Is this the most underrated game on Steam?

[bleak]

It's been years since I finished all achievements in this game, but I still remember how awesome time I had playing it. Definitely one of the best games I played in my adult age, especially among 3D titles. It irritates me to this day that the game only has mixed reviews and that many people consider its strongest points as weak points. As well as that very little people seem to appreciate how polished the game is and how good story it has compared to vast majority of today's production.

So, happy new year from me, The Surge, and know that you are remembered.

[Holografix]

nice. i too 100% this game and really appreciated the story, mechanics and characters. It's got a great concept, and i love the fight and craft armor mechanics.

Given the histrionic screeching that is gaming culture now, maybe the reasons for mixed reviews is that maybe people thought it was too "woke" because Warren is handicapped? I mean, it's a stupid reason but that's where we are now.

[bleak]

Originally posted by Holografix:

nice. i too 100% this game and really appreciated the story, mechanics and characters. It's got a great concept, and i love the fight and craft armor mechanics.

Given the histrionic screeching that is gaming culture now, maybe the reasons for mixed reviews is that maybe people thought it was too "woke" because Warren is handicapped? I mean, it's a stupid reason but that's where we are now.

Hello and thanks for your comment. I honestly don't think the reason for the bad reviews is anti-woke. The game was released 7 years ago after all, and the main character switches from "handicapped" to "powerful cyborg" at the very start.

A couple of reasons for negative reviews that come to mind are:

1. Some people who played this to scratch the Dark Souls itch see everything that is different from DS negatively. E.g.: "DS has a lot of bosses and The Surge has only a few? That means The Surge sux."
2. Some people don't care about story or they don't like depressive/horror/chamber sci-fi as a genre.
3. Some people got so much used to playing games with a map, that they are not willing to accept its absence, even when no map makes perfect sense as in The Surge (more in my review for the game).

Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion on games, and not every genre or game mechanic is for everybody. I just feel like this game should be more widely recognized as "not for everyone, but still an absolute gem".

[Holografix]

Originally posted by bleak:

Originally posted by Holografix:

nice. i too 100% this game and really appreciated the story, mechanics and characters. It's got a great concept, and i love the fight and craft armor mechanics.

Given the histrionic screeching that is gaming culture now, maybe the reasons for mixed reviews is that maybe people thought it was too "woke" because Warren is handicapped? I mean, it's a stupid reason but that's where we are now.

Hello and thanks for your comment. I honestly don't think the reason for the bad reviews is anti-woke. The game was released 7 years ago after all, and the main character switches from "handicapped" to "powerful cyborg" at the very start.

A couple of reasons for negative reviews that come to mind are:

1. Some people who played this to scratch the Dark Souls itch see everything that is different from DS negatively. E.g.: "DS has a lot of bosses and The Surge has only a few? That means The Surge sux."
2. Some people don't care about story or they don't like depressive/horror/chamber sci-fi as a genre.
3. Some people got so much used to playing games with a map, that they are not willing to accept its absence, even when no map makes perfect sense as in The Surge (more in my review for the game).

Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion on games, and not every genre or game mechanic is for everybody. I just feel like this game should be more widely recognized as "not for everyone, but still an absolute gem".

hey,

i remember chatting with some steam friends about The Surge and a lot of them disliked the difficulty of it. Many thought it was harder than Dark Souls 2/3 and that it didn't, like you mentioned, have a high fantasy setting like DS. The dark gritty sci-fi themes of The Surge put them off the game. The "missing" map is a new one. Hadn't heard that complaint before.

Anyway, it's hard for me to understand where the complaints are coming from because I feel that The Surge is fantastic. One of the best games I've played. And i agree with you that The Surge is an absolute gem. It was so good that I got The Surge 2.

[bleak]

Originally posted by Holografix:

hey,

i remember chatting with some steam friends about The Surge and a lot of them disliked the difficulty of it. Many thought it was harder than Dark Souls 2/3 and that it didn't, like you mentioned, have a high fantasy setting like DS. The dark gritty sci-fi themes of The Surge put them off the game. The "missing" map is a new one. Hadn't heard that complaint before.

Anyway, it's hard for me to understand where the complaints are coming from because I feel that The Surge is fantastic. One of the best games I've played. And i agree with you that The Surge is an absolute gem. It was so good that I got The Surge 2. :thesurgerig:

Too-hard complaint is IMO just cringe when discussing souls-likes. I never take those seriously.

Thanks for confirming the genre is indeed one of the issues for part of the audience.

The location design and missing map blame is among the most "popular" ones, if you read the negative Steam reviews. (But once again - to me the location design is one of the best things about The Surge.)

