Videogaming can be broken down into a series of tropes. Some of these things are marvellous new ideas that stick with us and form genres of their own while others seem like a great idea at the time. This isn’t news and I think we can all agree that not everything will stay for the long haul. This being said, I have a bit of a personal issue with a trope that’s stuck around longer than I believe it should have, and this comes down to anything with, “auto,” in its name. As a gamer, I want to game. I don’t want my game to play itself for me, it completely defeats the object. I dislike “idle” just as much for the same reasons. I don’t want to idle anything, thank you very much, I want to play my game. This being said, I give a begrudging pass to some of the auto-battlers that have been showing up recently. Running around while the game does all the killing for you removes some of your agency but things are just fast-paced enough to make for fun play and it’s all more about your setup than anything else. This is where Necromantic, today’s game comes into play.
Necromantic is, in essence, a more in-depth version of games like Vampire Survivors, or at least it will be when it’s finished. This is a title currently sitting in Early Access over on Steam, so we’re not expecting all of the bells and whistles that we would from a finished article. If you’ve played Vampire Survivors you’ll have a very good idea of the premise. If you haven’t there really isn’t too much you’ll need to learn to get into the swing of things. Whether you’ll be any good at it is another matter.
You’ll take on the role of a young student at the Valorborn Academy. This school is entirely safe for kids and isn’t at all surrounded by murderous creatures wanting to rip anything that comes near them limb from limb. You’ll be sent out to murder said beasties while completing various tasks set for you by the school. While you’re on a run you’ll get absolutely mobbed by swarms of enemies. This is as much a game of evasion as it is attack and getting surrounded is an extremely bad idea. The longer you survive the more difficult things get as harder foes get thrown into the mix until you either complete your run or, (far more likely,) get overwhelmed and sent back to the school.
As I mentioned earlier all the attacking is done for you, you just need to face in the direction you’re hitting and the game will do the rest. As you kill enemies you’ll collect experience and level up. As you level you’ll gain the ability to choose from a series of auto-firing abilities. All of these abilities can be chosen more than once and are, therefore, upgradable. This is a game where the strategy comes in perfecting your build and using the abilities along with the extremely important evasion I mentioned earlier to survive.
You’ll find chests dotted around the map and opening these will reveal books. At the end of each run these books are converted into world experience and this can be used to level up your stats. You’ll get a report card and each stat is shown as a grade. Sensibly, the higher the stat the better the grade and therefore the better you are doing at the school. You’ll also find other collectibles which can be given to other students. I’m assuming these will become playable characters if you can complete their quests so it’s worth talking to each of them. This also throws some RPG elements into the game that I really like.
What I don’t like is your starting character. This is a personal bugbear but I never play melee builds when I’m given the choice of ranged combat. In this instance, your starting character is a sword-swinging type. On one hand, I can see why they’ve done this. In Necromantic you need to get used to having lots of enemies in your face at all times, so having to get up close and personal is a good learning tool. As someone who is much happier lobbing death from a distance, though, this is a playstyle that takes a bit of getting used to. I’ll be wanting to unlock some ranged characters as soon as possible so I can get back into the zone I’m usually happiest in.
At the moment Necromantic is fun but feels very basic. There isn’t a massive amount of story yet, so we’re picking things up as we go, and although I can see quite a lot of potential for depth it’s nowhere near there yet. This currently feels like any other pretty standard auto-battler with nice graphics and a few bells and whistles. You certainly can’t expect to be wowed by anything new in the game’s current state. This being said, this isn’t the finished article or it wouldn’t still be in Early Access.
I think the best way to sum Necromantic up is to call it a nearly but not quite scenario. Here we have a game with decent graphics, a burgeoning storyline and quest system, and easy, functional controls. After this everything is okay. Okay, however, is all it is. It’s functional fun that isn’t doing anything wrong but isn’t raising any bars either. If you like auto-battlers and you’re looking for a new one I think you could do far worse than get involved in this; plus this is the perfect time to jump in and see how things expand. If you don’t go in expecting the next best thing since sliced bread and just want to have a bit of fun I think you’ll have an enjoyable experience. If you’re even thinking about making comparisons just stick to Vampire Survivors for now, you’ll probably save time and energy.
This preview is based on an early access copy of the game provided by the publisher.
