Dolmen Reviews
Dolmen is a souls-like experience that doesn't leave its mark and stumbles over a whole series of problems that make it only half a successful experience.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Undoubtedly a good alternative to the Souls saga. Although it may be a somewhat burned out theme, Dolmen will keep you hooked thanks to its cosmic horror setting and fluid combat.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Dolmen surely has its flaws and is nowhere the quality displayed by From Software in its Souls series, but if you enjoy that formula you can still have some fun hacking and slashing through hordes of enemies.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Dolmen wants to put its mark in the Action RPG genre with a potentially intriguing Space/Horror tale that never really goes to space, and isn’t at all scary. It never feels good to play, broke on me constantly, and was an ugly maze of bland/blocky corridors. Retailing for $39.99 at launch I can’t in good conscious recommend this over almost any other game in the genre.
There are so few positive things to say about Dolmen. It combines Dark Souls and Dead Space together into something not nearly as good as either. It is such a generic game, that it looks like someone bought a bunch of sci-fi assets from the Unity store and hastily slapped them together. Even still, it is so unoptimized, it could be running totally smoothly one second and then start chugging the next. It is riddled with bugs, one day there was absolutely no sound and the next day the game tried to launch SteamVR every time I started it. The framerate is so inconsistent, especially during cutscenes, most flipbooks are smoother viewing experiences. Dolmen is a dull, incompetent clone of a FromSoftware game whose reach far exceeds its grasp.
More than just a really bad soulslike, Dolmen is a major disappointment. After more than half a decade waiting for this game, as well as constantly losing faith in it ever being released, I was expecting for these constant delays to result in it feeling more polished, more akin to more modern soulslikes. What we ended up getting was the complete opposite: a clunky, shockingly behind-the-times husk of an action RPG which would have been considered dated back in 2016, let alone today.
Dolmen innovates the Soulslike genre with how it handles Energy and ranged combat but lacks a clear vision of what makes these games enjoyable beyond just some interesting mechanics.
A unique world with some fantastic environment designs and challenging combat, let down by often unfair enemies and a story that just wasn't that interesting.
Dolmen attempts to add some potentially good ideas into the Soulsborne formula. Unfortunately, it misses the mark far too many times in important areas to make it worth the effort you need to play it. Great level aesthetic and enemy design are wasted on far-too-flawed combat. With so many other Soulsborne clones available, Dolmen can easily be passed up.
I had a lot of high expectations for Dolmen, considering the premise and gameplay genre. Unfortunately, it botches just about every aspect of being a Souls-like game. There were many concerns that I could look past in the demo, but are inexcusable in a full release. Not only are the technical mechanics poorly implemented with inaccurate hitbox detection and animations, the artificial difficulty and long spans of nothingness make the game frustrating for all the wrong reasons.
Dolmen is a solid sci-fi spin on the Soulslike formula, even if there are some places where it falls short. Not being able to jump is a simple but detrimental design flaw, and the mediocre cinematics bog down what could have been a very cinematic experience. Despite that, Dolmen still features challenging combat, as well as a variety of ways to play to your own unique style. I look forward to seeing if and how Massive Work Studio will build upon this foundation in the future.
Dolmen emerges as a good entry in the world of soulslike and has its value, mainly due to the risks taken by its developer. Even so, the title has positives and negatives points in almost the same proportion, with AI, visuals and interface falling short of what they could be.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Dolmen is yet another Soulslike that proves this formula is almost impossible to get right. It's a flat, boring experience with none of the spark and vigor it needs to transcend its many technical flaws.
Dolmen is an interesting Soulslike experience that is troubled by clunky combat, and an outdated UI, which hurts the game's chances of standing out in a crowded market with games that does what it does, but better.
As far as sci-fi Souls-likes go, Dolmen sits somewhere between Hellpoint and The Surge in terms of quality. It can offer a rewarding experience to Souls-like fans, but it falls short of the bar set by the creators of the genre. Still, for those who have patience and persistence, and like the idea of exploring a new, futuristic setting while engaging in challenging combat, it’s worth checking out.
Dolmen arrives to the crowded soulslikes field with some valid ideas, but failing in the execution of each of its sections. If you're a fan of the FromSoftware formula, you'll find a few things to rescue, otherwise, I don't think this game is for you.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
There are dozens of alternatives out there either for Dark Souls fans or sci-fi nuts, and Dolmen is just too riddled with issues to recommend.
While Dolmen offers fun, challenging, and rewarding gameplay and a rich crafting system, its other features are a bit of a hit-and-miss.
Dolmen is a sci-fi Souls-like action adventure game that spent many years in development and it definitely shows.
DOLMEN is a new action RPG with influences from the Souls franchise, where we must travel to a hostile planet to find answers to what happened there while trying to recover the fragments of the DOLMEN crystal, which has the ability to transport us between realities. An interesting proposal that will satisfy lovers of this type of game.
Review in Spanish | Read full review