Ultros review: a bold, beautiful, and baffling Metroidvania

Ultros MSRP $25.00 Score Details Pros

Psychedelic art
Fantastic music
Unique gardening system

Cons

Unclear visual design
Underexplained systems
Tedious backtracking

My bloody quest to kill a grotesque demon is about to reach its climax when I stop to do a bit of intergalactic gardening. Testing out a mysterious new tool I received, I blow a puff of blue gas at a hanging vine. At first, I’m confused as all I can seemingly do is slightly change the direction it’s growing in. That’s when I accidentally direct it into a pool of golden liquid. Suddenly, vines sprout out in every direction, cutting through the substance like a newly grown nervous system. After marveling at the wonders of nature, I lodge my handy digger drone into the wall and completely uproot my creation, turning it back into a simple seed.

Birth. Death. Rebirth.

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That simple loop powers Ultros, a stylish new Metroidvania by developer Hadoque, like a healthy heart locked behind a twisted rib cage. Once I weed through its dense sci-fi lore and overcomplicated gameplay systems, I begin to discover a more digestible spiritual journey about the unknowable cycle of life and death. Getting there can be a frustrating journey, though; Ultros is a confusing labyrinth of ideas that I still find myself a little lost in even now.

A psychedelic trip

In Ultros, I take on the role of an astronaut in a slick red coat who crash-lands on a massive vessel, The Sarcophagus. I quickly learn that the ship doesn’t just house corridors full of colorful plant life, but also a demonic entity known as Ultros. To vanquish it, I’ll need to hunt down seven Shaman, taking a different technological power from them that’ll help unlock new biomes on the ship. To make matters more complicated, all of this is happening in a black hole. At key points in the story, the entire cycle begins