This review has been long overdue.

The reception DOLMEN got at launch was pretty bad. So bad that it sat at a “Mostly Negative” rating for a while, as quietly as it did in my Library. With that, and with what I’ve heard from a friend who played it, I ended up waiting. Amongst other things, I didn’t want to be the guy to kick it while it’s down. Luck would have it that in the few months it took me to get around to it, a couple of patches rolled out. It was time, finally, to go into the game full of enthusiasm, ready to give it its fair shake.

Just think of the possibilities: it would be my review that’d usher in a new wave of appreciation for it! I could take pride in being the one who stayed behind, the one who revisited the game all these months later and say: “Hey everyone! It’s GOOD now!”, and the masses of Steam would flock to me, hoist me on their shoulders, and we’d all sing Kumbaya as we waddle off into the sunset, burdened by carrying my fat ass, newly purchased copies of DOLMEN clutched firmly in our grasps.

But no. This is not the timeline we're in.


I gave it my all to like DOLMEN, but for nearly every feature I would have liked to highlight as something it does well, the game fought me.

As the story goes, you’re an employee of Zoan, a galactic conglomerate in charge of a research facility on Revion Prime – a planet gone AWOL. You’re the, erm, Commander of a rescue team, tasked with beaming down to the planet’s surface and not so much finding out what happened, as recovering samples of a crystal called Dolmen that’s been found on the planet in ample supply. You see, the crystal is valuable because it has reality-bending capabilities, allowing for travel between universes and thus being extremely sought out for space travel and exploration.

It's a great premise, one that the game doesn’t do anything memorable with. Corporate intrigue? A reality-bending mineral? Several universes, all clashing together in one place and creating a chaotic environment for all these parties that are searching for the crystal to duke it out in? All within a sleek sci-fi setting? Sign me right up, we’ve got GOTY material here! But no. DOLMEN uses its Dolmen as nothing more than a McGuffin, and any creative way all these elements could’ve impacted the plot is nowhere to be found.

It’s a souls-like, so it tries to hide the narrative’s most interesting bits off the main path. From time to time, you’ll come across a terminal or tablet on the ground that’s glowing. These can be interacted with to bring up a text log and deliver some of the driest storytelling I’ve ever had the chance to read. They're lore dispensers, plain and simple, that tie into the world in the most basic way imaginable. Even the protagonist, the aforementioned Commander, while completely voiced and showing glimmers of some kind of noble and heroic personality, succumbs to the uninspiredness of it all, as his VA delivers almost every line in the same way.

This blandness crosses over to the art style as well, even if the game looks good on a technical level. I was once told one of the biggest reasons why Dark Souls’s architecture and world were so memorable is because everything had this feeling of being designed independently of the player, ie. they first designed these gargantuan castles and then figured out how to have you get around them. It seems that DOLMEN’s designers took that literally and only made their environments huge while forgetting to make them interesting and add any semblance of direction. Empty hallways, hangars, and server rooms, none of which stick out, with the way to proceed often placed in some obscure corner. I kid you not, at one point, the only way I could tell I was progressing through an area as opposed to going back to its beginning was because a voice-over played.


Now, let's talk about the gameplay. If you didn't find the story intriguing enough, then the combat alone probably won't be able to redeem DOLMEN in your eyes, even if it's where the best-realized ideas lie.

Think Devil May Cry’s combos, built by rapidly switching between melee and ranged weapons, slowed down to a souls-like tempo and you’re on the right path. Holding CTRL will have you swap to a ranged weapon with infinite ammo, limited by the mana pool you also use to heal. The genius idea here is that your mana pool is split into two parts. Healing will use up its maximum capacity, restored by nomming on an Energy Battery, while shooting your gun only diminishes its current value and allows it to refill once you've let your guns cool off for a bit.

New equipment is obtained by crafting, which, while straightforward, is what I’d call a ‘neat addition’. The variety is pretty decent; swords, axes, shield combos, fist weapons, pistols, shotguns, sci-fi black hole guns… Finding secrets and progressing through the game will award you with blueprints to then craft these gizmos from, using the various materials you find, each crafted piece having different stats depending on what materials you imbue it with.

Another important aspect of DOLMEN’s combat are elemental weaknesses all enemies have, fire, ice, and toxin, with each weapon’s damage corresponding to one. The dance is simple: match the element of your ranged weapon to the one your enemy is weak to, then shoot 'em enough to fully inflict the associated debuff. Then, proceed to swoop in with a melee weapon of the same element for a devastating blow. Light attacks, heavy attacks, dodges… you get the picture; though finer examples like backstabs and parries are missing.

