DreamThe game begins, as many do, with character creation. Our intrepid protagonist shall be called John Doe. Mostly because I was out of ideas and I was already using Teneb for another run, as you can see in the side.
While the game
does assign us a face, it is a generic one used by others, so in order to prevent confusion, I will use the following face instead:
Next we need to select three genes. These affect our stats. They each tend to affect stats in a specific way. Notice I said “tend”. You can keep reselecting the same gene for the same slot and it will change your stats. No, I have no idea how that works. Here are the final stats and genes.
And we finally get in the game proper.
This is the only time, I think, that I will show one of these tutorial popups. Some tutorial text may be present in a few other screenshots for this update, but not in these annoying windows. This one does contain a bit of Plot.
The Plot, and for this game it does need to be capitalized, is… well… complicated doesn’t even begin to describe it.
We stand in a field surrounded by giant runed obelisks with a giant glowing gate on the far side.
:
This place… Why does it seem so familiar?There are very few occasions where a character, and this may include the protagonist, will speak outside a dialogue. No matter what, the voice clips are always nonsense.
We near the gate. There is something lying next to it.
The corpse of our mentor. How did he die?
We step into the gate and go wherever it takes us.
If you play the game, you’ll find out that whenever you resume playing, you’ll always start in this place, regardless of how far along you are. EYE has no save system, instead it automatically tracks your progress. All dialogue seen above repeats, but when you go through the portal you’ll be taken to the beginning of the level you were in when you quit.
Exiting the CavesWe’ve just started, however, and thus end up in a cavern.
We can look behind us, and we’ll just see a plain cavern wall.
A few steps forward nets us a message.
:
Your Cyber Brain’s been severely damaged. I’m running the reboot protocols now.This prompts a tutorial for us to open our action screen. I might as well show it off:
You can bind these to the action wheel (brought up with C by default, though you can also bind these commands to various hotkeys) to use them whenever you need to.
Further ahead the commander calls us up again, as we look upon a host of dead Culter bodies, as well as a weapon: the Black Crow.
Armed, we continue through the poorly-lit cave.
As you can see above, our first enemy burst through a wall. It’s a Manduco, a monster of the MetaStreumonic Force we’ll be seeing a lot of. I tried to get a better shot of it, but the darkness got in the way. Next time I meet one, I’ll hopefully get a better picture of it. Manducos have two variants. One that has exclusively melee attacks and another that throws fireballs at random intervals. There is no distinction between either, from what I can tell, but both are easily dispatched.
Killing it also unlocks the Manduco Corpse research. I’ll go into detail about that later.
Why are there so many pictures of cave sections? Well, that is because levels in EYE are huge. Needlessly so. Later on I will skip most walking sections, but I had to convey how big levels have the tendency to be.
That is a long way up. You can actually activate the elevator from outside. That is a bad idea, since it means you’ll then have to climb that ladder all the way to the top. The elevator ride by itself is already pretty long.
We still have to climb a bit of that ladder once we’re off the elevator. Why couldn’t it take us to the top without a needless stop? Because EYE: Divine Cybermancy, that’s why.
Finally at the top. And midway through the level. I did mention levels were big, right? Anyway, meet Dutch. Dutch is a cool guy. In a game full of jerks, he’ll always be a welcome sight.
:
It’s good to see you alive, brother! At least you’re still in one piece… mostly.:
Bring me up to speed on the situation.:
You need to get out of this sector immediately. There’s an agent waiting to escort you further up ahead. We were supposed to rendezvous here, but he’s stuck behind some sealed door he’s attempting to hack. Unfortunately, the Federation is aware of your presence here and they’ve deployed soldiers to hunt you down. You’ll need to deal with them along the way.:
What should I expect?:
Just a small squad for now, but I wouldn’t underestimate them. There’s also a contingent of looters in the sewer tunnels you’ll need to take care of in order to reach the extraction point.:
They won’t be an issue.:
I brought along some firepower I figured you’ll need. The mobile armory’s deployed down the hallway. Arm yourself, then get to the extraction point immediately.:
You’re not coming?:
No. My orders are to get you armed and seal off the cave.:
Copy. Watch your back.:
Good luck, brother. May the will of the Secreta guide you.
The armory. Our one stop to get all the armaments we could possibly want. As you can see, we have a bunch of inventory slots spread across our armour. We are also wearing light armour, and carrying a Black Crow and some ammo.
This is my finalized loadout. A pair of CRON BK13 pistols (which I will soon abandon because I found out I dislike them), the LF Damocles energy sword (which will probably stay in our inventory for a long time) as well as plenty of ammo and grenades.
