The Technomancer Reviews
Just what the world needed, a sequel to Mars: War Logs!
Not good but not awful, The Technomancer serves more as a showcase for the future potential of Spiders than a game worth playing on its own merit.
The Technomancer’s not even actively terrible. It’s just completely forgettable. Come for the Brutalist architecture, stay because you’ve got nothing better to do with seventeen hours of your life. And that’s a low bar, here.
Good for a fight, dull for everything else
All in all The Technomancer is a fun little adventure which will definitely grow on you. It’s from the school of RPGs which are engrossing despite their laundry list of flaws. There’s much to be said for a small team like Spiders chipping away at a hideously involving and expensive genre, and for that they should be congratulated. It doesn’t have the polish of a Mass Effect 3 or Deus Ex: Human Revolution, but The Technomancer sure has a lot of heart.
A true jack of all trades, The Tehnomancer's impressive visuals don't make up for its lack of engaging combat and inability to set itself apart from other games in the genre. It's a mashup of many other open-world RPGs that is produced by a smaller developer than any of them; it sets itself up for disappointment.
The team writes intelligent, worthy scenarios and narratives, and then they do the best they can to build gameplay to support that concept. Spiders never quite gets there with executing to vision, but I don’t mean this as a backhanded complement; I genuinely appreciate what this team does, because it’s unique and interesting and I wish more developers had the gumption to try something like The Technomancer.
'The Technomancer' is not without its merits, but can’t quite find a place for itself in the RPG/action field. It is clear what Spiders was trying to do and I don’t fault them for it - their creation has the potential to be something special. In this current form that’s all it is though, just potential.
Your enjoyment of The Technomancer is going to depend on whether you're willing to overlook the things it doesn't do so well. The story is fascinating, but you have to deal with characters that are dull and not worth remembering. The combat system is rather deep, but you'll have to be much more proficient due to the lack of intelligence displayed by your AI companions. Finally, overall dull look and bad audio choices detract from the elements that genuinely look good, such as the skin on each character. Like Spiders Studio's previous works, The Technomancer will find an audience among those who don't mind sampling from the ambitious French house, but others may want to play other available action RPGs before trying this title..
Overall, The Technomancer is a pleasant experience thanks to the great looking and intense combat. This could be the perfect game to add to your collection after a slight price drop.
The Technomancer is, after all, a video game. It had time, energy, heart and soul put into it. It never feels lazy, and it never feels like a cash grab. It just never manages to feel inspired or fun. In fact, it manages to be frustrating more than it is fun. Perhaps you'll find a nugget of charm underneath all the tedium. Unfortunately, The Technomancer only really manages to feel bland, if not devoid of life all together.
The Technomancer has plenty to offer for fans looking to return to the world of Mars: War Logs but for anyone looking for a AAA experience, The Technomancer isn’t worth a $60 price tag.
Whilst it’s commendable that there are technomancy skills as well as three fighting styles at your disposal… the fact that the combat is so clunky and frequently unbalanced means that it’s best to just settle on one at the outset and stick with it
The Technomancer had aspirations to become a noteworthy RPG, but fell short due to some poor decisions in key areas. Good ideas were muddled by poor execution, and the result is an experience that won’t keep players tuned in for very long.
The Technomancer has frustrated me a lot over the last couple weeks, because I really enjoyed the world that Spiders created and wanted to get to know the characters more, but the constant choke points and combat inconsistencies make me want to stop playing. The story and certain characters make up for that in some way, and the romance dialogue that I pursued made up for some of the more disappointing characters. That said, I feel that with a little more work, a lot of my issues could have been fixed before launch.
Although The Technomancer is full of promise and seems like a pretty cool game at first, it all falls apart when you actually play it.
If The Technomancer were more unique, many of its flaws could have been overlooked, but with so many similar games available at better prices it's hard to recommend what ultimately feels like a budget RPG.
Fans of Mars: War Logs might enjoy exploring more of Spider’s dystopian Mars, but I honestly couldn’t recommend The Technomancer to newcomers looking for a sci-fi RPG. Its poor combat balance, dated animations, and predictable storyline result in a game that really could have been so much more, but ends up being uninspiring.
At its heart, The Technomancer is an inspiring attempt at what open world action RPGs can be. It doesn’t always succeed at what it tries to do, but its ambition often makes up for its missteps.