Conglomerate 451 Review – Test

The Roguelike Dungeoncrawler Conglomerate 451 Review – Cyberpunk Round Tactics Roleplay

Zap Zockt Conglomerate 451 Review and Test – Conglomerate 451 brings the roguelike dungeon-crawler RPG genre into the future. In the year 2099 in a dystopian cyberpunk world, we send out DNA-enhanced clone agents to defeat the gangs of sinister corporations. Cyberware, armor, weapons need to be researched and our base, reputation, and sphere of influence need to be expanded.

This post is available here as text and also as a YouTube video (German voiceover, with subtitles in many languages), so you can choose how you want to enjoy it.

Video:

German voiceover, with subtitles in many languages

Conglomerate 451 Test – History

In the bleak future of 2099, in a settlement called Conglomerate, criminal corporations have seized power. They use gangs to control events according to their greedy desires. We are ordered by the government, which many people think is just a fairy tale, to break the power of the corporations and bring back peace and order to Conglomerate.

We get a short briefing and then open up an agency in Sector Conglomerate 451 to bring security to the city. For this purpose, we have a cloning unit at our disposal, which we can use to clone fighters. These clones can then be sent out into the city to kick the gangs and corporations’ asses. This is the background of Conglomerate 451, a turn-based and grid-based Roguelike Dungeoncrawler role-playing game in a dystopian cyberpunk setting. Ok, now that was a bad tapeworm.

Conglomerates 451 Review – Test – Introduction

Hi, this is Zap. I would like to introduce you to the game Conglomerate 451, show you what it’s about, how it is played, and if it can be fun. In the end, there is a rating from me, but I hope to give you all the information you need to decide for yourself if the game is something for you or not.

I have received a free review sample from the Czech publisher 1C Entertainment, thank you very much. But this has no influence on my rating, I try to look at each game as closely as if I had bought the game myself.

Developer, price and early access

Conglomerate 451 is developed by the Italian studio Runeheads and has been in early access for about 9 months. In the meantime, the game has received numerous updates and is now scheduled to be released as a full product on February 20th, 2020.

The price of $19.99 is in the middle range. Here you can also find a link to my partner site Gamesplanet with a 10% discount, but let’s first have a look together at how well the game has matured now.

Shopping Tip:

Buy Conglomerate 451 and other games cheap at Gamesplanet
(Affiliate / Advertising) – For every purchase, through this link, I get a small commission and you help the site with that. And it will not be more expensive for you, but even cheaper.

Read – Recommendation:

Many more game reviews and current game news can be found here at ZapZockt.de

Genre – Cyberpunk

The term cyberpunk is currently on everyone’s lips. After all, Cyberpunk 2077 is probably the new game from The Witcher Studio CD Project Red, which is eagerly awaited by many. But Cyberpunk is more than just the shortened name of this upcoming game. Because behind this term stands a whole science fiction genre. Numerous books, role-playing games, and films form a much more complex background.

Conglomerate 451 now plays in exactly this setting. We find ourselves in a not too distant, rather bleak future in which governments have been disempowered by corporations. People are replacing parts of their bodies with technology, so-called cyberware, to greatly improve their performance. In addition, there are complex computer networks and networked technology everywhere that can be manipulated by hackers.

If you want to know more about the background of cyberpunk, I recommend the Neuromancer book series or have a look here. Here I wrote some stuff about Cyberpunk in general and also about the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077.

Game type – Cyberpunk Dungeoncrawler Roguelike RPG

Let’s then see what kind of game Conglomerate 451 is at all. First of all, the strongest feature of the game is that it’s grid-based, so more clearly, it’s based on a map that’s made up of individual boxes.

So if you are in a bet and you move, the box goes box by box. This was very common in the past and was most recently used in the very popular Legend of Grimlock, for example. But in general, this is not so unusual in turn-based games.

In addition, Conglomerate 451 is then a mix of Roguelike Dungeoncrawler, with strong role-playing elements and also some basic expansion. In parts, the game also reminds me of the XCom series or the recently released Phoenix Point.

Gameplay – Missionen and Dungeons

The actual action of the game happens on missions where we send out groups of 3 agents. The game offers 6 different areas, all of which also offer different difficulties, different graphics, enemies, and some specialties.

These areas are not all unlocked from the beginning, this depends on the reputation of our agency. So we start in the first area, but with a few successful missions, we will extend our influence over the whole region.

Graphically there is a lot of variety, from residential areas, factories, sewers to research areas under the sea.

In the missions, there are often hidden containers, small key puzzles, and things that we can manipulate or plunder with hacking, besides the fighting. But this is also limited by our battery charge.

So here we have to plan carefully how we use our energy resources, because hacking uses the same energy we use to recharge our shields and new battery power can be found, but rarely.

With a scan function, we can uncover secrets, and often we can find key cards and switches that open doors for us or disable power locks, so we can save battery power because we don’t have to hack them.

