The First Descendant Beta Gameplay Hands-On Impressions
Oct. 27, 2022The First Descendant Beta Gameplay Hands-On Impressions
The First Descendant Beta Gameplay Hands-On Impressions– In this The First Descendant Beta Impressions, I’m going to break down the action RPG’s gameplay mechanics in terms of the features that work best and those that require improvement. If you are unsure about this sci-fi looter shooter and you are curious to see how the game feels like as a whole, then this article is for you!
The First Descendant is being developed by NEXON Games Co., Ltd. and published by NEXON Korea Corp. It will be launched on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. No release date has been disclosed.
The First Descendant is a sci-fi looter shooter,Action RPGset in the Ingris Continent where humanity continues to battle for their survival against the invading faction known as the Vulgus. They initially interacted with them about a century ago together with another group called the Colossi who annihilated almost everything. But mankind remained steadfast in their fight against these races until they were mysteriously gifted the Ancestors’ power, allowing them to evolve and harness powerful abilities to defend themselves.
You take on the role of a Descendant who goes on missions to learn more about the Vulgus and Colossi in the hopes of one day, destroying them for good.
The game will have you go through a series of quests, moving from one section of the Ingris to the next. You are given instructions for eliminating targets, defending beacons, and surviving for a specific period of time. In doing so, you also learn about the lore, which is delivered in a linear way. Think of it likeDestiny 2’sseasonal pass model where the narrative is integrated into new activities.
The story is presented in a simple manner to show aliens invading the world so mankind is doing everything in its power to retaliate. What you won’t find here, at least not at the moment, is a narrative-heavy looter shooter with a well-developed plot. Rather, the action RPG focuses much more on the gameplay and combat, which we will talk about next.
The First Descendant’s gameplay flow is similar to Destiny 2 in that there’s a headquarters in Albion for you to purchase and sell gear, upgrade mods or runes to change your playstyle, enhance your Master Rank, and so on. In the beta, there are two types of quests available to players, namely, World Missions and Void Intercept Battles. World Missions will have them jump from one part of Ingris to the next to complete a series of linear objectives as they fight against the growing Vulgar horde.
On the other hand, Intercept Battles are big boss fights against the Colossus. These activities reward components, which will help unlock other characters or Descendants. What’s important is to first link Amorphous Material that can be obtained from Consecutive Survival or Defense runs. These are a part of World Missions and are unlocked the moment you progress further in the story. In the game, you can freely swap between Descendants like in Warframe.
This means that you are able to participate in high-level missions even if your character’s level is low but remember to approach targets cautiously since your stats have not been fully developed. Another drawback is that not all of your skills will be readily available if you were to switch to a level 1 Descendant.
As I was going through the missions, however, I couldn’t help but think if players will eventually see other types of objectives like assisting a cargo or participating in additional content such as PvP or raids. This is due to the repetitive nature of the linear missions, which will always have you slay targets, defend a position, or survive. It would also be nice to go against additional factions besides the Vulgar and Colossi to increase the variety of enemies to face.
In the beta, there were 10 Descendant classes available where 3 of them were automatically accessible right from the very beginning. For the other 6 though, players had to collect materials such as reinforced cells, relics, catalysts, and kits to research and eventually unlock them. Every character has set stats including overall defense, max shield, shield recovery out of combat, max MP, and max HP with four active skills and a single passive skill. I will give an overview of some of them starting with the first 3 Descendants.
You have Viessa who has the ability to freeze targets in place and knock them back with her ice skills. She is a feisty and highly mobile character but her defenses and HP are lower than average, making her susceptible to taking huge damage. The same goes for Lepic in terms of having low HP but instead of using magic to stagger enemies, he specializes in throwing potent grenades and shooting them with his bionic right arm. These grenades will either deal explosive damage or pull targets together, which can be followed through with devastating gunshots.
And finally, there is Ajax who is the tank because of his ability to conjure shields and a hypercube that absorbs damage. He can also effectively charge into groups of enemies by jumping high in the air and crashing into them.
Next are the Descendants you unlock through progression and research. First is Bunny who is a beacon of energy. Because of her impeccable speed and ability to utilize electricity, she can easily electrocute foes to deal burst damage and damage over time. The drawback to using her is that she is one of the most glass canon characters in the game. Second is Gley who draws strength from her own HP to become stronger in combat, making her a high-risk, high-reward Descendant to play.
In switching from one Descendant to the next, you will immediately feel the differences in their playstyles. With Ajax, for example, it is acceptable to shoot without moving too often given the shields he summons. But if you were to retain this technique with say, Viessa, you will die within a couple of seconds since she needs to move quickly to avoid taking hits. As such, the game is really good at enticing you to try out the other classes because they provide the right amount of variety and depth thanks to their abilities.
The only concern I have is how grindy the gameplay loop of acquiring Descendants will possibly be in the actual launch compared to the beta, considering that this looter shooter is a free-to-play title. It would certainly be nice to have an area, which would let players test out every character before farming for their respective materials. Will it also offer alternatives for those who intend to play The First Descendant for free? And how big of an impact will the shop play in this aspect of the game?
I am also hoping that we will have the chance to tweak parts of the characters’ outfits by changing the color of their shoulder pads or pants since there are no armor distinctions in the beta at the moment.
