Ultros review

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Need to knowWhat is it?A colorful metroidvania about growing trees in a psychedelic space uterus.Expect to pay:$25Release date:Out nowDeveloper:HadoquePublisher:Kelper InteractiveReviewed on: Windows 10, AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4650G, 16GB RAMMultiplayer:NoSteam Deck:PlayableLink:Steam

Need to know

What is it?A colorful metroidvania about growing trees in a psychedelic space uterus.Expect to pay:$25Release date:Out nowDeveloper:HadoquePublisher:Kelper InteractiveReviewed on: Windows 10, AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4650G, 16GB RAMMultiplayer:NoSteam Deck:PlayableLink:Steam

Wandering Ultros’s cosmic uterus in search of an eldritch monster I had to stop from being born, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d been there before. The game is a metroidvania, and for a while it seems like almost exactly what you’d expect (minus the whole uterus thing). But just as I started to get comfy in the embrace of genre familiarity, the creature hatched, killed me, and sent me blasting back in time to the beginning.

Ultros is a time-loop game, but it’s more than just time that loops. Everything does, swerving and connecting back to each other to convey a singular vision in this circle of a game.

(Image credit: Kepler)

Ultros

I started to pay attention to the closeness of things, the interactions between different plants, and the shape of the walls and floors surrounding me.

You can see the circles in it everywhere. Ultros is deeply invested in its own thematic cohesion, with a time loop regularly sending you back to the start, left to regain abilities (which mercifully doesn’t take long) and explore different paths. The opening area turns into a home base as you repeatedly meet the end. It’s surprising, then frustrating, and finally comforting. You are like the big creature you’re trying to stop and the little creatures that get in your way, destined to be born and to die.

Ultros hosts a whole zoo of gnarly bug-like aliens. Killing them is as easy as it is flashy: combat is a fast-paced rush of combo strings, dive kicks, and parries that explode creatures into scraps of meat to be eaten for health and nutritional points, the game’s equivalent of EXP. On their own these baddies seem like punching bags for your flurry of attacks, but there’s a twist. Beating them without using the same attack twice will result in higher quality meat with significantly boosted effects.

(Image credit: Kepler)

Ultros

(Image credit: Kepler)

Ultros

Ultros is easy enough that you rarely have to fully engage with its most interesting mechanics, and its writing struggles to effectively convey its lofty ideals. But the lines still connect together at the end, turning this metroidvania into a beautiful, circular experience of presence and balance. It’s a game that wants you to see the world differently when you finish it, and the way everything is connected. If nothing else, what other game lets you take a stroll through an umbilical cord?

More about ultrosUltros took the feature I hate most about games and made me love it through the power of farmingA new trailer for this psychedelic metroidvania confirms that cosmic womb gardening is very good videogame subject matter

More about ultros

Ultros took the feature I hate most about games and made me love it through the power of farmingA new trailer for this psychedelic metroidvania confirms that cosmic womb gardening is very good videogame subject matter

Personal pick for Ultros

Ultros took the feature I hate most about games and made me love it through the power of farming

Ultros himsa ahimsa

A new trailer for this psychedelic metroidvania confirms that cosmic womb gardening is very good videogame subject matter

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