The netcode for this game is downright diabolical in execution. Playing as part of a team however is another thing. Joining other players is less of an issue and this plays out like what you would expect. The only issue with this is that the fragments are found so few and far between, with enemies being particularly stingy between the nearest checkpoint and the boss that you need to face. To summon others, you need to collected Dolmen fragments which are dropped randomly from enemies. To play with others, you use a terminal next to a boss room or in your ship, which is used as upgrade hub of the game. Multiplayer has also been affected by this.
Instead, the checkpoints in Dolmen seem cruelly removed from the players grasp, often leading to multiple deaths before they are found off the beaten path. In the From Software games, these marked progression as a reward for defeating a boss or for traversing a difficult area. However, unlike the bonfires in Dark Souls, these are often hidden away from the main path in harder to reach places than they should be. These are represented by beacons dotted around the landscapes and act almost exactly like bonfires. Take for example the checkpointing system. Unfortunately, Dolmen is one of those games that takes what has worked previously and adds a caveat in a bid to try and make it seem different, in that “legally distinct” kind of sense. While this is a good framework to use as the basis for your own title, it’s a risky endeavour to borrow from one that relies so much on the balancing of these gameplay elements, especially when some of these have been pushed by the wayside for more recent improvements. Beyond the use of an underutilised setting for this type of game, you could argue that the systems and concepts have been lifted wholesale from From Software’s epic fantasy. Here we have an unashamed clone of the Souls formula, complete with stat scaling, exploration-based action gameplay, punishing challenge levels and sparse checkpointing. DYNAMIC COMBATįor a game like Dolmen, which is a fledgeling console effort from Brazilian developers Massive Work Studio this could be a recipe for disaster.
Hindsight is also now a problem, From Software and the fans have come to realise and appreciate the less stellar aspects of the older games in the series as quality-of-life improvements replace them in the name of fun and redistribution of priorities. Suddenly, all Souls-Borne style efforts are being compared to the incomparable, despite the intimate threat of a challenging dungeon crawler still being appealing, setting your game in these confined walls just doesn’t have the same impact it once did. So where does this leave the competition? It’s a tricky thing.
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