What happens when you throw a bright group of zealous game developers with some H.P. Lovecraft into a mixing pot? Some scary inspiration, of course. Superstatic Studio is a very new player on the game development front, but it looks like they have a near-endless supply of ambition. Sadly, not much is known about this studio since their first release was swept under the rug. However, they’re making huge waves in the gaming community with their release of Liberté, a top-down deck-builder roguelite with an odd level of charm and cosmic weirdness.

Maybe cosmic weirdness is a bad choice of words, but that’s exactly what to expect from their latest creation. The developers at Superstatic Studio combined the French Revolution with the eldritch horrors from Lovecraft’s vision and made a well-balanced game that just keeps you coming back for more. Although it might look like things are going to go downhill fast… But it’ll actually be the opposite in this regard.

Liberté, as mentioned before, takes place in the middle of the French Revolution. In 1789, in Paris, on the day of the coronation, you’ll find yourself being woken up by a strange voice asking you for help. You’re collapsed in what seems to be a flesh-like root system in a corner, though somehow unscathed. You’ll need to find your feet soon because not long after leaving your warm fleshy bed, you’ll be met with soldiers that need to be cut down as the mysterious voice leads you on.

You’ll eventually reach the top half of a massive but strange looking body with a still beating heart, though that same heart also radiates an ominous energy. Naturally, this is where anybody would tuck and run, right? If only, but no, touching the heart introduces you to the voice who leads you along.  The voice in question is known as Lady Bliss, a cosmic being as old as time but still somehow incredibly beautiful at the same time with her flower-based design.

She’ll tell you her story of how she came to the planet to restore what was lost, unfortunately, she came in the middle of a war, and nobody wanted to listen to what she had to say. Sadly, she was stripped of her strength and instead fell like so many others because people fear what they don’t know and tend to overreact in the worst ways. Though this is also where you learn that your name is Rene. With Lady Bliss’ heart in hand, you’ll need to carry what’s left of her to a safe place where she can recover.

The plot thickens so much more when you do get her to a safe place. She tells you that you’ll have to be the deciding factor as to how the constant fighting ends and who will take the throne of France. No pressure at all, you’ll just need to choose between helping the Rebels, The Church, The Tribe, and The Crown. However, you’ll need to make a few tough decisions as to whom you’ll help at what time, and those choices appear more often than you’d think.

Quite early on in Liberté, you’ll be introduced to the deckbuilding mechanics. It does look a bit basic and unappealing at first, but like with any roguelite, it gets better after each run. In Liberté, you’ll receive cards with almost every level up, though it depends on how full your deck is. Once you’re out of cards, you won’t get more from leveling up. Your only alternative is to buy more from shops as you progress or pick them up as a rare drop from the enemies you slay.

This is where things become a bit more interesting, the cards you get are also everything you can do, from abilities and passives to consumables. However, you’ll need mana to use a card, this makes life a bit trickier in Liberté as you’ll need to burn cards to receive mana based on their respective mana costs, or if you’re lucky, use a free card that gives mana. Luckily, there are no negative or neutral cards, but you are limited on ability slots. You’ll need to choose your abilities carefully to suit your playstyle while giving Rene some very necessary buffs with passives, though mana will always be your biggest concern.

Now that you have a deck and some abilities lined up, you’re just about ready to go fight for what you believe in. However, Liberté doesn’t quite play nice when it comes to combat, so dodging, rolling and shields are your best friends when you’re out in the streets. You’ll be able to dodge most attacks and it’s made even easier since enemies will show an area of effect highlight on the ground for wide or ranged attacks. However, enemies who’d use melee attacks when you’re close enough don’t give you the same reprieve, this is where dodging or armor keeps you alive for much longer than they’d like.

As you’ll soon come to learn after dying for the first time in Liberté, you’re not quite what you should be, Lady Bliss reveals a bit more unnerving information about yours and her origins. Lucky for you, it also means you won’t be stuck with just a rapier as a pure melee fighter. In the Repertoire of Skins, you’ll get to basically masquerade as some of the NPCs you meet and use their respective weapons too, like Ana and her dual pistols. However, it’s not going to come easy, as you’ll need to unlock the skins by gathering Influence Points and ranking up your standing with each faction.

