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0 A new management sim hits the Steam store, and this time we will be punishing the damned in Sintopia. Where we take the role of overlooking the hellish realm for the big man himself. The game is out now on Steam for £29.99, with also a Deluxe Edition, that nets you the soundtrack and art book.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Gameplay
Sintopia splits has the player watching over two domains, the Overworld where the denizens called Humus live. And the Underworld, where you will punish – or, well, reform them – into better people. There is a story mode that will take you step by step on how to build an efficient hell. Players will get buildings that aid in dealing with one of the seven deadly sins. Most of your efficiency will be based on the roads and paths you create, since sinners will wander to the nearest building other-wise. You can sort this by building turn-styles and putting specific rules on them to stop certain sinners from going to the wrong punishment.
Imp are needed to actually run the punishments, and will need payment. The payment is easily gathered by the Humus while undergoing punishment, but make sure to keep an eye on outgoing earnings. At dawn a set amount will be taking, and if you don’t have enough your workers will strike. Well, until noon anyways. Now, the Overworld doesn’t have much for you to interact with beyond being able to kill Humus. You mainly do this by using spells, with Force Push being your starting one. Others will become available from two different sources, power shrines in the Overworld, or the upgrade spell book. With some basic spells being a zap of lightening and magma ball, or being able to summon a meteor.
The book and some more on the Overworld
The book in Sintopia offers more than the previously mentioned spells, it also offers better roads to speed up both Imps and Humus. To unlock them, the player will need to collect the in-game currency called Heroes. To do this we need to resurrect a Humus with low sin, and once they return above, a coin will be added. Imps who also gain experience from their jobs have a chance to gain a new trait that will grant them on specific tasks. Like taking breaks or a chance when dealing out a punishment.
While the Overworld is mostly tame there are ways to lose the world permanently. One of these which happened to me was by losing most of my Humus to a Zhumbie infection. Other than that you can get small rewards by taking out dens and breaking chests.
Graphics & Audio
While Sintopia has a very goofy vibe, it has some surprisingly high quality aspects to it. The in-game character art/portraits are well-designed, and the stellar voices suit the characters to a T. Lili has by far the best voice and character design. The music is also surprisingly good, and I expected it to be far goofier than it is. The fun still his in other areas though; the Humus themselves are super odd and cartoon looking, like puppets with broken backs and eyes of differing sizes, and I love the gaudy rag doll effect when killing them with a comically timed meteor or thunder strike.
Longevity
Sintopia has two other modes for the players to do, which will add to replay-ability after you beat the campaign. One being challenge mode, and the other the typical sandbox. In sandbox mode, you can modify setting or select some of the premade ones, so you can get more zombies or volatile magic. While looking at the setting when setting up a sandbox, there are role models that you can toggle boons from. Some listed, like Satan, who is already unlocked, but some are hidden. I am not sure how to unlock them as of writing this review. The game itself offers 74 achievements to get, which will also add a chunk of time to Sintopia. For anyone who is looking to 100% the game.
Final Thoughts
I enjoy the concept however, I felt that most of my time was spent too much messing around with roads and the turn-styles. With one glaring issue being setting rules for Humus’ to enter specific paths, but you aren’t able to actually stop them from entering your desired building. Well not without creating even more complicated routes. Being able to switch between both the Overworld and Underworld is interesting, but I wish there was a lot more to interact with in the Overworld. Like, actually moving the Humus to look around.
Sintopia can feel rather slow at times, especially when starting out a new world. But when it does get going it is enjoyable. There is a learning curve, that I usually struggle with when it comes to these types of games. And this time it is the aforementioned roads and pathways, so that I can separate Humus better when needing to cure specific sins. So I will be giving Sintopia the Thumb Silver Award. This is a game that you will need to have a little bit of patience with.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
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