Here’s Why The Technomancer Is An Underappreciated Mid-Tier RPG Gem

As budgets of triple-A titles spiral out of control, mid-tier budget games have sadly somewhat fallen by the wayside; there is now a vast rift between independently-developed games and triple-A titles with little room for games that fall in between these categories. The truth is, the market has changed. Games that cannot be made on an indie-sized budget, yet don’t have the sales power of triple-A blockbusters to make a hefty profit, are sadly trapped in the middle ground, in limbo. To say I’m a fan of of B-grade games is a huge understatement; I’m unabashedly, unapologetically a passionate defender of fun low to mid-tier budget video games, a layer of game development that has more or less been stripped away by today’s bloated AAA industry. Personally, there is something innately ingrained in my very core to give every title a chance, particularly the scrappy underdogs that don’t get the enormous marketing push of the big publishers. The poster child for games of this ilk is Deadly Premonition, a critically divisive, shoestring-budget, open-world survival horror opus, which is legitimately one of my favorite games of all-time. Its critical reception was so divisive that it’s been featured in the Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition for "Most Polarizing Survival Horror Game." If you haven’t had the opportunity to experience it, I implore you to change that as soon as you reasonably can, especially if you’re a fan of survival horror. To me, Deadly Premonition was a startling discovery, a sort of personal breakthrough; it was an astonishing reminder of just how amorphous and characterless blockbuster video games had become and opened up my eyes to just how creative and downright charming a small team with a focused vision, working under the constraints of a tight budget, can come up with. There really hasn’t been any other title that has left me grinning from ear-to-ear like a silly Cheshire Cat than Access Games’ ludicrously insane and heartwarming horror cult hit — it’s a game full of heart, which is something that is lacking in most AAA titles. Formally, it’s difficult to really define ‘mid-tier’ titles in a traditional sense as the explosion of independently developed games has blurred the lines between the various tiers within gaming. In my opinion, a mid-tier developed title is a game that has been developed by a small team (around 50 people), has the scope of a big-budget title and has been made with a much tighter budget than the triple-A blockbusters. Hello Games’ latest space sim No Man’s Sky falls into this category, but with its huge marketing push and economic support from Sony I consider it as more of an exception to the rule. I do, on the other hand, consider French developer Spiders’ The Technomancer to be one of the best examples of a modern console mid-tier game, and one of the best mid-tier games I’ve played since their last RPG Bound By Flame, which I was also super enamored with. The Technomancer may not be one of my favorite games of all-time, but it is a genuine RPG treat that reminds me a lot of Deadly Premonition’s B-tier underdog fighting spirit. Set in a dystopian future during The War of Water, players step into the shoes of an aspiring Technomancer, a sort of mage-warrior who is able to harness the power of destructive electrical Palpatine-esque powers. These fearsome warriors are trained from a young age to fight, much like Jedi, and their powers are amplified by cybernetic augmentation a la Deus Ex. The game takes you through a diverse selection of locales from the beautiful Arabian Nights-inspired merchant city of Noctis, to lost and forgotten paradises, to cities lost under the ice, to dusty shanty towns hidden within the recesses of Mars’ austere embrace. Overall, it's a fantastic experience, and here are a handful of reasons as to why I believe The Technomancer is a coarse, but underrated RPG gem. 1) Its Narrative Is Rich And Intelligent Spiders have done a great job building an intelligent narrative that draws upon science fiction authors such as Frank Herbert, George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. The game is narratively rich with complex themes that deal with human survival, evolution, cybernetic augmentation and the problematic intersection of religion, politics and power. The very currency within the game is the life-force of living beings; every time you defeat an enemy they are simply knocked unconscious and it is up to you whether you want to kill them in order to extract more dollar from them, or alternatively, let them live to fight another day. It’s a game with a unique voice and vision that is unfortunately let down by some subpar voice acting. Nonetheless, if you can see past the hit-and-miss voice work, there is a very powerful story to be discovered that is steeped in thought-provoking social allegory and political injustice. 2) Its World Looks And Feels Genuinely Compelling The game’s unique Mars setting is possibly one of The Technomancer’s strongest attributes. Each of the cities you visit look incredibly different from the last with subtle cultural and architectural touches and astonishing hand-drawn propaganda murals strewn across the city’s walls that really help to bring the plight of Martian day-to-day existence to life. The poverty stricken slums are carefully injected with the despair and the hopelessness of the downtrodden; one memorable quest that you pick up during your time in the slums tasks you with finding a mother’s missing daughter who turns out to be a kidnapped prostitute — twist is, she hates her mother… who actually beats her. Yeah, pretty dark, right? Truth is, the game is full of little moments like these, and the locations that they take place in are wonderfully realized. 3) It’s Challenging Okay, so its combat is no where near as balanced and elegant as say, Dark Souls III (my personal Game of the Year thus far), but it does do a lot of things right. For starters, the combat is pretty varied; three primary combat stances can be swapped in and out of on the fly and each of them feel distinct. The Rogue stance makes use of your Rogue skill-tree points and focuses on agility, dodging and controlling the pace of the combat with your trusty pistol. The Warrior stance makes use of your Warrior skill-tree points and focuses on mobility and sweeping high-damage attacks that are perfect for swarms of enemies. Finally, the Guardian stance is your sword-and-board style defensive posture that focuses on blocking and parrying to inflict heavy damage in response to your attackers. It’s a solid system that builds upon Spiders’ previous RPG Bound By Flame. Like the Souls series before it, The Technomancer’s combat is mostly built around repetitive encounters which I’m sure may turn many players off. Enemies respawn in the same positions every time you re-visit an area which is something that may irk some players, but for the most part, the multi-layered and varied combat is engaging, smart and intuitive enough to get you through some of the recycled encounters that the game throws at you. It can be incredibly sadistic though, even on the Normal setting. It’s the sort of game where it's much better to start out on Easy… I know I did. 4) It’s Ambitious (Particularly For A Mid-Tier Game) Credit where credit is due; The Technomancer has some super lofty ambitions and really wants to go toe-to-toe with the big-budget releases, and I’m glad to say that its efforts are mostly on-point. It’s an endearingly crafted RPG with plenty of deep systems; meaningful dialogue options, multi-layered combat, karma, companions, companion quests and crafting and it’s all wrapped up in a memorable steampunk Martian setting. Some may call it derivative, and to be honest it’s hard to disagree. Raven Software’s 2010 FPS Singularity was extremely derivative, but that didn't stop it from being one of the most fun FPS titles I played from the last generation; derivative doesn’t always necessarily mean it’s bad per se. If you have an itch for a meaty RPG adventure, look no further than Spiders’ The Technomancer. It’s clever, it’s thought-provoking, it’s full of heart and it’s a whole lot of fun. It may not be one of the best RPGs of the year, but I’ll be damned if it’s not one of the most memorable.