Regarding The Surge 2, I also have it, but I guess this time it was me who was disappointed for not getting exactly what expected. I stopped playing after reaching the very first boss, who felt just like a HP sponge with otherwise uninteresting abilities. But I surely plan to give it another try, when enough time has passed :) I am just afraid that the devs were listening to the community feedback too much and killed a lot of things that made the first game so unique and good.

[Holografix]

Originally posted by bleak:

Originally posted by Holografix:

hey,

i remember chatting with some steam friends about The Surge and a lot of them disliked the difficulty of it. Many thought it was harder than Dark Souls 2/3 and that it didn't, like you mentioned, have a high fantasy setting like DS. The dark gritty sci-fi themes of The Surge put them off the game. The "missing" map is a new one. Hadn't heard that complaint before.

Anyway, it's hard for me to understand where the complaints are coming from because I feel that The Surge is fantastic. One of the best games I've played. And i agree with you that The Surge is an absolute gem. It was so good that I got The Surge 2.

Too-hard complaint is IMO just cringe when discussing souls-likes. I never take those seriously.

Thanks for confirming the genre is indeed one of the issues for part of the audience.

The location design and missing map blame is among the most "popular" ones, if you read the negative Steam reviews. (But once again - to me the location design is one of the best things about The Surge.)

Regarding The Surge 2, I also have it, but I guess this time it was me who was disappointed for not getting exactly what expected. I stopped playing after reaching the very first boss, who felt just like a HP sponge with otherwise uninteresting abilities. But I surely plan to give it another try, when enough time has passed :) I am just afraid that the devs were listening to the community feedback too much and killed a lot of things that made the first game so unique and good.

The Surge is a top-tier game. The Surge 2 is about the same, but not quite. It suffers from a somewhat terrible port, graphics are a little washed, too much bloom, weird anti-aliasing too. But The Surge 2's voice acting is better, and funnier. They went for humour in The Surge 2 which was present in The Surge too but in the first game the humour wasn't as goofy.

The Surge 2 has more weapons, more armors, more combos, more drones, more implants, and just for that alone it is a fun game. The parrying system is better too. I like both games but because I played The Surge first, it has a special place in my heart.

Like you mention in your topic heading, The Surge is definitely underrated.

[bleak]

Originally posted by Holografix:

The Surge is a top-tier game. The Surge 2 is about the same, but not quite. It suffers from a somewhat terrible port, graphics are a little washed, too much bloom, weird anti-aliasing too. But The Surge 2's voice acting is better, and funnier. They went for humour in The Surge 2 which was present in The Surge too but in the first game the humour wasn't as goofy.

The Surge 2 has more weapons, more armors, more combos, more drones, more implants, and just for that alone it is a fun game. The parrying system is better too. I like both games but because I played The Surge first, it has a special place in my heart.

Like you mention in your topic heading, The Surge is definitely underrated.

Good, this is definitely going to motivate me to give the second part another chance soon

[Aigle1705]

was their on release the problem the surge suffered from

was devs relying on game design rules way too much. and forgot communication to the player.
as a long time gamer this wasnt a problem at all, but as a casual or even streamer, no matter if souls exp or not you suffered :D
i think it might perform better if they releleased it again nowadays. since than we have seen some games doing similar things.

pax the first boss of the game had about a 20-30% defeat rate 1 month after release.
people back than thought he's bugged and complained a lot in the forums.
[game thedesign: the yellow escavator was supposed to teach you about covered weak spots]
(not many ppl found the escavator nor did they challange him, or understood why died after 10+ attempts)

another issue was oriantation espec in central B and research n development.
everything looks kinda similar and if you open every single shortcut you can run in circles for days. even tho the levels a exremly linear.
these black signs dictating the path are just too small.^^

another issue was biolabs.
- where to go once you reached the open area outside. that hole in the ground was evil. :D
[game design: listen to the lady follow the wires]
- once you obtained the drone core, many people didnt get they are suposed to return to central B.
[game design: if a path loops back you are done here]
- once back at central b: mayn ppl couldnt find or get access to ventilation tower
[game design: new enemys show the way]
[game design: you just got that drone upgrade, use it.] ( the button is high up the wall )
[game design: vetilation tower is literly writen on the door] ( still to high up )

black cerberus:
this boss was the final insult. now you could prove rather you killed pax by exident or figured out the mechanics.

