ドルメンのレビュー - 魂のない宇宙の魂のような

Enemy designs are mostly uninspired. However, there were some boss fights which felt good, at the start. For example, there’s a boss fight with a floating soldier called, funnily enough, the Ancient Solider. He’s fast and furious, but he becomes stunned if touched by these floating balls of electricity around the arena. It became a match of weaving, dodging, and watching him fly into these balls letting me lay my attacks onto him. Once he was finished, I felt surprised. I quite enjoyed it and went on with the next part of the area. Before I realized it was a double boss fight and the second one was nowhere near as fun, souring what I enjoyed before.

And that’s a pretty good metaphor for my entire experience with Dolmen’s gameplay. Every moment that I somewhat enjoy, even if boring compared to other games, is ruined moments later by a terrible design choice or idea. Reactors are a fun addition to the gameplay, but they’re ruined by constant management of energy. Boss fights are fun until they’re ruined by one-hit kill attacks and invisible walls in which your character gets stuck. Hazards placed in areas go from average to controller-smashing annoyances moment to moment.

Dolmen does do something super unique though. There’s a crafting mechanic which seems like it could be an interesting idea. You don’t find armor, weapons, or guns around Revion Prime, rather, you craft them to suit your needs. You can add three resources when crafting weapons, boosting different stats. It’s an interesting concept, if not made completely miserable by some of the most horrible UI/UX I’ve ever experienced. It’s a great mechanic, once again ruined by something moments later.

Sometimes, an idea simply needs to stay an idea, especially if you don’t have the power to create what you’re envisioning.

Visually, Dolmen is a blur of painfully drab colors, environments, and textures. It seems like Dolmen wanted to be gaming’s answer to Dead Space meets Dark Souls, and it’s pretty clear to see in some aspects, but the atmosphere and graphics of Dolmen are bad at best, even on PS5. It’s grimy, and while there’s always a place for disgusting and depraved areas in video games but Dolmen just lacks any passion in the areas.

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The best way to put it is that Dolmen’s very concept, development, and the finished product feel like what a child would conceptualize in their head as what a good video game would look like if they made 1. “Let’s shove a futuristic area here”, “let’s put some alien dogs around the corner here”, followed up by “you need a rotting carcass and a powerful crystal to make this ice sword”. Sometimes, an idea simply needs to stay an idea, especially if you don’t have the power to create what you’re envisioning.

Overall, Dolmen is a painfully boring and clunky mess at the best of times. Its moments of good are outweighed by awful design choices, bad gameplay, and visuals that are uninspired. The idea of Dark Souls in Space is something that I’ve always dreamed of, something that I’ve wanted to see for years, but Dolmen takes that very idea and completely smashes it on the ground. But the worst thing about Dolmen isn’t what you see during the game, but what you feel. Dolmen is devoid of any soul, any passion. It feels like the product of burn-out and boredom halfway through development, as the game is pushed through the finish line.

A review code was provided by thepublisher for the purpose of this review.

Dolmen Review

結論

Dolmen combines Dark Souls and Space to create an uninspired and unbalanced mess that remains frustrating over its run-time. Even in it's best moments, Dolmen falls flat, offering little-to-no value for anyone willing to play it.

PROS

Some decent moments, I guess?

CONS

Terrible and clunky gameplay, met with unbalanced, artificial difficulty

Horrible visuals which look chopped together, like a collage of free assets

An uninteresting, painfully dull story that is devoid of any emotion

2.5

Reviewed on PlayStation 4