Gestalt: Steam & Cinder – the 16-bit beauty of Metroidvania

As entertaining as so many of them are, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get excited about the announcement of a new Metroidvania, even if Gestalt: Steam & Cinder made an immediately positive impression when it was featured in the recent Triple-i showcase. Its pixelated graphics are a homage to the 16-bit era of the SNES and Mega Drive, while at the same time being enhanced by modern technology, and it turns out its gameplay is a similarly successful mix of old and new.

On the Metroidvania sliding scale, Gestalt leans much closer to Castlevania than Metroid, with its gothic visuals and role-playing stats. It casts you as Aletheia, a mysterious fighter who lives in the steampunk world of Canaan where, generations previously, a mystical rift opened up, breeding a generation of technologically enhanced super-fighters who plunged the land into civil war.

A fragile peace now exists but Aletheia embarks on a quest to uncover Canaan’s dark secret, while shooting and stabbing as many robots and monsters as possible. Although its influences are obvious, the world of Gestalt: Steam & Cinder has more narrative depth than you might expect from a Metroidvania, with lots of plot twists and character betrayals.

In classic Metroidvania fashion, Aletheia acquires useful abilities as the game progresses, and she levels up. Gestalt has a huge abilities tree, bringing the expected upgrades to health, gun, and melee damage, along with a variety of increasingly powerful blade attacks and the ability for her energy-powered gun to fire more shots than the single one it starts with. In addition, she earns crucial new abilities through overcoming bosses, including a double jump, air dash, and a heavy attack.

As you’d expect, the new abilities open up previously inaccessible parts of the map, while Aletheia is able to pick up documents that populate the map with treasure locations, which in turn bring the likes of the gunsmith and the armourer into play, back in her hometown of Irkalla.

At first, even basic (mostly robotic) enemies prove challenging, thanks to Aletheia’s limited health, but she soon develops into a powerful fighter, with a larger amount of health-restoring draughts. This is just as well, since her enemies become even more difficult after that. Every time you leave and re-enter a room on the map, its enemies respawn, which feels somewhat unfair at first but becomes useful later on, since you can use them as a means of grinding to level up more quickly.

Occasionally you will have to grind, since the bosses – again, in classic Metroidvania fashion – are pretty hard. They are also impressively diverse, but they all have one thing in common: you need patience to defeat them. Much like Elden Ring et al., working out when to go on the offensive and when to evade their instant-kill attacks is vital, as you learn their patterns and vulnerabilities.

The further you get into Gestalt, the more inventive its levels become: you eventually encounter some sequences which are very reminiscent of the Metroid games, in that as well as taking on enemies, you must solve satisfyingly complex mechanical puzzles. There’s also a speed level in which you have to execute a near flawless sequence of platforming while under attack from a rogues’ gallery of enemies and a rapidly rising lava flow.

For an indie game, Metroidvania or not, Gestalt: Steam & Cinder feels extremely polished and finely fettled. It contains 15 to 20 hours of gameplay, adorned with great music (suitably baroque, atmospheric, and memorable), and fantastic pixel art graphics. There’s some fantastic animation and enjoyably imaginative designs, in what is an exemplar of how far you can push hand-drawn 16-bit-style graphics using modern technology.

In gameplay terms Gestalt: Steam & Cinder may not do anything particularly original but when it comes to presentation and slickness this is up there with the very finest Metroidvanias, indie or otherwise. It still doesn’t point towards any future evolution of the genre, whose design has remained largely static for decades now, but when a game looks and plays this well that barely seems to matter.

Gestalt: Steam & Cinder review summary

In Short: A fantastically polished Metroidvania, with some of the best 16-bit style graphics ever seen and impressively deep combat and role-playing elements.

Pros: Superb hand-drawn graphics and music. Great level design and varied combat, punctuated by clever puzzles. Complex character progression and surprisingly good storytelling.

Cons: Could do with a bit more checkpointing at times and level grinding is always controversial. No genuinely original ideas of its own.

Score: 8/10

Formats: PC (reviewed) and Nintendo Switch
Price: TBA
Publisher: Fireshine Games
Developer: Metamorphosis Games
Release Date: 16th July 2024 (Switch TBC)
Age Rating: 7