// another issue was reputation.
prior to the surge deck13 released. "lords of the fallen" (the original not the cheap reboot from 2023)
and just like the surge lords was ahead of its time. many people didnt get the games mechanics. and the difficulty between the 3 playable classes felt drastic.
warrior: easy mode everythign dies first try.
cleric: quite challanging
rogue: almost impossible
general opinion, not mine. i luv deck13 games ( aspec: venetica, lords of the fallen, the surge 1. not a fan of the surge 2, it messed up alot of things their older games did way better. without providing balancing benefits )

[bleak]

Originally posted by Aigle1705:

was their on release the problem the surge suffered from

was devs relying on game design rules way too much. and forgot communication to the player.
as a long time gamer this wasnt a problem at all, but as a casual or even streamer, no matter if souls exp or not you suffered :D
i think it might perform better if they releleased it again nowadays. since than we have seen some games doing similar things.

pax the first boss of the game had about a 20-30% defeat rate 1 month after release.
people back than thought he's bugged and complained a lot in the forums.
[game thedesign: the yellow escavator was supposed to teach you about covered weak spots]
(not many ppl found the escavator nor did they challange him, or understood why died after 10+ attempts)

another issue was oriantation espec in central B and research n development.
everything looks kinda similar and if you open every single shortcut you can run in circles for days. even tho the levels a exremly linear.
these black signs dictating the path are just too small.^^

another issue was biolabs.
- where to go once you reached the open area outside. that hole in the ground was evil. :D
[game design: listen to the lady follow the wires]
- once you obtained the drone core, many people didnt get they are suposed to return to central B.
[game design: if a path loops back you are done here]
- once back at central b: mayn ppl couldnt find or get access to ventilation tower
[game design: new enemys show the way]
[game design: you just got that drone upgrade, use it.] ( the button is high up the wall )
[game design: vetilation tower is literly writen on the door] ( still to high up )

black cerberus:
this boss was the final insult. now you could prove rather you killed pax by exident or figured out the mechanics.

// another issue was reputation.
prior to the surge deck13 released. "lords of the fallen" (the original not the cheap reboot from 2023)
and just like the surge lords was ahead of its time. many people didnt get the games mechanics. and the difficulty between the 3 playable classes felt drastic.
warrior: easy mode everythign dies first try.
cleric: quite challanging
rogue: almost impossible
general opinion, not mine. i luv deck13 games ( aspec: venetica, lords of the fallen, the surge 1. not a fan of the surge 2, it messed up alot of things their older games did way better. without providing balancing benefits )

So you're saying Lords of the Fallen are good? Ok, might give it a try one day :)

Regarding The Surge, as I read your post, it once again comes to difficulty, map orientation (heavily disagreed with both of these, as I already said multiple times), and then some adventure elements. I don't think the adventure elements were the real reason since not many ppl made it that far, but I agree I also got stuck couple of times and it was annoying :) I simply suck in adventure games. For me the worst moment was when the elevator moved in the final chapter and I didn't quite get it :)

[Sysgen]

A great American football coach once said you are what your record says your are. Game lost almost 50% of it's players before the 1st boss. Can't sugarcoat failure.

[MrSalty101 [JoinUsInVR]]

No the games just ♥♥♥♥. They did much better with Surge 2

[T-sama]

I feel that one reason the first game didn't do as well as it could is because it's pretty unbalanced, in Soulsborne and most Soulslike you can theorically use basically anything you want but I feel here it's not the case.

Yes. on paper you can use anything, but in practice that doesn't work quite well in The Surge, for example, in most Souls you can relatively easy stagger enemies unless it's a super light weapon like a dagger or something, here instead for the most part you can't really stagger most enemies, so using one of the slow weapons is basicaly suicide cause they will attack you mid combo, which most likely means death as they hit hard.

I didn't reach endgame again yet but from what I remember after a while human enemies are fully armored, which means you can't abuse hit unarmored meat bits and robot enemies get stronger too, so a slow weapon just makes life harder.

I also feel that you inevitably need to use certain Implants to make life easier, like Sustaining Array V.1 which gives -25% Energy decay and Voltaic Dynamo which gives more Energy on hit.

You pretty much need to build yourself around Energy generation and Implants related to it, with Sustaining Array and Voltaic Dynamo you basically always have full Energy bar, which means passive Implants that are based on Energy are always active and you can spam Medi-Voltaic Injection to heal.

Using One-Handed or Twin-Rigged with Concussive Array makes a lot of difference, it lets you break human enemy Stability with two hits for the most part, which means they can never attack you, it also let you more easily destroy robot parts too, like Bloundhound legs which makes impossible for them from doing the kickflip and charging leap.

Knowing about MG Gorgon Gear also makes a difference cause the Stamina regen the set gives really helps and it's basically the best armor in the game, it helps you can get it super early too.