Unfortunately, despite having an assortment of ‘okay’ enemies and some memorable bosses to fight, DOLMEN feels like a third-person shooter in disguise; not only because of how effective ranged weapons are, but because of how ineffective melee is.

A lack of animation cancelling and poorly animated enemy attacks is mainly to blame. If I had to list every time I was taken aback by my dodge not registering, we’d be here forever. I’ll give you an example, though: imagine fighting a ranged enemy — if you dodge at any point after the shot has been fired, you’ll get hit, even from a mile away. So, dodge while they’re raising their weapon, even if it goes against common video game logic. Which frame of the windup animation do you have to dodge during? You’ll have to figure it out on your own. I gave up trying to read the animation cues and started relying on counting the seconds from when a symbol signifying an upcoming unblockable attack would appear above the enemies’ heads to when I'd get hit – after getting hit enough times, of course.

As a friend who watched me play put it: “It just seemed like every time you went for a melee attack, it wasn’t worth it.”. And he's right. Even if it takes longer compared to melee, it's better to just stay back and blast away at your problems.


Believe it or not, I was still considering a positive rating after beating the game last night. I thought of a clever conclusion to my review as well, of how I’ll lambast having Steam’s rigid binary of “Recommended” and “Not Recommended” loaded and pointed against the back of my head, and how I’ll lament not being able to hide behind a “57/100” like a true professional.

But no. Typing all this out made me realize that I can’t recommend DOLMEN. I also thought of giving it another playthrough with a different build, but shuddered at the thought of any other jank I might uncover while not levelling up my guns. I accept this defeat, head bowed in shame and boots bloodied.

A curator helmed by veterans of the review scene, Summit regularly provides you with professional quality reviews for all sorts of games.

