Superfuse - Superheroes Meet Diablo Meet Borderland ARPG

[cyborgboy95]

https://www.superfusegame.com

Spoiler

ABOUT THIS GAME

Superfuse is a hack-and-slash, Action RPG with the ability to hyper-tailor your power set based on your playstyle. Created by a passionate team of devs with a dedication for customization, Superfuse’s tech tree is as deep as it goes.

Personalize your power set and play solo in campaign mode to uncover the secrets of the Corruption and the Gods — or cooperate in 4-person multiplayer with friends to demolish hordes of grotesque creatures, hulking abominations, and larger-than-life bosses that have stepped from the pages of comic books.

When humanity needs hope, be the hero!

• Build your play style — Choose from 5 character classes then fuse multiple superpowers to build a unique playstyle using the deep and expansive skill tree system. Reallocate and redesign your powers strategically to counter powerful bosses. The same character can feel wildly different in other hands!
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Loot makes the world go around — Optimize your perfect hero with powerful weapons, hi-tech armor, and boosters. Slay monsters and villains to collect an endless supply of loot with randomized stats. Make your hero more powerful, trade loot with friends, or sell it to earn credits for the items you crave. There are hundreds of items across the character classes, and even color options so you can slay in style!
  
  
• Play solo or cooperatively — Play the campaign solo offline or build a hero for online PvE drop-in/out co-op campaign modes. Tackle Superfuse’s challenges solo or together and mix and match your classes to create the perfect team. Rise to the top of the leaderboards to rule the Superfuse universe.
  
  
• Fast-paced, heart-pounding combat — Hideous fleshless beasts, slithering ooze creatures, and superpowered spandex-clad foes await your fury! Battle against hordes, bosses, elites, nests, and more in your fight for the future.
  
  
• Procedurally generated levels — Never fight the same path twice with dungeons that reshape themselves every time you play.
  
  
• Travel across the solar system — Spanning multiple planets, moons, and planetoids, Superfuse's epic quest travels to futuristic cities, corrupted lands, and treacherous dungeons. Discover hidden areas packed with lore and valuable treasures to sell, trade, or increase your power.
  
  
• Fully-voiced, story-driven campaign — Uncover a hidden conspiracy among the echelons of humanity and an alien menace on a dark comic book adventure packed with twists and turns.

Humanity escaped the dying Earth with technology funded by the corporate elite. We spread across the solar system but, as the centuries passed, the billionaires that saved mankind retained their stranglehold on our lives. While most of us barely clung to life, the wealthy lived in luxury, extending their lives and augmenting themselves with superpowers. They made themselves Gods.

When the putrid beasts and terrifying shambling monsters emerged, we dubbed this new threat "The Corruption". Once again, our self-appointed Gods intervened and, in their image, they created Enforcers. Once-regular people were granted superpowers to fight The Corruption and became the fists of the Corporatocracy. Even now they patrol the solar system at the behest of their creators.

You have joined the ranks of the Enforcers and must do whatever is needed to maintain order and ensure humanity’s future. Welcome to the fight!

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

interested

 

[Aemar]

Same.

 

[Fedora Master]

Superheroes AND Borderlands?!

 

[kangaxx]

Cyberpunk looking aesthetic as well. Will follow the thread and see if it looks any good.

 

[JarlFrank]

Diablo-like?

How is that genre still alive, they all play the same.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

I don't get it. Your "superhero" looks like the most lame ass generic bottom rung Z-list superhero you could possibly imagine seeing in a comic book. It's apparently superhero themed, but the only way I can actually tell that from watching the IGN preview is it informing me it's superhero themed as opposed to it looking like a superhero thing.

I don't really get collecting loot in a superhero game either. I mean, I get it, they're making a hack and slash like Diablo, and Diablo has loot, so this too will have loot. But look thematically makes sense in Diablo. It's doesn't thematically make sense in some superhero thing...unless that superhero thing is back in time in some fantasy setting like Diablo. Superheroes don't go scrounging around super villain lairs and bases for better superhero costumes and weapons.

Here's the weird thing. The power customization thing, that kind of makes me think of creating a character in Freedom Force. That's cool. So maybe this Superhero Diablo game pulling from Freedom Force inspiration? If it is though, they seem to have left out the cool gameplay stuff that made that game feel like a superhero thing, like how if you character is sufficiently strong enough they could do things like lift cars and use them as weapons. Instead, gameplay wise, this seems to just be doing what Diablo does, with a comic booky coat of paint over it and a sci-if looking setting as opposed to a medieval one.

