Superfuse Early Access Review

Jan 08, 2024

Synopsis:Superfuse is a comic-book-styled hack'n'slash ARPG with a rich and accessible skill customization system. Craft unique skills from a huge array of powerful fuses, select one of three classes and embark on this journey alone or with up to 3 friends. When humanity needs hope, be the hero!

Reviewed on: PC (Intel i5-9400F, @2.90GHZ, RTX 2060, 16GB RAM)

Developer: Stitch Heads EntertainmentPublisher: Raw Fury

Often Superfuse gave me the impression of running a bumpy track. I was practically gliding in parts, mainly as I mowed down enemies using abilities I felt I had practically designed myself. But then you hit the bumps and have to adjust your stride as you encounter some systems surrounding the combat in Superfuse. I successfully adjusted my stride and ultimately enjoyed my time with Superfuse, and I look forward to watching it grow through Early Access. However, it doesn't come as a full endorsement just yet, as some of the bare surrounding systems may lead some players to trip.

As an Enforcer, you are dropped into the game on the asteroid mining colony Eros. As your title of Enforcer suggests, you have been given powers by the 'Gods' to quell rebellions and put a stop to the Corruption, which has inexplicably found its way to the asteroid. Without further ado, you must get to work to fight against the corruption and uncover how it came to have such a hold on the asteroid. The story content available at this point is all good. It was interesting to uncover the audio logs and trace them through the asteroid's dungeons, even if this comes at rare junctions between the fighting. Superfuse also successfully creates an interesting human post-earth setting that, for an ARPG, is a welcome change to the set dressing from the recognised dark fantasy.

Though, of course, as an ARPG, that also means that the gameplay loop is your main reason for clicking play, and from my view, it is the best aspect of Superfuse. Mowing down various enemies always felt satisfying and lively, made better by your control over how you chose to get the job done.

For each ability you have in Superfuse, you have 'fuses', which are an extra kind of loot that can be dropped and allow you to change your abilities as you see fit. For example, my primary attack was a Lighting Bolt, but early on, I unlocked a Split fuse, which split my lightning bolt into three different bolts to send forth, significantly increasing my area of effect. From there, I added more critical chance to the ability and changed between having the bolts pierce through enemies or ricochet between them to further my group's damage. Changing fuses is also simple and is done at any time in the menu, so if you are in a new dungeon and your previous plan could be more effective, you can change it up on the fly. The implementation of the fuse system seems to be just as effective as the developers were hoping, and in the endgame will give an extra level of freshness as you routinely change it up. The only downside I found to this system, at least in the current Early Access content, is that it indirectly encourages you to put all your eggs in one basket, and for most of my over 8 hours, I was spamming the one bottom to success. Though this becomes less of a problem the further you make it in the game and have more slots and power to play with, which scales as you level up.

Alongside the fuse system, you also have the typical talent tree, which allows you to unlock new abilities and spec into some passive buffs and a gear game to manage your build further. Each of the three classes has three different talent trees that can all be specced into at the same time, though in the current build, each has empty rungs that haven't been implemented yet. Despite this, the combat and build-making systems in Superfuse feel complete enough that this portion of the current build fulfilled me.

Moving past the combat is where some of the bumps start to arise in Superfuse. The quest system in its current iteration is quite bare, and while I picked up several quests on my first visit to Eros town, after finishing this first batch, I only had the main quest and one other quest to keep me entertained. This became a problem because there were sections and dungeons of the map that you had to run through to get to your next quest with no particular reason for being in that area. This also meant that later sections of the current build your levelling up ground to a halt. Your inventory also felt markedly small and filled in a matter of minutes, and without a reason to go back to town naturally through quests, you had to disrupt the gameplay loop if you wanted to vendor off the items.

There are also other little annoyances in the current build of Superfuse; the pathing can feel awkward, clicking on items and enemies can feel imprecise, and some little but consistent bugs mean that the experience is hampered.

I enjoyed my time with Superfuse because it has the core combat loop secured, and its fuse system is the driving force behind some fun and meaningful changes to how you approach combat. Some systems that aren't directly tied to the combat could use a few more finishing touches for the experience to be more consistent and engaging. Depending on the player, you might get 8-12 hours of fun gameplay in there if you are happy to breeze over the small bumps, but others may be better waiting until later in the Early Access period before jumping in.

(Superfuse code provided for review)

[He/Him] Freelance writer and video games enjoyer. Despite disliking cats as a child is now controlled by one. When not writing or gaming, he is likely reading the latest Star Wars novel.

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[He/Him] Freelance writer and video games enjoyer. Despite disliking cats as a child is now controlled by one. When not writing or gaming, he is likely reading the latest Star Wars novel.