Early Access Examination: The Devil Within: Satgat

By JT

Players: 1
Platform: PC

A-to-J Connections was lucky enough to receive a first look at The Devil Within: Satgat, a Souls-like 2.5D platformer with much of its emphasis centered on death. In this game you traverse through decaying buildings, power-up your stats, and fight a horde of seemingly indestructible enemies along the way. You must never allow the demons, or even death itself, to catch up with you. With other souls trapped in the same realm of existence, that would be a huge mistake. This game will test your limits, and you'll have to hone everything from your parry and dodge abilities to your combo attack skills. Little things can be annoying, but let’s get real here, you'll have fun. Let’s dive in and uncover my first impressions on The Devil Within: Satgat.

A bit of context: this is a Pre-Beta / Alpha version of the game. Coming into The Devil Within: Satgat, it looks far more polished than a lot of current available AAA games. That alone puts Newcore Games well above several contemporary developers in the industry. That said, there are some issues I had with the game. Some errors can be seen from a glance, such as spelling mistakes. Others, like some possible skill tree errors, are probably lower priority regarding getting fixed as they don’t detract from the gameplay at all. Game crashes become more frequent as you get further into the game, and saving is done automatically, which I was a bit annoyed by. It’s nice that the game is saved by itself, but nothing that I could see indicated automatically saving once you stepped over the campfire. Multiple times it felt like going to “Save Data” was completely useless. I would probably be happier with saving data manually being completely removed, or at the very least to have the option to turn it off. Also, often upon startup of the application, the game asks what language I wish to use and to adjust the brightness. Most recently there was a bug that kept me at the loading screen upon startup. Those are minor gripes and bugs though which didn’t ruin the experience all that much.

The Devil Within: Satgat first begins with the mission of destroying all devils and eliminating the source at the tower’s core. Along the way you meet up with some colleagues to help continue the fight. Further down they begin to fall, leaving only yourself and your partner in the end. You learn early on that death is not the end. Death is never the end. When you awaken you know what you must do. No memories of what happened, or where you are, so you must soldier on to find answers. Soon you meet with someone who spits out the name “Kim Rip.” Is that your name? Is that your real name? Was he the one responsible for your death? After the fight you must traverse to a safer location. The deeper you go the more you learn about devils, death, and your mission. Everything is explained to you once you find a place of sanctuary, but really they’re all explained in small chunks throughout the game. The prologue is also used as a basic tutorial, learning things like parrying and slash attacks.

Experience in The Devil Within: Satgat is called Engram, which is used to level up your character. Each level grants souls that are then used for certain techniques. There are seven types of tech trees in total, each with their own branch of abilities and upgrades. Some may grant the user additional attack power or hit points, or even add additional skills. Souls, or "factor", are used for various upgrades in stats or technique. We can all just call them souls because that’s what they are and look like. While there are a good number of skills to unlock thus far, most must be unlocked throughout the main story. This includes aerial abilities and special counter-attack skills that can be crucial during a boss encounter. Reminiscent of fighting games, the list of combo attacks can be extensive. With each additional skill, the player can feel as though they’ve been given a sense of power and accomplishment after execution. Every skill unlocked means you’re that much closer to becoming the ultimate warrior with the most extreme build possible. Nothing feels like a throwaway technique, and it was easy to find my own style during battle. Some techniques became easier to use over time, while many more were just forgotten about.

Combat is simple to learn but can be difficult in execution. Although everything becomes almost reflex after a while. Battling your way through a multitude of enemies never feels like a chore as you’re able to dodge, counterattack, and block almost anything. This can lead to some farming early on, so long as you have a campfire nearby. Farming in The Devil Within: Satgat is way too easy though. After a typical section run, one may encounter a blue campfire. This is base camp, where you save, level up, and decide which souls you wish to expend for certain techniques. Keep in mind that it’s a save point. Like I mentioned earlier, the game autosaves every time your character runs through the flame. Campfires are reasonably close together, so saving and returning upon death is relatively painless. When it comes time to leave camp you may notice enemies respawning over a previously cleared section. Every time I found myself running to save and heal myself, I would run back through only to realize that all the enemies had respawned. This makes for easy farming, and a bit of frustration if you’ve been killed by a boss and must run back through the same area. Having enemies only respawn beyond the next section, instead of the next section, would probably fix this. Every time you die, you restart back from the last base camp you’ve just come from, with all previous Engram being dropped on the floor at or near where you died, such as right before a boss chamber.

The options are there and plentiful, going as far as displaying damage and HP. I was able to play The Devil Within: Satgat in full Ultra settings, according to the graphics options. What misleads me a little bit is the difficulty setting. Unable to currently change it, it’s either set at Easy or Normal, and I couldn’t even tell you which was which as the game feels like it’s always on Normal. Once completed I found myself wishing for a Hardcore and Deathless type of setting, for those who want a no-death run or more challenge. 

The ambient music that plays throughout the game is pretty good, the graphics are decent enough, but all are very well done. Everything comes down to gameplay though, and no matter if you’re a mouse and keyboard player, or prefer a gamepad, you’re going to have fun with the game. The Devil Within: Satgat is fun. The game is very challenging. You’re going to be proud of what you can accomplish as much as any other good Souls-like game in the wild. You will also die a lot, no doubt about it. The current build of the game is in its infancy, but it’s already showing a lot of promise. I’m looking forward to returning occasionally to check the game’s progress. As I already mentioned, The Devil Within: Satgat is more polished than most AAA games that release to market as "complete". The developers also have been taking additional feedback from fans, and that's always a plus.

Overall, this was a very positive experience. The Devil Within: Satgat feels unique and stands out amongst the sea of games I’ve played over the years. Whenever there is an enemy or boss I can’t overcome, I take a break, come back, and finish what I started. The game also teaches a lot of self-control and waiting for the enemy to strike you first rather than you striking them. I look forward to The Devil Within: Satgat’s future full release, which is hopefully sometime soon!

Check Out The Devil Within: Satgat on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1802880/The_Devil_Within_Satgat/

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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