Also a little surprised you only seem to be controlling one character. I know, in Diablo you only control one character. But Freedom Force, X-Men Legends, and the Marvel Ultimate Alliance games have you controlling four. Seems since superhero teams are such a big thing, and the only other superhero games similar to this all let you control a group, that having a group you could switch between on the fly would be a good way to separate this from the pack of other Hack & Slash games. In comparison to those other superhero games, and something like the recent Lost Ark, the superhero attacks don't exactly scream superhero to me; what was shown in that preview looks pretty low key in comparison to a lot of other stuff.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

This just looks like a flashier Hero-X. You'd think with how popular superheroes have been there would be an attempt at something more interesting, but somehow we're just repeating things that have been done twenty years ago. I guess creativity really is dead.

 

[Peachcurl]

Diablo-like?

How is that genre still alive, they all play the same.

That's true for many sub-genres. Novelty is a strictly limited resource.

 

[JarlFrank]

This just looks like a flashier Hero-X. You'd think with how popular superheroes have been there would be an attempt at something more interesting, but somehow we're just repeating things that have been done twenty years ago. I guess creativity really is dead.

Yeah I'm not a fan of the superhero genre, I even outright dislike most capeshit. But I've waited for a proper superhero RPG for decades, because it has so much potential.

Imagine a CRPG with detailed character creation similar to how you assemble your own superhero in GURPS Supers. You could pick custom powers and gain more character creation points by picking disadvantages too. Something like Daggerfall's character creation except with way more options.

But such a superhero RPG doesn't exist, despite the huge potential and the huge popularity of the genre.

 

[lukaszek]

southpark did it!

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

This just looks like a flashier Hero-X. You'd think with how popular superheroes have been there would be an attempt at something more interesting, but somehow we're just repeating things that have been done twenty years ago. I guess creativity really is dead.

Yeah I'm not a fan of the superhero genre, I even outright dislike most capeshit. But I've waited for a proper superhero RPG for decades, because it has so much potential.

Imagine a CRPG with detailed character creation similar to how you assemble your own superhero in GURPS Supers. You could pick custom powers and gain more character creation points by picking disadvantages too. Something like Daggerfall's character creation except with way more options.

But such a superhero RPG doesn't exist, despite the huge potential and the huge popularity of the genre.

Ask, and ye shall receive. You have precisely described Freedom Force.

 

[Sykar]

They had the best villain: Nuclear Winter!

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

This just looks like a flashier Hero-X. You'd think with how popular superheroes have been there would be an attempt at something more interesting, but somehow we're just repeating things that have been done twenty years ago. I guess creativity really is dead.

Yeah I'm not a fan of the superhero genre, I even outright dislike most capeshit. But I've waited for a proper superhero RPG for decades, because it has so much potential.

Imagine a CRPG with detailed character creation similar to how you assemble your own superhero in GURPS Supers. You could pick custom powers and gain more character creation points by picking disadvantages too. Something like Daggerfall's character creation except with way more options.

But such a superhero RPG doesn't exist, despite the huge potential and the huge popularity of the genre.

Ask, and ye shall receive. You have precisely described Freedom Force.

Yeah, Freedom Force has an Advantage and Disadvantage system similar to what NEO Scavenger would later do, (with more options) and what Daggerfall had done. You can change the properties of attacks, so for example a punch could do piercing damage as opposed to blunt damage. It lets you select from multiple visual hit effects on attacks. You can also craft your own moves by mixing and matching all the different properties a attack can have.

The only big drawback to Freedom Force's character creation system though is creating original characters clearly was not meant to be a main feature despite all they put into it. And there's no visual customization at all, so if you want to make a new character and not have them look like default generic superhero they didn't use, one of the main superheroes that's in the game, or like guy in suit you'll have to just make your own mesh. The lack for any kind of visual customization was really odd for a 2002 game, especially since you've got to know people are going to want to try and make their favorite comic book characters...could've been a selling point.

This game doesn't seem to have as deep of a character system as Freedom Force despite looking like it's built around it.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Freedom Force is a great game, but it has two problems. You either need to have the skills to make your own meshes, animations and skins, or you need to download premade ones off the internet somewhere. And the latter has its own problems, especially if you want your own character and not some random comic character from the '60s. The second problem is that you're basically limited to random skirmishes once you've beaten the campaign, and the campaign doesn't give you that much freedom in using your own characters.

 

[Modron]

They had the best villain: Nuclear Winter!

Fixed that for you.