Scattered through nearly all levels are harmless animals. Take care not to kill them, as doing so reduces your karma, and that is a Bad Thing. As with anything in EYE, karma’s effects are not clear, but low karma seems to increase the rate at which mental problems manifest. Yes, dear reader, we can be afflicted with several problems. From attacking randomly, to hallucinating, to being paralyzed in fear.
That’s a long way down. Jumping will end up with us being a very dead Culter. We can slide down instead with no consequences.
The figures in the water are Federation soldiers. They are one of the main enemies of the game.
They look familiar, don’t they?
The Damocles in action. Melee weapons can block bullets by projecting an energy field. Once your energy bar is empty, though, it won’t do you much good to block. Killing anything with the Damocles causes them to explode.
We jump down that shaft and level up. We can also breathe underwater, being a cyborg, so we’ll use our little underwater experience to access the menu and level. Oh, accessing anything other than the main menu won’t pause the game, so you got to be careful where you choose to level or manage your inventory.
How we start:
And how we end up:
Those guys behind the weird seal things are looters. Looters are another of the enemies we’ll be facing. They like to swarm the player with pistols and SMGs, and can be quite lethal if you let yourself get surrounded.
This little, and hostile, drone is a Scrabal. It actually packs quite a punch is durable enough to be a threat. I actually got afflicted with bleeding (and my legs were crippled (crippled legs are something I’ll be seeing, and fixing, a lot as this LP goes on)). Bleeding can only be stopped in two ways: dying and maintenance. Maintenance forces you to stand still, but will fix any broken limbs and stop effects such as bleeding. It will
not restore health, so keep that in mind.
A close up shot of a looter. Looters have somewhat randomized appearances. Their headgear tends to be monocles,
pickelhaubes and afros.
We near the end! Just after this unnecessarily long bridge and a door!
Might as well show off one of the psychic powers we have.
The polyclone power spawns… well, clones. They are armed based on the user’s psy-power. I won’t be bothering with psychic powers, so at most I will pop this in tight situations.
Another level…
…and a locked door. You see, most things in EYE (and I do mean most things) have computer systems built in them. Doors, turrets, ATMs, people. And they can all be hacked… or hack you back. I’ve been hacked by an ATM once, embarrassing as that was.
You got four options when starting a hack: possess lets you see things as your target does, and even control them if they are mobile. Compromise is what you’ll be using most, as it opens doors, steals money, and so on. Damage causes the target to explode if it can. Things such as doors don’t. Siphon is useless and refills your energy bar (which regenerates by itself). We’ll go with compromise.
No matter what you select, you end up here. Welcome to hacking, a turn-based combat game inside a game. Attack compares your ATK with the enemy DEF and deals damage accordingly. Mask reduces the enemy ATK. Scan does the same, except for DEF. Shield raises your own DEF, while Overflow reduces your DEF to increase your ATK.
My strategy for hacking is pretty simple and works on anything I’ve encountered to date:
First, spam mask until the enemy ATK is 0. If they ever overflow, mask again. You can see what action the enemy is using in the little bars beneath the stats. Once the enemy has 0 ATK, spam overflow yourself until you are at a respectable number. Your DEF will go to 0, but that won’t matter since the enemy will have 0 ATK. Then just keep attacking until the enemy falls. If you get masked yourself, overflow back to where you were.
This door is not a threat though. It will just keep spamming attack no matter what, and at a very slow pace. See, hacking is fast, real fast. Actions have to be done fast because the game will just chain actions, which will be processed in a flash. This is the one easy hack in the game, and you should appreciate it.
Behind the door is another member of EYE, Jiang Shu
:
…There you are! Took you long enough to get her!:
Took you long enough to hack this door.:
Uh, well, the door had an extra security layer on it. I was almost done hacking it until you showed up. *cough* The hover transports are on their way here to fly us back to HQ. I was told this was a standard extraction, but it seems like something bigger is behind this.:
Why? Were you given other orders?:
Look, I’m only here to escort you back to HQ. Talk to the Commander when you get back. He’ll fill you in on the details. And here I thought you Culters were good at taking care of business. Yet, here I am looking after you and protecting your injured ass.:
You got a problem with the Culters?:
Let’s just say things aren’t so rosy between us right now. That’s all in the backseat, though, since we’ve decided to take the Federation head on. But we both know the Jians are the better half of the Secreta.:
It’s only a matter of time before the Secreta sees the truth.:
Yeah, yeah. Keep it to yourself. Heads up, the hovers are approaching.And so ends the mission, and this update.
I have no idea what the Klaadum’s ladder really is, but I suspect it to be a ranking system.
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Topic: Let's Play EYE: Divine Cybermancy - Part 1: RIP Mentor (ALSO DEAD) (Read 3331 times)