Gestalt: Steam & Cinder, by developer Metamorphosis games and publisher Fireshine games, has been on my radar since the pre-alpha in 2020 for both the very tight Metroivania – or should I say “search action” – gameplay as well as the main character. W hile there’s plenty to notice about Aletheia – the long red hair, wide brimmed hat, cowboy attire and sword – I was especially intrigued by the fact that her key art was drawn in a style that seemed to be trying to evoke depictions of Vampire Hunter D, a series of Japanese science fiction horror adventure novels starring D, a half vampire who travels a future, post-vampire dominated world killing vampire lords and their creations and uncovering long forgotten secrets of the past. There are several reasons to suspect it is at least partially responsible for inspiring the Castlevania series – at least in part. While that key art isn’t Gestalt: Steam and Cinder‘s primary art, the spirit it evoked is very much appropriate as Aletheia is a woman torn between two worlds, but tied to the dark secrets of both.
Some 200 years before the start of Gestalt: Steam & Cinder, a calamity befell the world, tearing a gate into what was known as the abyss open, unleashing its power and horrors into the world. Humanity fought back with the power of the abyss itself forged into armor. The armored knights fought back against the abyss and saved humanity, except their power drove them mad. All the knights save one grew corrupted and betrayed mankind. Fortunately the one was able to best the rest of the armored knights and drive them out of the final citadel, the cradle and shield to humanity, Canaan, the Steam City. For nearly 200 years the people of Canaan have fought a war against the Akhaians – the descendants of those driven out by the last knight – and both sides are currently seeking peace, though seem to have ulterior motives. Seemingly unrelated to all of this is Aletheia, who has been given a job to find a researchers wayward assistant in a restricted and fortified Canaanite military vault and depot. Which she does, in the process opening a can of worms involving secrets about her city, her past, and even her very nature. Along the way she has to follow a bread crumb of clues dropped by the people who want to best her, test her, kill her, and/or use her for their own ends. Aletheia has to use all the skills she’s honed over her years as a soldner for hire, as well as the new abilities she now has access to after receiving power and visions from a long forgotten relic under the city itself.
So, what abilities does Aletheia have at her disposal? Well, she starts off with the ability to jump and wall jump, a basic three hit sword combo, the ability to slice directly upwards, a crouch, a forward dash, a back dash, and a gun you can fire in any direction while down so long as you’re standing on the ground. The gun can fire bullets so long as you have energy, which can be harvested from attacking enemies, breaking objects, or attacking supply spots that never run out of energy but tend to only be found in safe locations or puzzle spots that need to give you enough energy to finish them no matter what. You start the game with the ability to bank one bullet’s worth of energy, but as you level up, you can unlock more on Aletheia’s Gem Board up to a total of four bullet’s worth of energy. As you progress through the game you can also unlock additional abilities and gain access to even more of the Gem board.
Whenever you level up, you gain an ability point. You can also gain ability points by vanquishing bosses, completing quests, and by shooting Tesla bullets at specific red nodes that are strewn about the map. What’s a Tesla bullet? Why the very first upgrade you get access to in the game, that grants you a secondary fire mode for your gun, dealing less direct damager, but dealing stun to enemies, leaving them open to being staggered and vulnerable to longer combos. Getting this and other large square abilities – Charge Blade, Double Jump, Gun Charge, and Air Dash – through plot progression opens up new sections of the gem board, getting access to more damage increases, HP ups, critical boosts and more. There are also section of the board you can only unlock after buying the gem nodes on other side of the lock, and these sections tend to have very useful, very powerful techniques in them like the dive kick, the poison bullets or the many direction upgrades to the Charge Blade technique, all of which are flame themed. Though not all of them, most of these abilities either improve the gun or require gun energy to use, making energy management key to swift and efficient fights and especially boss fights.
Your only weapons for the whole game are your sword and your gun, but don’t fret, these absolutely get more powerful as you go on, both from level ups and ability nodes improving them, but also through accessories. These equitable items have effects that range from improving your max health and defense and other stats, to improving your XP and cash drops, upping your critical chance, refilling your gun energy up to the first bullet, reviving you from death once before breaking, and more. There’s even one you can get at the very end of a game-long sidequest that automatically refills your gun energy up to max over time as well. Given what you have to do to fulfill that sidequest it’s pretty spectacular. You can find some of these items out in chests around the world, but most will need to be purchased from vendors across the world, or forged at the one accessory forge in the primary town. You also start with the ability to equip only one at a time, but by the end of the game you can have four active at once.
As for consumables, in addition to the increasingly standard refillable and expandable healing item that refreshes at every same point you have items to improve your gun damage for a set time, an item to increase your blade damage at the expense of gun damage for a time, full energy refills, and even an item to reset your skill points in case you want to reallocate them on the Gem Board. These can be set to a quick menu and cycled between and used in active gameplay. Be careful as each one has a use animation and then a cooldown after use, so you can’t spam your healing. As a compromise you can use all four of your hot items from the start of the game, so you can switch to another item and use its power right away.
Actually, speaking of cooldowns, while I would not classify Gestalt: Steam & Cinder as a Soulsvania, it does have a cooldown on the dodge and evasion rolls specifically. After each time you use your dodge roll and later air dash, you have to wait until the dodge meter refills to use the ability again. Actually being aware of this cooldown and managing it key to a lot of the late game but especially its optional movement-based puzzles. All in all, these elements come together to make for exploration and combat that is both very fast-paced, but in which you must be very deliberate. Combat will often be two or three hits in between an enemy attack, a dodge roll to avoid the attack and get behind, and two or three more hits, repeating until you get enough energy for a charge attack or gunshot, or until you can fully stun an enemy and use your full light combo attack to unleash a flurry of powerful hits.
As for the plot, nearly every single person you meet (the story is told from the perspective of both Aletheia and several members of the city’s government) is relevant to the mysteries of the city and Aletheia, and those who aren’t yet might still be in a potential sequel. While Gestalt: Steam & Cinder answers many of the mysteries it raises, it leaves several more unanswered and the game ends on a definite “see you next time” cliffhanger. I, for one, am looking forward to it. By the game’s official reckoning it took about seven hours to complete. Did I mention that there’s a game-long sidequest to find wayward Corgis and tell them to head home to their Corgi ringleader? Because there is and it is delightful. All of this is to say I really enjoyed my time playing Gestalt: Steam & Cinder and if you like Metroidvanias you almost certainly will as well.
Tim played Gestalt: Steam & Cinder on PC with a review code.
