"Let's tell a story. Something not necessarily original, the usual space station where something happens, the crew mysteriously disappears and someone is forced to go check it out. But let's do it in a different way, in an adult way. Let's put depth "Let's put conviction, let's create phenomenal graphics and find some great actors."
This was probably what the developers of the English indie team Fallen Leaf told themselves when they thought about what their debut title would be like. Fort Solis. In fact, if the game's narrative assumptions cannot be said to be original, despite a plot intended to surprise but for reasons different from what one would expect, it is the staging that changes everything and gives value to the game. experience.
How much value? How long? And how exactly? We tell you everything in the Fort Solis Review.
History: There is life on Mars
The year is 2080 and maintenance engineer Jack Leary is stationed on Mars when he receives a distress call from Fuerte Solís mining station. He immediately confronts her colleague Jessica, but it seems that his routine will be altered by this episode: there is little to do, you have to take a vehicle and reach the settlement to understand why no one responds to verification calls. .
Once there, Jack discovers that the security systems have locked the doors and he has to invent something to get in, so he cautiously begins to walk through the corridors and search the rooms of the station. looking for some clues about what happened. Meanwhile, she is collecting documents and videos from scientists working at Fort Solis who appear to have been experimenting with a new type of soil with extraordinary properties.
The pace of the game is slow., as well as the walk of the protagonist, who actually walks inside the stage and cannot move any faster: the authors decided that this was how they wanted to tell their story and create certain atmospheres, and it must be admitted that the final result is actually very interesting from this point of view, although impractical in purely video game terms.
However, the wait is excellently rewarded by magnificent interpretation by Roger "Arthur Morgan" Clark and Julia Brown, as well as obviously by Troy Baker, who give their respective characters great depth and bring to the screen situations and sensations that we have rarely seen expressed in this way within a video game.
Gameplay: walking simulator or something else?
There are no fights in Fort Solis, nor sophisticated mechanics: from this point of view the Fallen Leaf title It looks a lot like a walking simulator, although there are several quick events and small puzzles to solve that add at least a touch of interactivity to the experience. The circuit is the classic one, with the collection of passes that allow progressive access to new areas of the station.
Too little? Certainly the authors' intention was to tell a story and do it well, without worrying too much about everything else. Therefore, it is not surprising duration It is limited to a campaign that we completed in just over three hours, although we would have appreciated the possibility of returning perhaps with the race unlocked, to recover that information and objects that were denied to us in the first race.
Once we reached the end credits we were left curious to understand whether the success or failure in the most important Quick Time events had produced substantial differences, perhaps even ramifications that, however, we imagine would have been widely publicized by the team. development. which, however, was not the case. Ultimately, this is what Fort Solis has to offer: a short but intense trip, which you will love for how it is told but which you may hate for all its playful limitations.
Furthermore, the fact that the game is only in English, without even subtitles in Spanish, can above all discourage marginal exploration, done according to the tradition of documents and video testimonies that will help us reconstruct the order of events and discover what really happened between those steel walls, until we reach a destabilizing epilogue in many ways. .
Technical production: great spectacle, few frames.
If narrative constitutes the main element of Fuerte Solís, it is safe to say that the technical sector provides it with a solid foundation. It's certainly unusual that an independent development team could bring to the screen graphics like that, but qualitatively we are on the same level as The Callisto Protocol, perhaps even better in terms of animation, although the visual variety of Striking Distance Studio's work is inevitably superior.
The incredible thing is how these valuable assets, these highly detailed and beautifully animated motion capture characters, are put at the service of extremely mature and convincing direction, who, especially in key scenes, demonstrates a deep competence in understanding how certain sequences are shot in a video game. Frankly, he reminded us of The Last of Us Part 2.
The careful use of lights, the construction of the plane, the essential but significant sound design and even some elements of the interface, such as the color that already characterizes the locked or open doors from a distance, avoiding us if we reach them. to discover, are all aspects that underline great care in the creation and that it would be good to find in a greater number of productions.
Then, just like what was said in the Immortals of Aveum review, here too the massive use of the sophisticated effects of Unreal Engine 5 translates into performances not exactly exciting- 60fps mode doesn't hit this target at all except when you're locked in small rooms, and 30fps mode is also unstable and inconsistent.
Conclusions
Tested version PlayStation 5 digital delivery Steam, PlayStation Store Price 29,99 € / 24,99 € Holygamerz.com 7.0 Readers (20) 6.7 your voteFort Solis is a narrative experience that we found truly fascinating, characterized by very competent direction, very solid performances and a technical sector in Unreal Engine 5 that surprises with the quality it is capable of expressing, although in terms of performance the results leave a lot behind. what to say. be desired. The adventure progresses at a slow pace, although it ends quite quickly (perhaps a single session will be enough to reach the end), so you may not even notice the drops in frame rate, while the limits of such a gameplay essential will fade away. It will be clear to you whether it is desired or not.
PRO
- Narrative section of great depth.
- Extraordinary direction and interpretation.
- Spectacular graphics in Unreal Engine 5
AGAINST
- Extremely limited gameplay
- Obvious performance issues
- Very short
