Decent video games about space battles now abound – you can hack to death in Star Wars: Squadrons, taste the huge world of EVE Online, explore planets in No Man’s Sky, or invest in Star Citizen in the hope that someday it will go into release. But the developers of Chorus were not afraid of competition from well-known projects, betting on an unusual plot with an emotional storytelling, a vivid character and intense battles in outer space. The formula for success looks extremely simple, but this was really enough for the space shooter to bring a lot of positive emotions without the fly in the ointment expected by everyone.
Interesting, but in some places there is too much pathos
The author of the script for Chorus clearly knows his business – according to the plot of the game, it would be quite possible to make a good film or even a series of films, and the audience would definitely like them. At the forefront is a powerful organization called the Choir, which, under the guidance of the Prophet, systematically captures the entire galaxy. At the same time, the choice of the inhabitants of space is not great – either you obey or you die, and Nara, the main heroine of the project, after the leader of the Horus awakened her incredible abilities, became the main weapon of the cultists. She is confident, like everyone around, that if the entire galaxy is under the control of Horus, then there will be no more wars, devastation, hunger and other troubles.
But one day the cult units ran into a rather large planet, which is completely inhabited by living people – they refused to join the Chorus, for which Nara successfully destroyed them. Yes, one female warrior destroyed the entire planet – she didn’t even have to build the Death Star. And then the short-haired warrior realized that no Prophet was a virtue and the leader of the cult was not planning to save anyone – he was just a cruel tyrant who wanted to seize more territories with his paws. Disillusioned with the creator, the girl runs to the edge of the galaxy and begins to live with those whom she had previously actively and without a twinge of conscience destroyed by order of the Prophet.
But they don’t give Nara a chance to calmly rest from bloody battles, suppress feelings and atone for her sins – soon the warriors of Horus flew to her new friends, which means it’s time to awaken incredible strength in yourself, jump into a ship named “Forsaken” and blow up the former comrades in outer space. Yes, the plotline feels pretty predictable, but it is saturated with emotion and drama, which is a rarity in video games. For example, Nara first had to abandon her beloved ship for seven whole years, so that the Enclave would not understand that it was she who smashed their relatives and friends, and then returned for a military comrade-in-arms who did not really like that he was abandoned.
On the other side of the barricades, she is also not much favored – the members of the Choir, who previously considered Naru to be a faithful comrade, friend and mentor, now hate the girl, because she deserted the enemy, betraying the cult and the Prophet, who gave the girl such strength. The only thing that I didn’t like was the elaboration of secondary characters (there is almost none) and an excessive amount of pathos in dialogues, conversations and general narration. Sometimes I wanted to directly skip the scenes of heroic speeches, self-flagellation and mourning for the dead, but sometimes this cannot be done banally.
You’re going to die and that’s okay
If there are a couple of questions to the storyline, then they are not and cannot be to the gameplay – the process of battles is so good that you can make any space shooters using these templates without a chance of failure. Forsaken has three types of weapons (at first there will be only a simple cannon, and lasers and missiles will be added a little later), which must be constantly combined depending on the type of enemy. For example, it is stupid to shoot from a cannon – it overheats, and it is ineffective against ships with an active shield. Plus, you need to take into account the world around you, because crashing into obstacles is not the most pleasant experience.
We add to this arsenal Rituals are special skills of Nara, who gains skills after visiting rather narrow temples throughout space. There, the girl remembers her exploits, is sad, and then acquires new skills like teleportation behind the enemy’s back, which allow her to fight more effectively. But here there is an important feature of the game – you cannot thoughtlessly press the skill buttons, you need to think, evaluate the situation and opponents, use everything at the right time and with the understanding that some chips have their own cooldown. If you do not do this, then you will simply die – the enemies hit very painfully.
And although here one would have to complain about the too high complexity, in fact, this is not entirely true – the developers simply did not want to turn the Chorus into a one-button shooting gallery. In order for gamers to really understand the weapons of their sentient ship, use skills correctly and thoughtfully select weapons for an upgrade, the enemies in the game were made strong enough. They will not kill you directly all the time, so the desire to close the game and go to rest will not arise, but the opponents are strong enough for the gamer to start thinking, maneuvering between shells and shoot accurately.
The case when you shouldn’t rush
This space action, like most modern games, can be roughly divided into main story quests and secondary tasks. The former allow you to advance through history, learn important details and meet more and more often with the members of the Choir, and the latter, which surprised me most of all, was created more in order to reveal the lore of this fictional world. Only by passing sidequests will you be able to learn more about some of the secondary heroes, about the past of Nara, about the peculiarities of this galaxy, which is ruled by a cruel tyrant with a huge army of loyal warriors.
On the one hand, of course, this is a very correct approach – if you want to learn the plot as soon as possible and close the single-player campaign, then you can safely throw sidequests, because you can go through the game without them. On the other hand, in this case, the gamer does not receive a lot of valuable information, interesting facts and a general understanding of how this universe works, but since the quests are secondary, the motivation to go through them is extremely weak, and the game itself does not intend to push for this. It turns out a cool lore of the fictional world, which you may not recognize if you are in a hurry – I strongly advise against doing this, it is better to go through the story gradually.
Review
For fans of everything related to space, this game will be a real gift – both in terms of the plot and in terms of the visual design of the locations. The picture on the screen is really nice, although, of course, no one will let you fly from planet to planet in manual mode. The storyline is also not bad – it is a little drawn out, there are many overly pretentious speeches and dialogues, but the cut-scenes are beautiful, the main characters are well revealed, and the story itself causes only respect for the scriptwriters. And the icing on the cake – insanely packed with gunfights and effects gameplay, after which many games will look too slow and boring. Can you advise it? Of course!
✅ Benefits:
- a fascinating plot, worthy of a film adaptation;
- detailed study of locations in space;
- many secondary tasks that reveal lore;
- clear and simple control in battle;
- variety of enemies, weapons and upgrades;
- nice setting.
❌ Disadvantages:
- moments the plot is rather pretentious;
- minor characters are poorly revealed;
- to understand the lore, you need to go through sidequests.
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