 

[gurugeorge]

I don't get it. Your "superhero" looks like the most lame ass generic bottom rung Z-list superhero you could possibly imagine seeing in a comic book. It's apparently superhero themed, but the only way I can actually tell that from watching the IGN preview is it informing me it's superhero themed as opposed to it looking like a superhero thing.

I don't really get collecting loot in a superhero game either. I mean, I get it, they're making a hack and slash like Diablo, and Diablo has loot, so this too will have loot. But look thematically makes sense in Diablo. It's doesn't thematically make sense in some superhero thing...unless that superhero thing is back in time in some fantasy setting like Diablo. Superheroes don't go scrounging around super villain lairs and bases for better superhero costumes and weapons.

Here's the weird thing. The power customization thing, that kind of makes me think of creating a character in Freedom Force. That's cool. So maybe this Superhero Diablo game pulling from Freedom Force inspiration? If it is though, they seem to have left out the cool gameplay stuff that made that game feel like a superhero thing, like how if you character is sufficiently strong enough they could do things like lift cars and use them as weapons. Instead, gameplay wise, this seems to just be doing what Diablo does, with a comic booky coat of paint over it and a sci-if looking setting as opposed to a medieval one.

Also a little surprised you only seem to be controlling one character. I know, in Diablo you only control one character. But Freedom Force, X-Men Legends, and the Marvel Ultimate Alliance games have you controlling four. Seems since superhero teams are such a big thing, and the only other superhero games similar to this all let you control a group, that having a group you could switch between on the fly would be a good way to separate this from the pack of other Hack & Slash games. In comparison to those other superhero games, and something like the recent Lost Ark, the superhero attacks don't exactly scream superhero to me; what was shown in that preview looks pretty low key in comparison to a lot of other stuff.

I was initially hypnotized by the rather cool-looking power customization, but I agree with your qualms and JarlFrank's comment. I'm cautiously optimistic that this might be a decent ARPG, but it really doesn't look very superhero-ey.

It's weird to me, given how popular capeshit's been for what seems like ten billion eternities now, that developers haven't capitalized on it more. I always remember how City of Heroes (perhaps my favourite game of all time, relatively speaking, and certainly my favourite MMO ever) had a HUGE initial uptake (for a brief few weeks IIRC, it was actually the second biggest MMO at the time, before WoW hit). There's obviously a market for good superhero games out there somewhere, in some sense. But apart from Cryptic (seemingly accidentally, as it turns out) knocking it out of the park with their first MMO, with Freedom Force and (arguably) Troubleshooter gamely flying the flag in the single-player area, we haven't had as much top-notch stuff as the genre deserves.

I can understand why developers might be allergic to superhero MMOs (travel powers shrink space psychologically, making a rod for developers' backs in terms of sheer environmental acreage that has to be made and filled with content), but surely with single-player games or lobby multiplayer games (maybe Warframe could be considered a vaguely superhero-ish candidate there), we ought to have had more and better by now? Are they just too much hard work?

Colour me perpetually baffled on this topic.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

The only thing I can think of is either the developers, or the publishers, have this stupid idea in their heads that the only way they can make some superhero game is if they have a known IP from either Marvel or DC. This seems to happen with other stuff too, like sports games, and wrestling games. It's a weird way of thinking given how many video game series are a mix of things taken from movies.

It's kind of funny you don't have a bunch of original superhero games coming out from the different big publishers; they're in a better position now to create new superheroes than any comic book company given how few people even read comics today, and superheroes have been going pretty strong on film for the last 13 years now.

 

[JarlFrank]

I guess there was Prototype, which was kinda sorta GTA but your dude has superpowers. It sold decently as far as I remember. Well enough to warrant a sequel.

 

[gurugeorge]

The only thing I can think of is either the developers, or the publishers, have this stupid idea in their heads that the only way they can make some superhero game is if they have a known IP from either Marvel or DC. This seems to happen with other stuff too, like sports games, and wrestling games. It's a weird way of thinking given how many video game series are a mix of things taken from movies.

It's kind of funny you don't have a bunch of original superhero games coming out from the different big publishers; they're in a better position now to create new superheroes than any comic book company given how few people even read comics today, and superheroes have been going pretty strong on film for the last 13 years now.

Great point there, yeah, I think that must have something to do with it. Some kind of weird, timid deference or lack of confidence.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

I guess there was Prototype, which was kinda sorta GTA but your dude has superpowers. It sold decently as far as I remember. Well enough to warrant a sequel.