Influence Points play a big part in Liberté because not only do they allow you to eventually unlock skins, while you can also unlock Carte Blanche and some rare crafting materials. Returning to the deckbuilding side of Liberté, expanding your deck is possible through random unlocks and progressing the story, but also by unlocking them using Carte Blanche. From there, all you have to do is craft the cards so you can add them to your deck. However, crafting cards isn’t meant to be a common occurrence as you’ll need to really scavenge around or gain influence for some of the rarer crafting components, but it’s well worth the trouble in the end.

Liberté seems to be a very choice driven as you’ll soon come to see. While bringing in the roguelite aspects, you’ll see before a major story segment, you’ll usually see a conversion between members from two factions. These conversations give you a prewarning as to what you’ll encounter, but you’ll also need to use that to make your decision, however, the faction you didn’t choose will become your enemy for that segment. Though it’ll also affect what type of quests you’ll need to do. While isn’t a right or wrong answer to choose in Liberté, it’s up to you to choose whose story you want to delve into.

As you move from area to area, you’ll see that some areas are much smaller or just incredibly peaceful, these peaceful areas typically have shops where you can spend your Silver for cards, healing, or even to hire some help with fighting. Though in some cases, you’ll find an inspired painter who will share the same inspiration with you, giving you a useful boost to damage, healing, mana costs, etc.

So, naturally, a game like this would need something to raise the difficulty as you progress since the level cap is 20. This is done through Bliss Curses, these can affect you as Rene, the enemies you fight, or just the world as a whole, some are easier to handle than others, but you’ll need to keep an eye on your bliss curses. Another thing that can have an effect on the Bliss Curses in Liberté is known as a Fragment of The Bliss. While they look harmless and whimsical, with the townsfolk happily dancing around it, that’s far from the case.

Fragments of The Bliss also form part of the whole decision-making aspect, but this comes with an interesting twist. Lady Bliss will tell you that they are fragments of her garden and that they hold a great cosmic power that the people have not seen, and this is technically true. What she doesn’t mention is that you can choose to enter the fragment to face off against the demon inside for a chance at taking a piece of Lady Bliss’ power with you in the form of an ultimate card, or you can choose to forego that and still get a card but then your future enemies become stronger and you get an extra Bliss Curse. The obvious option would be to choose the lesser of two evils, but both evils have their risks. The demon you’ll face off against isn’t anything to scoff at, and they do become progressively much more difficult. However, taking a chance with the extra Bliss Curse can also bite you later on and cause you to die in the middle of what might be a really good run.

Now while Liberté is really well made with a massive array of mechanics to explore, it does, unfortunately, need a little polish. Going for the ranged skin is amazing, but aiming and firing at an enemy that’s slightly higher up than you, like at the top of a few stairs, might not work as well as expected, as you’ll see that your shots won’t even hit or miss, it’s like you’re just firing at thin air. The same thing happens with ranged abilities, this is a little annoying, but it doesn’t detract from the game as a whole, you’ll just need to keep that in mind. The developers are luckily fixing bugs and odd issues like the one mentioned here, so it might still get patched out.

For such a small game development studio, there is a very clear passion shown on the visual side of the game. While running through the streets while they’re filled with commoners, everything is beautifully animated and the people actually scatter and run away without issues when a fight breaks out. It’s almost as if each NPC was individually animated and thoroughly tested. However, it gets even better with the amount of detail on the Lovecraft inspired horrors and occasional environments. While the main NPCs aren’t fully animated, they’re instead semi-mobile stills, how they come in during dialogues still gives the Liberté’s atmosphere a good boost in the right direction while making it clear which characters are important to you and the story.

Liberté might look simple at first glance, but that changes very quickly when you start listening. The game features an amazing soundtrack you’ll get to experience as you progress through the story and you’ll notice there’s a unique song for every mood and time, this plays a massive part in Liberté’s atmosphere and immersion. However, where the real magic comes in is with the voice acting, while the game isn’t fully voiced (yet), you’ll find yourself getting more drawn in by the voice acting alone and actually feel what the main characters are feeling. The voice actors did a brilliant job in their roles and really brought a whole new life to Liberté.  Sadly, it can sometimes feel like some of the sounds are a bit heavily recycled in certain parts, like with gunfire or while attacking with the rapier.

Overall, Liberté is an astonishing game with a beautifully crafted world to explore and an intensely rich story. The use of deckbuilding actually takes this game over the top with how it’s structured because it gives you more freedom to play and adapt your current run to what you need. Aside from the bug with aiming at elevated enemies, the game has you coming back for more with each run, bringing you closer to resolving the conflict in Paris.

Jay Claassen
Editor, NoobFeed