So I’m recovering from getting a tooth pulled. Sorry, “extracted.” It was “an impacted molar” and was “infected” so it had to go. High on Novocain, laughing gas, and painkillers, I’ve spent the past few days on my couch recuperating and recovering playing “Saros.” And it’s a game I quite like! I enjoy its art style, the avant-garde cut scenes, the colors of the environments, the tone, the vibes, and the acting. Hell, the controls and levels are an improvement over “Returnal” (although the story so far isn’t, and I’m near the end. Don’t see that turning around).

But the weapons on hand? I don’t like any of them. But I still like the game. Is that weird?

There are five weapon classes with three distinct options, so 15 guns in all (as far as I’ve unlocked), as well as blue meter specific super moves your arm cannon shoots out. And there’s literally only one out of each I actively look out for, equip, and want to use. Because the game is a little too frantic and based around dodging to effectively charge up, hold down, single shot, or keep track of spinning sawblades in enemies when there’s a thousand things on screen all moving around at once. Everything is trying to kill you, everything has to be parried or blocked or dodged, and the active reload is yet another thing sticking in the middle of my screen to pay attention to.

So, apologies to the charge handgun, and the ricochet handgun, and the shotgun that does no damage at any range, or the crossbow thing. If it’s not the smart bullet machine gun that just tracks enemies, I am not interested. Every great run has been predicated on that, and while I can use other guns, I just don’t want to anymore. It’s tiresome, and not a lot of fun. So thank goodness for the option in-game to just get weapon priority on whatever is already equipped because it would otherwise be a nightmare of re-rolling my gun options.

And as for the blue meter moves, if it isn’t the simple “press R2 explode a thing” ability called Prominence then I’m also not interested. I need all four of my fingers on all four of the shoulder buttons just to hold down L2 all the way to charge up a beam, fire it, dodge, and/or melee and shield? No thanks. Who has time for that bullshit? The game is better off just doing auto firing guns that auto target things, if it wants me to dance around the “bullet ballet” they keep offering me in every combat arena.

I really dug the first half of the game, but as I reached the endgame, I found my search for upgrades boils down to farming halcyon, running out of things on my skill tree to unlock, rerunning older biomes just to collect a few audio logs, and fighting increasingly difficult boss fights just to keep seeing the story sort of dissolve. Not a great second half.

But it’s still a good game I like! But not a GOTY contender, and it’s bereft of guns I like. Compared to any one “Ratchet & Clank” game? That shit had DOZENS of compelling, innovative, and extremely wickedly fun guns. What happened to this industry, man?

---

Image Credit: “Saros”