It’s always fantastic to try a new IP in an established genre, in this case, an RPG. The Technomancer is set in the distant future on Mars where three or more factions are basically vying to survive in a steampunk setting of a world going terribly wrong. Water is power and that’s what the fight is over. You play as a special type of enforcer called a Technomancer who has great combat skills along with a mysterious ability that basically has electricity flowing through your veins. Your very first mission is to discover the technomancer secret and from there the adventure flows.

The narrative and whole storyline is one of the best parts of this game as it’s complex, involved and frankly does need a lot of getting your head around to understand. If you stick with it though it’s well worth the effort put in. However that only goes so far as the voice acting and facial animations, and characterizations of the main protagonists are basic at best, awful at it’s worst.

What is also wonderfully conceived, is that there are three distinct playstyles available to the garner in how you want to play the game. A Warrior-type who wields a long pole much like from medieval Japan, a Rogue who is armed with a short sword and a gun, and the Guardian who holds a shield and mace, are all a few button presses away no matter where you are.

On top of these is the technomancer ability which to be honest does nothing more than power up the weapon you choose to use to inflict heavier damage or shoot electricity at your foes direct. It’s a wonderful system to encourage different play styles but sadly only two of them, the Guardian and Warrior, seemed effective.

I say effective with a liberal amount of sarcasm though as the main issue with the game is the gameplay and combat balancing. Despite you being some special “super being” trained in combat, your skills, even on the easiest setting, hardly inflict any damage, yet even the most basic of your foes can kill you with two swipes. You, on the other hand, have to at least land around 7 to 8 blows even on easy. It’s even worse come the first boss fight, that no matter how I tried, I couldn’t find any other way to damage it than rush in, spam the hit and the health packs and hope.  The combat just seems completely unbalanced and ultimately not fun because of it.

The mechanics of how to play are actually quite solid, even elegant at times, but still a little clunky to get from one style to another or dodge out the way mid animation of your weapon swing.

Much like the gameplay the graphics and settings are a bit all over the place. There is a distinct, last gen Bioware RPG feel to it all, but sometimes the cinematics and artwork put into the environment excels in its delivery. Back to the first boss, I admit I was wide-eyed, mouth agape with the creatures entrance to the proceedings, and even a little “ f@@k me” came from my lips. But then the average gameplay and graphics brought me back down again.

Like most good RPG’s there is a wealth of upgrades available but limited amount of customization. The problem is though all the upgrades seemed ineffectual no matter how much you concentrate on one thing.

What the Technomancer gave, it soon took away!

The Technomancer was played on the PS4 but is also available on Xbox One and PC
Review Code Supplied by Spiders