an inbuilt Hazard ladder that gives you freedom to add difficulty for your runs to challenge yourself proper – thing is, there isn’t really anything locked behind it as far as I could see, so… You’re going to just do it for the Thrill of the Game, I reckon.
In the old polish gaming magazine, the reviewers were giving marks in few usual categories. Such was the style, at the time, to not just give an overall score, but rather divide it into categories. Gameplay, visuals, audio… But they had one more category that’s hard to translate, called “miodność” which uh, means something like “cool factor” in the best stretch of linguistics. It was supposed to indicate how the game makes you feel, does it have That Special Something. A spark of life that emerged from code and polygons.
And this is where EXARK feels like it falls short. I don’t want to sound like a douche trying to nitpick at a perfectly good game, especially with such an ephemeral take, but… EXARK lacks a bit of soul. It feels, at edges, very cold and harsh. Lacks the little ding-a-lings of joy, a bit of whimsy. For example, achieving victory comes with no fanfare. You just get the same numbers driven by the summary screen, the same as when you fail. There’s lifelessness to some of the game elements, a sort of dry out feeling like a cold-blooded being made some decisions here and there. I cannot pin the exact bits, but the game makes me feel hollow, even after glorious victories – which I just know, deep in my cranky soul, should not be the case.
It might be due to the bloat of things? Or, rather, lack of impact. Let’s take a look at the Star Atlas or the Hazard ladder… they are neat additions, and I do like them! But under a bit of scrutiny, it very quickly shows that both mechanics barely really matters in a run. The only tangible impact they might have is the first few fights, when you are vulnerable due to not yet having a sensible engine for producing resources. Alas, this is the kind of game that once you have your mechanism running, no number of hindrances or little tweaks to difficulty will matter or be able to stop you from winning. Basically, this is the biggest issue with EXARK, and one I am going to put in bold statement: If you survive first three fights, you are at 90% odds to just win the run. You either click a functional engine, or you perish – that’s about it. No balancing on edge, no comeback stories, that’s not the game core flow at all.
And so, here we are – EXARK is a bold game with a well-crafted set of mixed-up mechanics that somewhat fumbled the landing. Building up synergies is fun. The amount of content seems satisfactory to find out new ways to rich the victory screen. And yet, somehow, it leaves behind a bit of a hollow aftertaste. It runs out of things to tantalize you with rather quickly. Auxilliary systems are meant to give it legs and longevity feels a bit empty and lacking impact. It’s great fun for a few hours, digging into its core loop, but then… I do not believe many will consider it a game they will keep returning to after the initial thrill of chasing the big numbers runs dry.
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