Synduality: Echo of Ada Review – A WASTE OF TIME!

Synduality: Echo of Ada looked like a decent game from the early trailers. But I’ve been burnt before thanks to Aliens: Colonial Marines, so I didn’t let my expectations get too high. Yet somehow, I was still baffled by just how big a gap there was between what I had seen, versus what I actually played.

How To NOT Make a Mech Game

This online extraction mech-shooter is honestly, a bland and repetitive experience. I tried my best to see the good and bad with this one, and whilst there are a few moments that I did enjoy, the gameplay was just way too monotonous. There are two major focuses here: shooting enemies and extracting loot. So, in order to have a decent game, you would at least think that one of these departments would have to feel satisfying, right? Well… neither part does. 

The combat is dull and lacks the necessary weightiness to be engaging. There were so many moments where I would literally pray and spray, because the hit detection just wasn’t consistent. I mean, the game itself feels fine enough. But honestly, it just wasn’t satisfying to take down enemies. Whether that be the standard creatures in the world or rival mechs, or ‘Cradlecoffins’ as the game calls it. From gathering resources to traversing the environments, there was nothing really of note to captivate me.

The rinse and repeat formula grew stale quite quickly! With how slow things can progress, this means a lot of very tedious tasks to build up a base, then more tedious tasks to upgrade said base. Also, given that this is a mech shooter, I was expecting to, you know… feel like I was actually in a mech. Instead, this just felt like a very sluggish third-person shooter without much imagination. I mean, at one point, I even wanted to switch out and play Anthem instead. And if a game is making me want to play Anthem—that is really not a good sign!

Your Annoying Brother—In Video Game Format

Synduality also features some really irritating mechanics. For example, you get a sidekick known as a Magus, that travels alongside you out in the field, trying their best to make your ears bleed. The whole time that I was in the world, he would just keep talking on and on, and would not shut the hell up! It’s constantly “I can’t get a reading!” “There isn’t enough to go on.” “There is an enemy nearby.” “Maybe you should take cover…” Now look, I don’t mind having a sidekick, but being told every moment what you need to do or avoid really grinds my gears!

The biggest pain in the backside is the rain system, as your mech will get damaged if it gets drenched for too long. So, if it starts raining, you need to take cover. Imagine Death Stranding, but Norman Reedus is a mech with an irritating sidekick. The reason this rain system is so painful is the amount of damage you take from it. Your sidekick pipes up, saying “It’s starting to rain a little” every time drops start to fall and it depletes your weather protection faster than Leeroy Jenkins running headfirst into a raid.

Now the commonsense thing to do would be to take cover when the rain falls, but it really was only certain parts of the map that had sufficient coverage. Hence, if you were stuck out in the open, you would be using up sealing packs fast! And if you happen to launch an expedition on a new rain cycle, you’d have no idea when launching in. You’d be legging it to cover and losing a lot of resistance as soon as you drop in. If you do manage to take cover, you could be waiting a while for the rain to stop. This normally would be fine, but with the limited battery (that is just a timer till you have to exfiltrate) you’ll be wasting much needed time ducking for cover. 

The Big Kicker

You might be thinking at this point, what exactly am I out in this world for? Well, simply, it’s to gather resources, such as crystals and materials to sell off and upgrade your base. Annoyingly, when you first start out, you can barely extract anything due to a very limited carrying capacity. Now I know that you need to start out a bit on the weaker side. But frustratingly, the ammo, health and sealing packs that you need to take with you on each search takes up a lot of that already limited space. I found this super irritating because it hinders the amount of requests that you can complete at a time, especially any sort of resource gathering quest. 

However, once you finally haul in enough resources—after a painful amount of time in the mech—you are treated to a new, broken-down base you have to rebuild and upgrade. This was cool in theory, as it made me feel like I was starting from zero and getting to build things up as I pleased. In reality though, this was not the case at all. The upgrade streams are very limited, with minimal customisation options for your base. Also, each upgrade takes a certain amount of time before it is completed. Again, this in itself is not that bad until you see the absurd amount of time you have to wait for upgrades to finish. But don’t worry, the devs thought well outside the box to make sure you don’t waste your time waiting. Instead, you can spend a lot of in-game coin, I mean a lot… Like $10,000 for a half hour a lot. To make the upgrade instant, or, if you don’t have that kind of in-game money, you can just reach into your pocket and pull out that nice bit of plastic with your savings in it… That really vexed me and made the base aspects of the game seem very mobile game-y.

Even Less Reasons to Play

Now, I did mention that Synduality is an online extraction mech shooter, but the online aspect is nothing to write home about. I encountered a fair few players whilst out in the world, and interestingly, only one thing happened on repeat. We would wave to each other and then move on. Repeat. There was no real reason to fire at each other or to try to duke it out. Most of us would just leave each other alone and carry on our own merry way. On the odd occasion, someone dived in to assist me in dealing with some bandits, but that was about it. I am not blaming the devs for this, as player choices are indeed their own. Although, without a drive to potentially have a firefight, the world felt way too safe, which I assume wasn’t the desired intention of the devs. So yeah, multiplayer is available. But you’ll ultimately be left asking, what’s the point?

Admittedly, the one thing that I did like about Synduality: Echo of Ada was the visual design. It’s not the prettiest game out there, yet the world looks decent! Though it is not the world, but the different mech designs that intrigued me. The game features some pretty unique Cradlecoffins! But sadly, the visuals are where it ends, because they all feel and play pretty much the exact same way! 

I played Synduality: Echo of Ada on PS5, and as far as performance went, it did pretty well. I consistently hit 60FPS, with the occasional dip here or there. Plus, the graphics and textures looked fairly decent. Mind you, that was playing using the performance settings. Changing it to ‘prioritise graphics’ did drop the framerate a fair bit! 

Decision

Synduality: Echo of Ada is not worth your time and money. The sluggish and unsatisfying combat coupled with a gameplay loop that is tedious and uninspired, leads to a really bland experience. I honestly tried my best to find something to latch onto to make my time more enjoyable, but I could not find anything. Save some money and go clear up your backlog!

By Samuel Incze – Reviewed on PlayStation 5

Terrible

Synduality: Echo of Ada suffers from uninspired gameplay, static combat and a monotonous progression system that fails to deliver the mech-shooter experience promised by its early trailers. While the visuals and performance on PS5 are fine, the lack of any engaging mechanics and frustrating systems make it extremely hard to recommend.

This game was reviewed using a download code provided by Bandai Namco. The Beta Network uses affiliate partnerships, however, this does not influence reviews or any other content published. The Beta Network may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links that are on the website.