The First Descendant has a Master Rank, which is account-based. Completing missions will grant you experience points to improve your rank. Doing so will increase the capacity of your Weapon and Descendant Runes as well as your inventory. Upon reaching the character level of 40, you have the option to perform a “Descendant Reset”, effectively resetting your level back to 1 to obtain Arche Crystals.
This is similar to Warframe’s Mastery Rank System because the crystals you receive will allow you to assign symbols to rune slots in order to decrease their capacity. As a result, you get to modify the playstyle of your characters even more. The difference is that there won’t be special fights before increasing your rank. Instead, you will simply have to approach The Ageless Reach machine.
Speaking of runes, these are the mods you equip per weapon type and Descendant to change the way you play the game. You can even enhance it but doing so will also increase their capacities so reshuffling may be necessary to equip them. For weapons, you have the storm and torrent runes, to name some. Storm rune effects are applied to assault rifles, submachine guns, and handguns whereas torrent runes are beneficial for the performance of machine guns, tactical rifles, and beam rifles. Each of the rune types has capacities to take note of. One example of the symbol on rune slots comes from the Descendant Rune.
As mentioned previously, matching a rune with the same shape will reduce its cost by half, rounded up, just like in Warframe. For instance, if you have the Last Joker (HP), which costs 5 capacity, it will be lowered to 3. An improvement that NEXON Games can implement is to allow players to equip multiple runes at the same time rather than having to select every slot, only to select the mods one by one.
When it comes to loot, there is a great deal of weapon variety. The First Descendant lets you equip and swap between 3 weapons of your choice at any point in time, making for an extremely fun experience. What’s more is you won’t have to fight over them amongst party members since they are instanced. It is also worth remembering that the equipment’s quality depends on the mission’s level rather than your character’s.
In terms of combat, The First Descendant decently delivers, from the exciting and distinct feel of every weapon type to the way in which enemies react when getting hit even by the characters’ abilities. Shooting them down while simultaneously utilizing your skills feels satisfying because of the hit registration, making them react accordingly. The pace is also another positive aspect of the game given how snappy the gunplay is together with the fluid movement of the Descendants.
Despite these, there are a couple of things that can be improved upon such as the sloppy melee move and the absence of a cover system. The melee action of punching or slashing a target using a dagger feels like an afterthought since it is not as effective so a followthrough or combination of moves should be added. Additionally, and apart from Ajax’s shields, there is no way for you to crouch behind objects to avoid taking damage, instead, you are left with no choice but to blitz from one space to the next, or roll out of enemy fire.
Speaking of traversal, you are not limited to executing double jumps since you have a grappling hook at your disposal. This lets you reach incredible heights, however, there is no forward momentum upon reaching the top, making it feel awkward at times. You do get to where you want to go as you are surging toward the edge of a cliff, for example, but you are not propelled forward as intended. As such, you end up falling, so to improve the grappling hook, it ought to not only have a longer range but also become physics-based. You do have access to two charges though, so you can execute two grapples in quick succession.
Lastly, matchmaking needs to be restricted to players engaged in the same missions. What’s happening now is that groups are formed based on their location in Ingris rather than the quests they are doing. It also isn’t clear if enemy scaling is dependent on the number of players in a group or not.
In terms of visuals, The First Descendant features decent ruinous areas and decrepit buildings to show the state of the world and its people but it does feel empty at times. The Descendants themselves look interesting and different enough except for the frayed textures of their hair. The same could be said for the NPCs in the hub. To make matters worse, they not only move unnaturally while speaking but they also look very stiff, which does not sync well with the voice acting.
Voice acting is not special by any means but what’s irksome are the juvenile battle cries of the Descendants themselves, making it sound repetitive and “so annoying” within a few minutes. Hopefully, players will have the option to turn this off, and recordings of thoughtful conversations will be available in the full launch. Meanwhile, most of the sound effects of the guns and skills are distinct and impactful, which elevates the intensity of combat encounters, especially when you are being swarmed by the Vulgus.
From a technical standpoint, the beta was ripe with performance and framerate issues as well as inconsistent lags even when the area was not populated by foes. Despite the October 24 patch, these continued to be persistent but the Vsync feature was at least been added.
The First Descendant Beta is a good entry point into the world of looter shooter action RPGs because of its good weapon and rune variety and a number of different classes to choose from. However, a lot of its features need to be improved when it comes to combat, visuals, audio, and performance. If you are a Destiny 2 or Warframe fan, or if you have recently started playing looter shooters, then you may want to give this free-to-play game a shot when it comes out soon on multiple systems.
What did you think of this The First Descendant Beta Gameplay Hands-On Impressions? What aspects of the action RPG did you like and dislike? What are the things that can be improved upon? Let us know in the comments below! Be sure to drop by ourTwitch Channelif you have questions about the game. For more reviews and previews, check outResident Evil Village: Winters Expansion Review – A Hauntingly Good REVisitandGod of War Ragnarok Gameplay and Hands-On Impressions – First 8 Hours.
Reiku
Writer at Fextralife. I enjoy playing RPGs, narrative-driven games, and platformers. Outside of gaming, I like watching meaningful movies and reading sci-fi and dystopian books.
