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Chronos: Before The Ashes reviewSoulsnolikey
Soulsnolikey
I thinkChronos: Before The Ashesis very muchokay. It’s a prequel to looter shooterRemnant: From The Ashes, but it trades gun-toting, chest-pillaging action for a soulslike experience so grey, I swear my pulse flatlined a few times.
It was also previously an Oculus VR exclusive, so the version I played is a port. It’s a shame it’s not one that adapts the game to fit its PC home comfortably, because instead it ends up feeling a bit out of place.
Watch on YouTube
Watch on YouTube
I craved meat on those bones. I wantedmeat. Character customisation isn’t a thing, nor is armour, so I was stuck controlling an ordinary looking person for my ordinary adventure. Weapons include a sword, axe, or hammer: ordinary (although, there is a flail which roused more excitement in me than it should’ve done). So often I encountered the same old enemies in environments which, in fairness, showed teeny glimpses of beauty. Lighting came to the rescue a great deal, glancing off stone to give what would’ve been a drab tunnel some moody ambience, or adding a dash of magic to hushed throne rooms. Unfortunately lighting couldn’t totally save a world that’s ultimately quite muted.
Maybe the best thing about Chronos’s world is its puzzles. They rely heavily on visual clues, so you might come across a lock in the form of a three tiered image puzzle which lets you select a panel and rifle through a variety of horn types, then masks, then clothes as you work your way down, for example. After a bit of head-scratching, you might remember passing a statue of a bull man who had funky tassels dangling off his horns, a particularly sinister mask on, and rocked a spiky jacket. Sure, it’s simple, but it forced me to pay attention to my surroundings and made me feel like a clever boy at times.
But Chronos’s reliance on visual clues for its puzzles are clearly quirks left over from its VR past. The same can be said for important collectible items being very difficult to spot, almost as if being in VR would’ve made it easier. I remember zooming in on the contents of a locked cabinet for what felt like aeons, wondering what on earth I was missing. I could see this glowing key taunting me, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to get it. After almost sobbing, I rotated the camera until I suddenly spotted a slab of stone with a code on it. No “I am important, hello” sheen, nothing.
I got the sense that in VR I would’ve been more attuned to the contents of the cabinet, because I’d actually be there, spinning my head in all directions and paying attention to everything that’s literally right in front of my eyes. It felt just a bit too obscure for those of us leaning back in front of a monitor, controller in hand.
I’d go so far as to say that the confines of VR are what make Chronos simplistic and dry as a PC game. You can’t have something too complex because VR tech can’t adapt easily to that, but also because the player would’ve been totally overwhelmed. I haven’t played the VR version of Chronos, but I bet most of my gripes would fizzle away if I slapped an Oculus around my head.
But as a PC game, Chronos: Before The Ashes feels like a cash in, with nobody bothering to ask “does this really need to be ported over?”. Without VR it loses the magic of being in your living room knocking shit on the floor, and exposes the game as a very lukewarm soulslike.