In short, all Souls tend to have some gear that are clearly more practical and reliable, but if you don't use them you can still play without issue, The Surge if you don't equip a few specific things it makes you life a lot harder than most games in the genre, which inevitably makes a lot of people just drop the game altogether.

[bleak]

Originally posted by T-sama:

I feel that one reason the first game didn't do as well as it could is because it's pretty unbalanced, in Soulsborne and most Soulslike you can theorically use basically anything you want but I feel here it's not the case.

Yes. on paper you can use anything, but in practice that doesn't work quite well in The Surge, for example, in most Souls you can relatively easy stagger enemies unless it's a super light weapon like a dagger or something, here instead for the most part you can't really stagger most enemies, so using one of the slow weapons is basicaly suicide cause they will attack you mid combo, which most likely means death as they hit hard.

I didn't reach endgame again yet but from what I remember after a while human enemies are fully armored, which means you can't abuse hit unarmored meat bits and robot enemies get stronger too, so a slow weapon just makes life harder.

I also feel that you inevitably need to use certain Implants to make life easier, like Sustaining Array V.1 which gives -25% Energy decay and Voltaic Dynamo which gives more Energy on hit.

You pretty much need to build yourself around Energy generation and Implants related to it, with Sustaining Array and Voltaic Dynamo you basically always have full Energy bar, which means passive Implants that are based on Energy are always active and you can spam Medi-Voltaic Injection to heal.

Using One-Handed or Twin-Rigged with Concussive Array makes a lot of difference, it lets you break human enemy Stability with two hits for the most part, which means they can never attack you, it also let you more easily destroy robot parts too, like Bloundhound legs which makes impossible for them from doing the kickflip and charging leap.

Knowing about MG Gorgon Gear also makes a difference cause the Stamina regen the set gives really helps and it's basically the best armor in the game, it helps you can get it super early too.

In short, all Souls tend to have some gear that are clearly more practical and reliable, but if you don't use them you can still play without issue, The Surge if you don't equip a few specific things it makes you life a lot harder than most games in the genre, which inevitably makes a lot of people just drop the game altogether.

I remember I was using staff almost exclusively for 3 playthroughs, youtube mostly considered twin-rigged the most OP, so those are 2 very different options that are definitely viable. About the extremely slow weapons, I am sure it's perfectly doable to finish the game using those, but it might require the player to be more in a "challenge" mode. And I say: Why not?

[T-sama]

Originally posted by bleak:

I remember I was using staff almost exclusively for 3 playthroughs, youtube mostly considered twin-rigged the most OP, so those are 2 very different options that are definitely viable. About the extremely slow weapons, I am sure it's perfectly doable to finish the game using those, but it might require the player to be more in a "challenge" mode. And I say: Why not?

I tried staff but just can't get used to the combo, I feel it takes too long to hit the enemy, plus most staff have terrible energy gain, only the dlc one is good.

As for heavy weapons, I imagine most players wouldn't want that extra challenge lol

[Χάρης]

Indeed it is, but I'd say it isn't for the average casual gamer. It takes time to learn and the story isn't explained with fancy cutscenes, so people who want something easy and flashy will get bored quick and quit. I was actually pretty close to review bombing it, quit about 5 times or so, till I decided to play until finish to write a proper review. If you see it as a roguelite game and not as a typical RPG game then you will understand it better in my opinion. The main reason I kept coming back at it is that I am into sci-fi and hard sci-fi and I think cyborgs are cool, so I might be a little biased.

[T-sama]

Originally posted by Χάρης:

Indeed it is, but I'd say it isn't for the average casual gamer. It takes time to learn and the story isn't explained with fancy cutscenes, so people who want something easy and flashy will get bored quick and quit. I was actually pretty close to review bombing it, quit about 5 times or so, till I decided to play until finish to write a proper review. If you see it as a roguelite game and not as a typical RPG game then you will understand it better in my opinion. The main reason I kept coming back at it is that I am into sci-fi and hard sci-fi and I think cyborgs are cool, so I might be a little biased.

Although the story presentation is definitely a fair point, I think what you said about seeing it as a roguelite is the biggest factor.

I don't agree with the comparison with typical rpg cause it's not a rpg at all lol, but I do agree you can't see it like a regular Soulslike, mostly due to the fact that it doesn't have regular level up for stats, that makes a lot of difference on how strong you are, on in this case, how you're not, most you can overlevel if you want to make fights easier, The Surge you have no choice but to change your Implants and get better at fight to advance.

I wish I could contact everyone that found it hard just so I could maybe give tips to make them like it lol