Gestalt: Steam & Cinder Review – Running on Embers

Gestalt: Steam & Cinder is a game I’ve been keeping an eye on for a few years now. I’m always a sucker for metroidvanias, and Gestalt specifically drew me in with its smooth 2D animations and overall detail. Yet, after waiting through many delays, the final product is rather disappointing.

A Story That Burns Out Far Too Quickly

The world of Gestalt: Steam & Cinder is a desolate place, with humanity driven back into a singular city known as Canaan. Humanity is able to hang on, but peace seems like a far off dream.

You play as Aletheia, a mercenary that has no love for the leaders of Canaan due to their lack of action many years ago. On a simple request to rescue someone, she ends up triggering an ancient device that sets her on the path to revealing the truth behind the city and events taking place in the shadows.

While a fine setup, Gestalt does a horrendous job of actually telling its story. The game will constantly cut to a couple of characters having a mysterious conversation during area transitions, saying little and killing the pacing.

Even worse, very little actually happens for most of the plot. Part of this is down to how short a typical playthrough is, with my initial run clocking in at under four hours. This was including some sidequesting and item collection, so I’d imagine this might end up being shorter for some players.

Short games are fine (metroidvanias are often good for speedrunning.) The issue with Gestalt: Steam & Cinder is that it clearly wants to tell a more intricate story but doesn’t have the runtime to support it. This is especially felt during the last hour, where a bunch of things happen with no real buildup before the game just ends abruptly.

Serviceable, If Uninspired Gameplay

Actually playing through Gestalt is a slightly better experience, even if it does very little new. Aletheia has access to sword combos, a gun for limited ranged attacks, and a dodge with invincibility frames.

Later upgrades add in some extra attacks and movement options, though you’ll be sticking with basic attacks most of the time. Enemies attack quickly, giving you no time to use most of the extra attack options before you have to dodge. In fact, outside of some boss fights, I basically never touched any of the heavy attacks that are unlocked.

Speaking of bosses, they’re very undertuned. They only have a handful of attacks, and most of the time you can just take a few hits and keep attacking. Bosses also rarely mix things up as the fights continue, leading to many feeling stale.

Exploration also suffers from a lack of any interesting things to find. You’ll collect accessories and money, though none are necessary due to the low difficulty. Some skill points are earned via exploration as well. However, you gain so many points from levelling up and completing basic “kill X number of enemies” quests that this has little impact.

In general, I just didn’t find any area particularly interesting to explore. You have a standard moveset that doesn’t offer any interesting options, and areas that are serviceable while giving you very little reason to explore.

Gestalt Looks Great, Except When It Doesn’t

As I mentioned at the start, Gestalt’s visuals were the main thing that initially caught my eye. Aletheia is fluidly animated, reminding me of Alucard in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Enemies also have smooth death animations, though their attacks often look a little choppy.

What makes this smooth animation strange is that the rest of the game is often quite static. Outside of the occasional animated decorations, areas can come across as unintentionally lifeless when compared to Aletheia.

This also applies to the character portraits during dialogue. Despite being stuck on a single expression, they have blinking animations for some reason. Combined with the rushed plot that goes nowhere, and cutscenes just lack anything to engage the player.

Gestalt: Steam & Cinder Review | Final Impressions

I went into Gestalt: Steam & Cinder with some hope despite the delays. I came out feeling like I’ve played one of the more forgettable metroidvanias in recent years. It’s far from the worst I’ve ever played (the short runtime actually helps it out in a way). I just can’t see myself recommending this unless you’ve absolutely exhausted the best this genre has to offer already.

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Gestalt: Steam & Cinder was reviewed on PC using a copy provided by the publisher.

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