Dolmen – Review

I’m going to say something that will only result in a barrage of angry comments: I’m sick of games that follow the Souls template. That isn’t meant to be a dig at FromSoftware. They can continue to create momentous titles that redefine what a AAA game is. I’d never have a quarrel with Elden Ring. However, the series has left an indelible mark on a wide range of games, from Metroidvanias to platformers. I just want to get somewhere without cruelly dying, dumping my belongings on the floor, and having to trudge back to retrieve them.

Dolmen, you’ve arrived at an inopportune time. If there was ever a symbol for my point of view, this is it. It’s a Souls-like game that crams as many of the genre’s trademarks as it can, but doesn’t spend nearly enough time surrounding it with an enjoyable game.

We were given a lot of hope during the setup, which is possibly why we are so dissatisfied with the ultimate result. There are all the elements of a B-list Dead Space in this sci-fi monster movie. We’ve reached the stage in human history where we’re colonising planets for resources, and Revion Prime is the most recent to be strip-mined. It includes dolmen crystals, a valuable mineral that acts as a link between worlds. It’s required for interstellar travel, which is a valuable commodity in today’s society.

It’s also valuable for space spiders, be-tentacled monstrosities, and other creatures from H. P. Lovecraft’s subconscious. Isn’t that typical? Reality cracks open and the hosts of hell strike just as you locate a material crucial to science. When this happens, you’re the one they contact, and your mission is to clear them out while collecting the valuable dolmen.

It’s a throwback, but it’s entertaining, and we were on board. The graphics were also fine: come near enough in the dark and you’ll notice flaws that belie the game’s single-A rather than AAA roots. However, there’s a strong sense of immersion here, with gloomy, Giger-esque hallways crawled by crawlies. Massive Work Studio has a tendency for hiding foes in corners and dangling from the ceiling, forcing you to check the entire environment before you feel safe enough to enter it.

Because you can only carry two weapons in your build, combat is a mix of melee and ranged. Switching between them becomes second nature in this game, comparable to The Surge or Hellpoint. As an enemy approaches, fire your weapons, then switch to your blades and clubs when they get close enough.

However, none of the combat seems enjoyable, making you wonder how a game like this ended up on store shelves. Take, for example, the energy system. So many basic elements share energy: you need it to heal, attribute elemental damage to your strikes, and even fire your pistol. However, it is eaten up so quickly that we spent the majority of the game with it depleted. An empty energy bar eliminates half of the game’s activities, which is crucial for its enjoyment. We felt like we were tying our shoelaces together and toying with them.

A syringe-like battery can be used to recharge the energy, although it’s strangely hamstrung. It takes a few seconds to use and can be interrupted, making it effectively useless in frantic boss fights. It’s a recurring problem. Dolmen makes the error of mistaking difficulty for unenjoyable hurdles much too often.

The combat is also brutal. It has its moments: the bosses, in particular, are Returnal B-sides, but they’re nonetheless amazing, forcing you to use melee-only or ranged-only loadouts or bullet-hell the arena so you spend more time dodging than responding to the attacks. In general, however, the battle keeps tripping over itself.

For a game that focuses on battle, the melee is incredibly flashy. You can be happily chopping away at an enemy without realising you’re striking them. And parrying is even more mystically unknowable: even if you connect, it’s a coin toss, and there’s no way of knowing if the miss was due to the creature or attack being unparryable, our failure, or a glitch. It’s a complete puzzle.

Killing creatures rewards you with an unusual crafting component that is discarded upon death, which brings us to the meat of the Souls comparisons. If you have enough material, you can make a surprisingly small number of weapons and gear sets. However, because adversaries have elemental resistances, you’ll need a wide selection of them. That would be OK if the resources weren’t so few that you couldn’t keep a whole stable of resistant armour sets, for instance. And if you find something better, you’ll have to start looking for mods all over again because there’s no tearing and sharing or disassembling of gear to transport mods to your new, hard-won item.

All of this is done on some hideous interfaces that have clearly fallen to the bottom of Dolmen’s priorities list. The introductory character creation screen, in particular, gives out the worst possible first impression.

Dolmen has a good deal of substance to it. There are three biomes in total, each with its own cast of bosses that are undeniably the game’s highlights. However, there is a nagging sense of recurrence, owing to the game’s corridor-like linearity. Don’t get us wrong: Dolmen enjoys the odd hidden tunnel and a little extra height, as the walkway criss-crosses the ceiling, but the overall construction is linear. That linearity is a little unexpected when you consider the genre’s forefathers. We were itching to get off the beaten route and do something different, like unearth a hidden boss or uncover ancient lore. Dolmen, on the other hand, is hesitant to let you go off the beaten path. It’s a gruelling, unenjoyable ride.

And you’ll be riding the same sections of the rollercoaster over and again. Death, as is common, will force you to replay the identical sequences you discovered after the last beacon. But did we really need to fight each boss three times in order to earn the parts for the current pistol or blade? It’s pointless drudgery.

We’re aware that our Souls tiredness has tainted the review as we type. Coming off of Elden Ring is definitely not the best way to start a tribute act. Dolmen, on the other hand, bears some of the guilt because it recognises the genre’s components but not what makes them enjoyable. When developers are given the option of being fun or getting in the way, they frequently choose the latter.

“Dolmen?” is something we desperately want to write. More in the vein of ‘Dullmen,’ but it would be undervaluing some excellent worldbuilding and a chilling sense of dread. Dolmen, on the other hand, does not help itself. It’s devoid of soul and engaging combat, and there’s a massive gaping hole where they should be.