A fad or not, vaporwave has returned to the menu with Beyond Sunset.
Ah, the fond memories of 2013, when people started making old-time technology and yearning for 80s and 90s relevant for absolutely no reason. I adored the vaporwave trend since my life had been about fiddling with old technology and using it daily. Japanese texts, neon lights, capitalism at its finest era, and the slowed-down music samples are mushed together with an image of a marble statue. Vaporwave was odd and very likable in a different way, and Beyond Sunset reminded me of that very early through the first few minutes.
Beyond Sunset takes you to the distant future, not revealed in any way, where you must take down targets to recover your past. It is a bit of a cliché topic, but since this title is “just-another-distant-future” first-person shooter with cyberpunk and vaporwave elements, the story is as edgy as it gets. The game does well by completely twisting the engine and making it barely recognizable from the game used. To my surprise, when I booted up Beyond Sunset, I came across a familiar command prompt: GZDoom.
GZDoom, for those who do not know, is a heavily modified version of the engine that Doom used back in the day. As far as I know, it’s based on the Doom II engine, as it was far more advanced and had extra stuff, such as enemies, entities, and mechanics. Seeing GZDoom pushed to its limits with this title was mindblowing, as when you look at the regular Doom II, tall buildings, jumping, or dashing is considered too advanced; however, Beyond Sunset does allow you to have those.
I will get to the mechanics later; let’s talk about what the game offers within the first hour. A training course with VR graphics and synthesizer going off in the background is a nice touch and clearly showcases what the game offers. After training, you can choose the difficulty of the campaigns by following different roads, just like Quake did back in 1996. After choosing your difficulty, you are dropped into the first mission, which is killing a yakuza boss. As simple as it sounds, it is hard to reach him, just like in real life.
How you do or finish the missions is quite authentic, and I will be frank about it. The regular Doom levels tend to have a very linear way of finishing. Start at point A, kill enemies, collect goodies, find secrets, and exit through point B. When it comes to Beyond Sunset, things get a bit complicated, but not too much that is confusing. Rather than being a run towards point B from A, you need to walk through different zones and get requests done. To reach the exit, you need to visit mandatory parts of the maps and gather the keys. This unlocks the next part of the map and allows you to continue your story.
In the first chapter, in the killing yakuza boss part, you cannot reach the boss directly. Spawning without a weapon, talking to random, and finding a vendor who wants to get some dirty work done is what you do. For that, you acquire a katana, and it is yours after dealing with the problem. Now that our character has a Katana, more possibilities are opened to eliminate enemies scattered around the map. The katana is actually a great way to get used to Beyond Sunset, as it does more than slashing.
Katana also allows you to reflect bullets and projectiles. By pressing RMB, you can potentially block attacks and reflect projectiles at their senders. The glory kill special attack also helps immensely during your battles. The mechanic is loosely based on Glory Kills Doom (2016) adequately introduced. With one press of a button, our character can kill light-health enemies with a katana swing and get her health and ammo back. Although it sounds good, the glory can be used only thrice, and you can only fill the bar by collecting purple skulls dropped by enemies.
It’s time for guns. It would not be a Doom-based game without using guns, right? Beyond Sunset provides stock options that can be found in any other boomer shooter, such as pistols, shotguns, rocket launchers, SMGs, and what have you. However, weapons have a unique part: you can upgrade them- or even yourself- through the upgrade stations. The first few upgrades are just basic ones, such as higher ammo capacity on your guns, but later on, upgrades such as grenade launcher attachment on your shotgun or akimbo SMGs unlock on the upgrade stations.
Although the guns feel alright, I cannot fully say they feel punchy or powerful. They get the job done relatively quickly, but with very crowded areas, most weapons feel useless. A noticeable problem I came across was how the pistol was designed. Instead of a sidearm being a last-resistance type of weapon, you will find yourself returning to using the pistol repeatedly. Not because it is mandatory to use but for dealing with shielded enemies.
Beyond Sunset’s pistol is actually a laser pistol with infinite ammo. Sounds well and good, right? But the bullet projectiles spawn a bit awkwardly and usually do not register the shot from the mid-range. For a tradeoff, you can press RMB to charge up a shot and deliver a powerful, charged-up shot. As I mentioned earlier, the powerful shot can break shields, forcing you to holster your katana or opt to shoot them with bullets, which takes quite a long time. Since the accuracy of the laser pistol is a bit loose, the chances of missing the charged shot are pretty plausible.
Talking about enemies, they are quite manageable when alone or in packs of three, but once you get swarmed by a bunch, it is completely over. The type of enemies you will encounter depends on your level, of course. Still, their attacks are almost identical in the same pattern, such as melee specialists, gunmen, and projectile throwers. Out of these three, projectile-based enemies tend to bring the most pain in the rear due to how they are coded to be rapid-fire; they also deliver a massive amount of damage.
In most situations, you’ll find yourself either solving a puzzle, platforming to get to places, managing your weapons on a horde of enemies, fulfilling requests given by people, or encountering bosses. I must say boss fights are great, but if you are playing on hard to extreme difficulty, they will be one of the toughest challenges you’ll encounter during your gameplay. Dying is not the end of the world, as the game allows you to respawn infinitely, letting you try out the boss fights with no loss. Although I can see the pattern of sending “minion-type” enemies so that you can use your glory kill ability to get health and ammo back, which is honestly fair.
One of the unique things that came out of Beyond Sunset was interacting with computers available throughout the levels. These computers are sometimes there to serve no purpose, but sometimes you can see other areas of the map, turn doors on or off, or even enter the mainframe, which throws you into a different dimension. These so-called mainframe levels are small but important places you visit and break some codes or eliminate enemies. Finishing these levels sometimes opens doors or unlocks passages, so they are required to go through. The best aspect of these levels is the completely vaporwave designs, both visually and auditorily, which I quite liked.
Level designs are done right, but I must say you might be unaware of where the exit is or where the current objective is. At least Beyond Sunset allows for a comprehensive exploration, which is not the case when it comes to Doom-like, actual old shooters. Secrets are evenly spread, though marked on the map- that removes them being a secret- and are easy to find.
Apart from the small hiccups that occurred during the gameplay, I did not have much gist while playing Beyond Sunset. Obviously, the game engine has profound roots, dating back to 1995. Since the engine can choke on detailed and expanded maps, you can experience some slowdowns during your gameplay. I have a mid-to-high-range graphics card with a stable CPU to complement it; however, sometimes I struggle to run the game, and the options don’t change anything either, so be warned.
Beyond Sunset, as an FPS game, won my heart because of how well it was designed and put the creator’s idea forward with excellent execution. The title has three episodes to go through, and even two are being worked at, so players can play for more than 15 hours to finish all the campaigns available. The game does not have achievements, which would have benefited greatly, but hey, if we are going back to the old time when achievements were not a thing, it is completely alright. For the price and experience, Beyond Sunset is completely worth getting; maybe you can feel the old days of vaporware, too; who knows?
