Cultic is an astonishing achievement for a one man studio. It has the creepy, sinister atmosphere of the finest horror titles, packed with the cathartic carnage of the best FPS games. It’s an odyssey into the heart of darkness, with the path blasted open by dynamite. Far more than just a worthy spiritual successor to Blood, Cultic is a descent into pure madness that you won’t want to miss.
CULTIC is a love letter for boomer shooter fans that has the perfect mix between old and new, resulting in a product with the potential to rise above similar games. It's a worthy look back to the roots of the FPS genre, while also forging a path into a new genre.
It's a surprisingly good game.
Pros.:
- Old-school.
- Many secrets.
- Upgrade weapons.
- Map design is very nice and neat.
- Game design.
- Story and notes.
Cons.:
- Sometimes the colors look dull.
Developed by one man only – Jason Smith – Cultic is an excellent old school shooter. The campaign isn’t particularly long, but the second part will come as a free update in the future (hence the ‘Chapter One’), and there’s also a fun survival mode that will let you hone your skills.
A great return to classic pixel FPS. Although graphically it may not suit everyone and it does not bring anything new, the gameplay and the atmosphere are definitely excellent.
If you love retro FPS, always shed a tear when you hear about Blood and you like to slaughter the adepts of a bloodthirsty cult, Cultic is the boomer shooter you've been waiting for.
Cultic borrows heavily from grandpa Blood, but is a step backwards
compared to Monolith’s cult classic. Admittedly, all available guns are
fun to use, but even though the game is short, it still overstays its
welcome due to bloated, boring environments and repetitive enemies.
I'm tired of this trend. People are just making these super ugly versions of older games mixed with whatever they grew up on and slapping their names on it. I don't care if it was made by one guy- Prodeus, Hedon, and a billion other quote boomer shooters unquote, all play the same. They also totally miss the point. Gameplay may be smooth, but the enemies are still hit-scanners. The enemies are still brainless and literally spawn in farther away from you we're playing Blood circa 1997. The game just isn't particularly fun when it comes to pixel hunting for headshots when the hit-scanner enemies, which they all basically are, can instantly zero-in on you as a target.
Lets just get something straight, its not the gameplay that isn't solid in most respects. There is a lot here that is definitely progress in the genre, but its the visuals that cause me to slump over in frustration. Like when you actually play Cultic, you'll wonder why it looks so mangled. Its extremely difficult to make out just what is or isn't a thing to interact with in Cultic. I noticed that even in the first area some boxes are breakable, but then certain boxes aren't. Certain walls can be blown up, but then that texture looks remarkably like everything else you're looking at as well. Personally, I think it looks terrible. It doesn't look anything like Blood either, outside of some obvious references. Is this really where all these indie-first-person-shooters are going? Just derivative, story-less, gore-fests for all of us post-millennial morons that keep buying them?
I don't get it. Doom 2016 and its sequel were literally the last two really great first-person shooters, and they haven't even really been topped by other developers yet. So why are we drudging up the corpses from the past? Don't people remember how boring Quake 2 was outside of multiplayer? I mean come on. This path only leads to more copy-cat behavior.
Just another game trying to be 'different' by purposefully copying ancient successful games on a shoestring budget using the 'retro aesthetic' as an excuse for the game to both look and run terribly. Looks just enough like old doom/wolfenstien to get rubes to buy it but just different enough to avoid an IP lawsuit.
Summary Death is only the beginning. Crawl from your grave and gear up to fight your way through the ranks of a mysterious and twisted cult. You, your guns, and your dynamite will have to shoot, slide, blast, duck, dodge, and maybe throw a gib or two to survive in this old-school-inspired shooter.