RPGWatch Feature - Vaporum Review

Myrthos

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Forgottenlor checks out the dungeon crawler Vaporum.

Since the success of The Legend of Grimrock in 2012, many indie developers have tried their hand at making a first-person grid based dungeon crawler with varied success. While Vaporum might look like a Grimrock clone at first glance, it does enough different to stand on its own feet. First is the rarely used steampunk setting. In addition, Vaporum has a story, and the kind of storytelling it employs was clearly inspired by System Shock and its successors (like Bioshock and Prey). Also, in Vaporum you don't control a party, but a single character and that character's abilities are determined by his rig, a kind of exoskeleton. Lastly, Vaporum has an optional pause system, which lets you tackle combat in either real time, or real time with pause. While doing some different things is fine and good, executing them well is the key. Vaporum is clearly developed with a limited budget, but when one takes that into account it generally has well designed, if not incredibly original elements.
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Danke for another great review, Forgottenlor!! :) :)

I have this game wishlisted and I surely will get it up ahead.
 
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Thanks for the review, Forgottenlor!
I'm sure this is a solid game and I might give it a go if it makes its way into my library somehow, but the ol' jiggy dance around enemies makes this an instant no-go for me.

I hope ya'all see the light someday that is glorious turn-based! :p
 
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Thank you for the great review, Forgottenlor!

One little thing. You cannot change the exo-rig after you first choose one. :) You can change different armors that in a way align with the three basic rigs (excluding the assault rig), but are not the rigs themselves.
 
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Thank you for the great review, Forgottenlor!

One little thing. You cannot change the exo-rig after you first choose one. :) You can change different armors that in a way align with the three basic rigs (excluding the assault rig), but are not the rigs themselves.

As a player I thought that the armour carried the passive bonuses that sort of defined each rig, whether that was a bonus to attack, integrity, fumium, energy, or whatever else. I was not aware that the initial choice of rig was still important once I switched out the armour. Does the rig still maintain a passive bonus once the armour is changed out? Or is there something else which differentiates each suit?
 
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Thanks for the review, Forgottenlor!
I'm sure this is a solid game and I might give it a go if it makes its way into my library somehow, but the ol' jiggy dance around enemies makes this an instant no-go for me.

I hope ya'all see the light someday that is glorious turn-based! :p

Well I'm not sure if you can tolerate real time with pause, but the combat was for me much less stressful than in Legend of Grimrock and other similar games. Its really executed well, and is not some half-ass pause system which many games have.
 
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As a player I thought that the armour carried the passive bonuses that sort of defined each rig, whether that was a bonus to attack, integrity, fumium, energy, or whatever else. I was not aware that the initial choice of rig was still important once I switched out the armour. Does the rig still maintain a passive bonus once the armour is changed out? Or is there something else which differentiates each suit?

Basically, the rig serves as class selection in other games. So yes, if you equip different armor the basic bonus from the rig is still there. But imho that is the beauty of Vaporum RPG system – almost every build is viable. :)
 
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The gear is most definitely hard to initially get your head around, but once you decide on a build that works for you, the gear available makes total sense. I would advise against trying to be jack of all trades, rather, specialize in something and you'll have few issues.
 
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