The feeling of freedom that some distinctly arcade titles offer is truly priceless, especially if the video game in question allows us to step into the shoes of a reckless athlete in an extreme sport like downhill. After all, in the past, intellectual properties such as Cool Boarders, SSX and, why not, even the video game series dedicated to the legendary Tony Hawk, have had their deserved success thanks to the presence of arcade elements that have made the gaming experience for sure. less realistic verses, but undoubtedly damn fun with tricks and speed at the limits of any law of physics. Well, if you love this genre of games, keep reading our review on descenders for PS4.
Having clarified that we are definitely a long way from a simulation title, Descenders is a title developed by the independent team of Ragesquid, which already appeared on PC last year, which promises to offer the world of downhill racing within reach of DualShock, with what looks like a small open world to ride on a bike full of races, daily challenges, free rides and sponsors, all by launching at extreme speeds along procedural paths full of obstacles and ramps that invite the most incredible performances.
Descenders, the triumph of the arcade soul
Starting Descenders, the game immediately catapults us into a sort of tutorial, where you can learn all the main commands to ride your mountain bike. THE backbones (R2 and L2) to accelerate - read pedal - and brake, while the right analog it must be used to load and jump along the ramps with a fairly natural and intuitive movement, instead with the left analogue we can indulge ourselves with flips of all kinds, which increase in their spectacularity in relation to the time in flight after having launched into a jump. All here, or at least enough to start playing, to the point of finding ourselves in a sort of valley that represents the main hub of the game.
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By pressing the "Option" button anywhere on the hub, the screen returns all game modes, that is "New Session"To start a career,"Career-Plus session"To freely select one of the 4 game worlds without having to switch between the others (unlockable after obtaining 100.000 reputation points),"Freeride"To run a circuit with rules set by us (but in any case edited in a procedural sense by the CPU),"Daily Challenge”Circuits similar to career ones, but with only one chance, one Multiplayer and finally i Bike Parks, authentic amusement parks where you can indulge yourself with imaginative obstacles and tricks.
By starting a new session, we will kick off our career with the first circuits. Each circuit is built in a procedural way, so we will always have a new route at each race, which is processed in a long loading phase, where it is possible to distract (at least) with a series of data on the run, like our sponsor (initially we will be poor and alone), our reputation score to be increased thanks to speed and tricks , and the plus objective of the race, that is a sort of challenge beyond that of reaching the finish line, such as never stopping pedaling, exceeding 65 km / h, performing a certain number of stunts and so on.
With a game like Descenders, it's easy to recall other extreme sports titles like we did at the beginning of this review, but the thought goes to the series of Trials, a title that is not at all simple. In terms of challenge, this Descenders is far simpler thanks to its arcade soul, but also by virtue of a series of elements that make it particularly simple, such as the possibility of going off the track without being excluded from the race, dirt roads that there they fall to the ground only if we hit a tree or gigantic boulders, all to the advantage of well-supported game speed thanks to the lightness and versatility of the engine. Unity.
But if you think you are invincible you are wrong: Descenders gives you four lives available, every time you fall one of these lives will be stolen. After those you have to start the whole career all over again! But don't despair, items earned and reputation points won't go away. All this reminds me of something ... did anyone say Dark Souls?
The procedural scenarios are nice, although you will soon find yourself hating long loading times, while the plus challenges will start to get quite repetitive. However, the latter have the ability to strongly influence the race, for example, if I never have to stop pedaling I will never have to detach myself from R2, perhaps even reaching the finish line without performing tricks. Each challenge won gives you extra lives, reputation and items to completely change our garage gear, so it's definitely worth it. In addition to these bonuses, there are also the skills offered by the three different teams, which will substantially change the properties of our athlete or of the next circuits.
By managing to make our way through the various circuits of the map proposed in our career, we can choose which direction to go to reach the extremes of the same map, which correspond with the last race, presented by the game as an end-level boss. With so much of a giant ramp and a kilometer jump over the railroad that not even an experienced Clark Kent. Let's admit it's really fun.
This being brilliant in some small things allows Descenders to give several hours of carefree fun, without expecting too much. Yet, in the intentions of the developers it is clear there is something more, which, however, did not go as it should.
Descenders, what could have been
A Hub that looks like an Open World, but that in reality has no real challenges and not even much to explore, a poor variety of objectives and a multiplayer that, at the time of this writing, was practically deserted ... so we reserve the right to express later a more complete opinion on Descenders' online.
In short, the level of challenge is not very high, despite the game physics will try not to make you overdo it, and a greater variety would certainly have raised the bar. Technically, the music is nothing memorable, while passing over some pop-up effect, Unity defends itself very well without particular frame rate drops, contrary to what was done on PC a year ago.
Descenders should be enjoyed as a small indie pastime, dedicated to those who love the downhill genre, but also to all those who were thrilled to play a purely arcade title without understanding anything about this incredible and amazing extreme sport. Net of the defects represented, we are sure that the guys from Ragesquid already have an excellent basis for a next chapter.
Descenders is also available for PC, Xbox One and you can pre-order it here for Nintendo Switch.