[h1]Where Have All the Dol Men Gone?[/h1] This review has been long overdue. The reception [i]DOLMEN[/i] got at launch was pretty bad. So bad that it sat at a “Mostly Negative” rating for a while, as quietly as it did in my Library. With that, and with what I’ve heard from a friend who played it, I ended up waiting. Amongst other things, I didn’t want to be the guy to kick it while it’s down. Luck would have it that in the few months it took me to get around to it, a couple of patches rolled out. It was time, finally, to go into the game full of enthusiasm, ready to give it its fair shake. Just think of the possibilities: it would be my review that’d usher in a new wave of appreciation for it! I could take pride in being the one who stayed behind, the one who revisited the game all these months later and say: “Hey everyone! It’s GOOD now!”, and the masses of Steam would flock to me, hoist me on their shoulders, and we’d all sing Kumbaya as we waddle off into the sunset, burdened by carrying my fat ass, newly purchased copies of [i]DOLMEN[/i] clutched firmly in our grasps. But no. This is not the timeline we're in. [h3]You Won’t Get What You Want[/h3] I gave it my all to like [i]DOLMEN[/i], but for nearly every feature I would have liked to highlight as something it does well, the game fought me. As the story goes, you’re an employee of Zoan, a galactic conglomerate in charge of a research facility on Revion Prime – a planet gone AWOL. You’re the, erm, [i]Commander[/i] of a rescue team, tasked with beaming down to the planet’s surface and not so much finding out what happened, as recovering samples of a crystal called Dolmen that’s been found on the planet in ample supply. You see, the crystal is valuable because it has reality-bending capabilities, allowing for travel between universes and thus being extremely sought out for space travel and exploration. It's a great premise, one that the game doesn’t do anything memorable with. Corporate intrigue? A reality-bending mineral? Several universes, all clashing together in one place and creating a chaotic environment for all these parties that are searching for the crystal to duke it out in? All within a sleek sci-fi setting? Sign me right up, we’ve got GOTY material here! But no. [i]DOLMEN[/i] uses its Dolmen as nothing more than a McGuffin, and any creative way all these elements could’ve impacted the plot is nowhere to be found. It’s a souls-like, so it tries to hide the narrative’s most interesting bits off the main path. From time to time, you’ll come across a terminal or tablet on the ground that’s [b]glowing[/b]. These can be interacted with to bring up a text log and deliver some of the driest storytelling I’ve ever had the chance to read. They're lore dispensers, plain and simple, that tie into the world in the most basic way imaginable. Even the protagonist, the aforementioned Commander, while completely voiced and showing glimmers of some kind of noble and heroic personality, succumbs to the uninspiredness of it all, as his VA delivers almost every line in the same way. This blandness crosses over to the art style as well, even if the game looks good on a technical level. I was once told one of the biggest reasons why [i]Dark Souls’s[/i] architecture and world were so memorable is because everything had this feeling of being designed independently of the player, ie. they first designed these gargantuan castles and then figured out how to have you get around them. It seems that [i]DOLMEN’s[/i] designers took that literally and only made their environments huge while forgetting to make them interesting and add any semblance of direction. Empty hallways, hangars, and server rooms, none of which stick out, with the way to proceed often placed in some obscure corner. I kid you not, at one point, the only way I could tell I was progressing through an area as opposed to going back to its beginning was because a voice-over played. [h3]Jesus Christ, Marie![/h3] Now, let's talk about the gameplay. If you didn't find the story intriguing enough, then the combat alone probably won't be able to redeem [i]DOLMEN[/i] in your eyes, even if it's where the best-realized ideas lie. Think [i]Devil May Cry’s[/i] combos, built by rapidly switching between melee and ranged weapons, slowed down to a souls-like tempo and you’re on the right path. Holding CTRL will have you swap to a ranged weapon with infinite ammo, limited by the mana pool you also use to heal. The genius idea here is that your mana pool is split into two parts. Healing will use up its maximum capacity, restored by nomming on an Energy Battery, while shooting your gun only diminishes its current value and allows it to refill once you've let your guns cool off for a bit. New equipment is obtained by crafting, which, while straightforward, is what I’d call a ‘neat addition’. The variety is pretty decent; swords, axes, shield combos, fist weapons, pistols, shotguns, sci-fi black hole guns… Finding secrets and progressing through the game will award you with blueprints to then craft these gizmos from, using the various materials you find, each crafted piece having different stats depending on what materials you imbue it with. Another important aspect of [i]DOLMEN’s[/i] combat are elemental weaknesses all enemies have, fire, ice, and toxin, with each weapon’s damage corresponding to one. The dance is simple: match the element of your ranged weapon to the one your enemy is weak to, then shoot 'em enough to fully inflict the associated debuff. Then, proceed to swoop in with a melee weapon of the same element for a devastating blow. Light attacks, heavy attacks, dodges… you get the picture; though finer examples like backstabs and parries are missing. Unfortunately, despite having an assortment of ‘okay’ enemies and some memorable bosses to fight, [i]DOLMEN[/i] feels like a third-person shooter in disguise; not only because of how effective ranged weapons are, but because of how ineffective melee is. A lack of animation cancelling and poorly animated enemy attacks is mainly to blame. If I had to list every time I was taken aback by my dodge not registering, we’d be here forever. I’ll give you an example, though: imagine fighting a ranged enemy — if you dodge at any point after the shot has been fired, you’ll get hit, even from a mile away. So, dodge while they’re raising their weapon, even if it goes against common video game logic. Which frame of the windup animation do you have to dodge during? You’ll have to figure it out on your own. I gave up trying to read the animation cues and started relying on counting the seconds from when a symbol signifying an upcoming unblockable attack would appear above the enemies’ heads to when I'd get hit – after getting hit enough times, of course. As a friend who watched me play put it: “It just seemed like every time you went for a melee attack, it wasn’t worth it.”. And he's right. Even if it takes longer compared to melee, it's better to just stay back and blast away at your problems. [h3]Verdict[/h3] Believe it or not, I was still considering a positive rating after beating the game last night. I thought of a clever conclusion to my review as well, of how I’ll lambast having Steam’s rigid binary of “Recommended” and “Not Recommended” loaded and pointed against the back of my head, and how I’ll lament not being able to hide behind a “57/100” like a true professional. But no. Typing all this out made me realize that I can’t recommend [i]DOLMEN[/i]. I also thought of giving it another playthrough with a different build, but shuddered at the thought of any other jank I might uncover while not levelling up my guns. I accept this defeat, head bowed in shame and boots bloodied. [quote][url=https://steamproxy.com/steamstore/curator/41449676/]A curator helmed by veterans of the review scene, [b]Summit[/b] regularly provides you with professional quality reviews for all sorts of games.[/url][/quote]