Here’s a Dead Cells style, very trippy Metroidvania romp. By indie team Hadoque (which is very close to haddock!) we have… Ultros. 🎆
Man alive is it far out. Look at the above image! You’ve not seen anything until you’ve seen the trailer, either, as this one is a brain rush of psychedelia. Challenge the doors of perception, man!
Trip Out Like a Hippy in Metroidvania Romp Ultros
This launched in February 2024 on the PS4/5 and PC. We picked it up on Steam, dropped a tab of acid, and prepared ourselves for a journey into a new dimension.
Although clearly influenced by Dead Cells (a modern classics that’s impacted a lot of the indie scene), you can see elements of the melancholic and beautiful Ghost Song (2022) in here, too.
Plot wise, you take control of a dude stranded on a planet called The Sarcophagus. It’s like a dungeon, labyrinth maze. From there, you explore the region and work out your part in the grand story (mystery overload).
First thoughts? The game does look stunning. To stand out in a busy Metroidvania release market, this is one way to do it. Just look at this thing in action.
Gameplay wise, it’s classic platforming action—slash your way through baddies, explore the world, power-up your character, and all at a fast-paced rate.
We found the game challenging but lots of fun. Full credit to the team for trying to be different, not least with the relentlessly demented vibrancy.
But there’s also an excellent soundtrack by composer Ratvader (Oscar Sidoff Rydelius) from Sweden.
The score is packed full of exotic soundscapes with instruments including the cello, viola, bass clarinet, guitar, and fanciful orchestral sweeps. It works a treat (and we cover more on this further below).
If you’ve played Motion Twin’s Dead Cells you’ll know what to expect her. The influence of that game is clear here, but Ultros does do its best to stand apart from it.
Roguelike qualities are there, but presented in a unique way–a looping system, but at key moments in the story. As you explore the classic Super Metroid style map you unlock the vast world and enhance your character.
The looping element has been contentious online, we’ve seen many gamers complain about it. The best approach is to lock character skills in with each loop so you can keep them as you begin again.
Ultros does push for originality, which is great, but often only in slight ways. This is basically a roguelike game, just with that game resetting approach presented in a new light.
However, we generally found the game to be pretty enchanting. The cosmic, vivid colours are a hell of an assault on the brain, but you just want to keep on exploring.
That’s the hallmark of any great Metroidvania. If we have any criticism is its similarity to Ghost Song, which we also think is the better game.
But! Despite that this bizarre, captivating, ever-intriguing title wows with its colours and strange creatures within. We like it a lot! A hidden gem of 2024.
The Cosmic Sweep of Ultros’ Score
This is a very impressive work. It took six years to complete the project. The composer was inspired by the music of Peru and went to the country to record some music there. Method composing!
Ratvader provided an interview to Paste Magazine in February 2024 (Bone Flutes, Whistling Jars, and Rainforests: Inside the Music of Ultros).
To try and match the music to Ultros’ berserk artwork was quite the challenge.
Paste: So I’d think you’d obviously want to try to, you know, match the visual aesthetic of the game, somehow, but like, how do you do that with El Huervo’s psychedelic artwork? What does that art make you hear? And how do you capture those sounds?
Ratvader: I’m like, what am I supposed to do with this? There’s nothing here for me to do. It’s perfect. I mean, obviously, there was a lot of experimentation going. Like some of the early–like, it was a weird thing, where I think some of the music became quite busy in the sense that there’s a lot of things going on, if you listen to it closely. But at the same time, it needed to take a little bit of a backseat, because there were times when the music was too… like it couldn’t go too overboard, because then, you know, impressions would just be a little bit too much. But I mean, I’m very lucky to have, like, a similar mind to Niklas. So most of the things I tried out and showed to him, he was just like, this is cool. Yeah, it was interesting, challenging, fun.
The results are pretty stirring indeed with exotic sounds not too far removed from Floex’s work on Samorost 3.