Yeah, but I wouldn't even say that's a superhero game. You could easily take what that game is doing and do it like a superhero game, like that Avengers game Crystal Dynamics made could've (and should've) been ripping it off, but you're not really a superhero in Prototype, and even just aesthetically you don't even really look like a superhero in that game. I mean, yeah, you've got superpowers, but it's video games, you probably have more characters that basically have superpowers than don't. Like Doom Guy has superpowers. There could be a Doom or Duke Nukem third person shooter where you're able to run up the side of building, throw cars around, and grab missiles out of the air like in Prototype, their Hulk game, and in Crackdown and I don't think it'd really be outside of the realm of someone might think those characters should be able to do in a game. Think Doom Guy getting a grappling hook you could even have him swing around like Spider-Man and be keeping with what came before.

There were a few different open world games were you've got superpowers around the time of Prototype, you mostly play a badguy in them outside of Infamous where you could pick between being good or bad.

As far as video games and movies are concerned, superheroes may as well just be an aesthetic. Which is kind of what I find so odd about this game: Its aesthetic isn't even classic superhero...at least from what you can see of the player character in the IGN preview. That character in the preview just kind of looks like some Borderlands guy. He seems to just be wearing blue jeans and an armored vest. And like, you know, Wolverine would sometime just wear jeans and a tank top when he got into fights with whoever, and it was cool in the comics to see the character in something other than his superhero costume; but he also had a superhero costume he wore when doing superhero stuff too. To me the character in the preview looks less like a superhero than the Hellgate London classes or XCOM units wearing their Team X looking Personal Armour.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

I guess there was Prototype, which was kinda sorta GTA but your dude has superpowers. It sold decently as far as I remember. Well enough to warrant a sequel.

I believe that came about because when the developers were making their Hulk game, they found the rampage mini-game they had more fun than the rest of the game and decided to make a game around it. So in a sense its not entirely removed from the main Marvel-DC ecosystem.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

I guess there was Prototype, which was kinda sorta GTA but your dude has superpowers. It sold decently as far as I remember. Well enough to warrant a sequel.

I believe that came about because when the developers were making their Hulk game, they found the rampage mini-game they had more fun than the rest of the game and decided to make a game around it. So in a sense its not entirely removed from the main Marvel-DC ecosystem.

But it is weird we never really got original superhero games coming out of that same kind of thing. Although I think part of it was they wanted to do their own original thing too...and Activision let them. But like, take Activision's Marvel: Ultimate Alliance series. People liked those games. They didn't particularly need Marvel to continue making more of those though. They could easily have had Raven or Vicarious Visions make some "spiritual successor," seemed like studios liked talking about spiritual successors around that time, where they've got like 30 original superheroes that are amalgams and expys of different superheroes or whatever and call it Ultimate Alliance. But I guess Activision thought they needed the branding to sell more games like that or something because that series ends for them when they lose the overall Marvel licenses, they don't even go back to just the X-Men, and they continue to have them and Spider-Man uninterrupted until 2014.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

To me the character in the preview looks less like a superhero than the Hellgate London classes or XCOM units wearing their Team X looking Personal Armour.

This is especially funny when you know that the original X-COM borrows strong aesthetics from a mix of Manga and 90s Image or Wildstorm comics. X-COM Troopers in Personnal Armor toting autocannons would be at home in WildC.A.T.S and the like.

Oh yeah, the Mutons look like Maul from WildCATS. Power Suits have the one bunny ear antenna you'd see in a lot of Rob Liefeld stuff that's coming from Madamune Shirow anime and manga they're all likely into at that time. The Personal Armor is more or less Team X from Jim Lee's X-Men. Shirow manga and anime stuff is all over those Image guys stuff both at Marvel and when they're on their own.

 

[gurugeorge]

Oh yeah, the Mutons look like Maul from WildCATS. Power Suits have the one bunny ear antenna you'd see in a lot of Rob Liefeld stuff that's coming from Madamune Shirow anime and manga they're all likely into at that time. The Personal Armor is more or less Team X from Jim Lee's X-Men. Shirow manga and anime stuff is all over those Image guys stuff both at Marvel and when they're on their own.

Hmm, looking at those Liefeld pics - that whole Liefeld/Image thing passed me by, as I lost interest in comics (the interest I'd had and semi-sustained since I was a kid) some time shortly after Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol. I then got interested again for a brief period in the early Noughties, and retroactively caught up a bit then, but I still couldn't stand Liefeld's stuff.

But looking at that, it suddenly struck me why people might have liked him. It's not for his truly dreadful figures, but those layouts are excellent and really very reminiscent of Jack Kirby's sense of dynamism. I can see now how his strength might rather have been in the momentum of his graphic storytelling.

I still can't bring myself to look into his stuff more deeply. Yeesh.