In addition to our main Game of the Year Awards 2024, each member of the PC Gamer team is shining a spotlight on a game they loved this year. We'll post new personal picks, alongside our main awards, throughout the rest of the month.
I don't have a ton of spare time to play games just for the fun of it, so when I do carve out a few hours of my evening, I want my actions to count towards something. With that said, my first encounter with Ultros' cycle didn't go down well.
Exploring the abandoned spaceship-turned-flourishing alien ecosystem known as The Sarcophagus for the first time was beautiful, enthralling, but also tough work. Figuring out platforming in any metroidvania can take some getting used to, but Ultros' landscape was so wild that it was sometimes hard to figure out which way was up—much less the right way to go. There were also angry alien critters around every single corner of the map, ready to whittle down my health one hit at a time. Needless to say, getting to the first boss wasn't easy.
Little did I know that fighting the enraged crustacean beast would be the least of my worries. I'd spent all my time gearing up for this moment, collecting food that I harvested from the ship to unlock different skills—drop kick, double jump, and a third attack to my finishing combo. But after I got my hands on a shaman (my prize for winning) after killing the beast, I was teleported to the beginning of the game and stripped of all my precious upgrades.
The prospect of starting again without all my tools and skills sucked, but with little other choice, I begrudgingly made my way through The Sarcophagus towards the next area of the map, ready to collect everything all over again. I carried on being grumpy until I came across something I hadn't seen before: a tiny plant that had sprouted from a rough patch of soil.
I had been so preoccupied with fighting aliens and trying to level up my skills that I had completely forgotten about my farming stint. Any time I saw a patch of soil in which I could plant a seed, I dug something out of my bag and planted it. I felt that being environmentally conscious in this alien ecosystem was the least I could do as I stripped the place of resources to boost my health and complete the skill tree.
The most infuriating part about Ultros gradually became something that I was most fond of.
Luckily, what goes around comes around, and the spoils of my farming stuck around no matter how many bosses I beat and cycles I began again. Over time, these small saplings turned into magnificent trees and tendrils that unlocked new areas of the maps and provided me with even more resources that I could use to strengthen my skills. As I explored more of the map, I found special seeds that, when consumed, would let me save one skill from being wiped at the end of each cycle.
Losing all my tools and skills every cycle was still a bit of a pain, but starting again started to suck less when I realised that sacrificing some hard work opened up new areas and even helped replenish the environment with more plants and habitats for animals.
The fact that the most infuriating part about Ultros gradually became something that I was most fond of is a testimony to just how fantastic this metroidvania is. The beautiful landscapes and wonderful music are all just bonuses that I enjoyed alongside the fantastic fights, fun platforming, and ability to persuade me that losing everything I spent an hour gathering is actually a good thing that'll help me later on in one way or another.
