It takes a lot for a game's art to live up to the promise of "a multifaceted realm" anchored in "a cosmic uterus holding an ancient, demonic being," but Ultros pulls it off and then some. It doesn't quite cover it to call developer Hadoque's upcoming 2D Metroidvania – coming up fast, with a February 13 release date on PC and PlayStation – psychedelic, though it most certainly is. Ultros is transportive, and handily the coolest game I've tried this Steam Next Fest, which is saying a lot because there are, as ever, about a billion good games out there.
This is a prismatic assault on the senses so rich with color and detail that every screenshot you could possibly take of it practically demands extended, magnified analysis. I've only played the Steam Next Fest demo and I feel like I could spend hours going over this game with a fine-toothed comb before I stopped finding new things. Ultros is a layered, utterly alien abomination; a meaty vision of bioluminescent hell, an organic museum of shambling chimerae, and a gallery of hideous beauties. It's all amped up – and given clarity – by the stark black platforms in the foreground. In under an hour it's been seared onto my corneas like a branding iron. I can't look away and I need to see more.
Ultros doesn't just look good, either. It feels good. It feels great, actually. The demo offers just a few upgrades, but more than enough to bring the combat system to life. You've got light attacks, a charged heavy attack, an uppercut, and a mid-air spin attack by default. You can also dodge enemy attacks to trigger a counter combo, and I don't think I'll ever get tired of it. I quickly unlocked a mid-air double-kick, a diving kick, and an extended combo, and stringing all of these together is instantly satisfying.
To my delight, Ultros has a juggle mechanic baked into the action. Hit launched enemies again and time will pause so you can send them flying in a specific direction, careening into hazards or other enemies for extra oomph. The upgrade system is also cleverly interwoven with combat. You unlock new skills by ingesting monster parts and other delicacies, like the eyeball seeds grown from magic tree lots scattered around the world. The kicker is that the nutritional value of the organs dropped by enemies improves the more cleanly you dispatch them. Getting a "Perfect Variety" finish and gobbling pristine alien meat is a surprisingly effective motivator.
There's so much life and character to Ultros, from the way our heroine dangles from ledges to the way she cuts into the juice-filled pods that act as save points, down to the almost-legible alien text dotted around the world and UI. Nothing is normal; everything is lavish. It gets top marks for that classic Metroidvania flow, too. I've already pulled off some light sequence breaking in pursuit of plentiful secrets. So far, the narrative appears to be on some next-level cosmic nihilism, and I'm likewise eager to see where it goes – literally, I'd like to see it. I need this game in my eyeballs, stat. February 13 can't come soon enough.
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