The hacking actions have different mini-games, which are not at all made uninteresting. There are timing samples as well as a mini-game in which we have to identify the IP addresses, Mac addresses, and URLs we need under time pressure. With all mini-games, mistakes lead to loss of time, so that impatiently pushing around never leads to the goal but only to a premature end.

The maps of the levels and also the orders are generated procedurally, i.e., randomly. There are many different types of missions, from Kill the Boss, destroy all enemies, sabotage the machines or even find a certain item. Besides, there are also special main missions, which tell a loosely knitted overall story.

Conglomerate 451 Gameplay Screenshots (Part I)

Click or tap on the image for a larger view.
In the enlarged view, you can scroll right and left on the edges

Conglomerate 451 Gameplay – Combat

Battles are turn-based and typical role-playing values like initiative, accuracy, crit chance, shield, and defense are important. Each character can have four different skills active.

There are many different status effects or buffs and debuffs. Damage can scale up and down through these effects, there are stuns, changes in hit chances, and many, many other ways to strategically outmaneuver the enemy. Here Conglomerate 451 is not only a turn-based role-playing game but also a part turn strategy.

But also in battle, we have here the possibility to hack our opponents. Many opponents have technical equipment or implanted cyberware. Through the hacking skills of the group, this technology can be manipulated, even in combat.

Gameplay – characters and skills

There are a total of eight character classes, from which we can put together any team we want. There are very different archetypes. And each class also has its own selection of combat, support, healing, or defense skills.

Pure damage dealers are just as much in the repertoire as hackers, healers, tanks, or a class that specializes in giving themselves superhuman powers with chemical stimulants, with the danger of breaking down psychically at any time.

The agents level up through the experience they get in the missions. In addition, they can upgrade their skills in master grades, and with level-ups, they can also get passive bonuses that positively influence their stats.

Especially in this area, Conglomerate 451 offers an enormous variety, and this also contributes absolutely strongly to the depth of the game and motivation. If you want to try out all character classes and improve your skills and values, this is a very extensive project.

Gameplay – research, equipment, levels

It does not remain with pure character values. Every character has the equipment, both in weapons and armor, as well as later on in possibly implanted technology. And all these things can be upgraded with so-called SPUs and plugins, which we can find on the missions or buy in shops.

By investing in five different research departments, we can unlock numerous improvements. For example, cloning research gives us better agents through special mutations, while medicine gives our agents a more basic life or ensures that our hospital is better equipped.

Educational research allows us to obtain better skills. In military research, we get new weapons and armaments. And in cyber research, the extremely powerful cybernetic implants will be unlocked.

But all this research costs enormous amounts of resources, which we have to collect on the missions first. And that’s why we should think carefully about where we first invest in research into new improvements. Again, Conglomerate 451 has a rich game depth, which can be very motivating, but also includes some grind.

Our agents get new levels, better equipment, and skills as they go on missions more often. But they can also get hurt or mentally ill. Our agency’s own hospital offers help in such cases.

But agents can also die, and here there’s Permadeath, dead is dead. We can clone new agents, but they will start at level 0 and with starting equipment. Roguelike is here, the agency levels, we can level our heroes, but this hero progress can be lost at any time.

Conglomerate 451 Test – Gameplay – The agency

What remains for us in the long run, even if our agents may die, is the progress of our agency. We receive reputation bonuses for every successful assignment and unlock the additional territories.

Our goal is to break the power of the 4 sinister corporations that hold the city in a stranglehold. And that progress, too, will be permanently stored. With every successful mission against a corporation its influence decreases. But if we fail a mission completely, it goes in the other direction.

Our agency acquires all kinds of additional bonuses over time, which then apply to all agents and all facilities. And, of course, we keep all research and activations that we once received, even if we burn agent troops.

Conglomerate 451 Review – Engine, graphics, sound

Conglomerate 451 uses the Unity Engine. This provides stability and also gives the game attractive graphics for an indie title. In keeping with the cyberpunk genre, there are numerous shiny metal effects, neon signs, flashing and animated video ads, and many small details.

Even though the movement of the characters is tied to the grid of the levels, we can always look around freely and view the level architecture from different angles if we want to. Especially at the beginning, this is sometimes very nice to look at. The optics of the game really doesn’t belong to the weak points.

The setting consists of soft electro-synth sounds, which are adapted to the genre but could have been a bit more intoxicating, especially in the fights. There is an English voice output for the accompanying drone, but on the one hand, it isn’t as convincingly spoken and on the other hand, it’s not overly original or funny. I would now classify this as “expedient” mediocre, and this applies to the entire sound range.

Conglomerate 451 Gameplay Screenshots (Part II)

Click or tap on the image for a larger view.
In the enlarged view, you can scroll right and left on the edges

State of the game

After almost 9 months of early access and dozens of updates, Conglomerate 451 is crash-free and otherwise quite bug-free to play. The randomly generated maps are mostly diversified and because of the 6 different graphic settings, they also offer a lot of optical variations.

Apart from the somewhat weak sound, the game is otherwise very mature and on a technically good level. There is not much to criticize here anymore.

The game has eight different language versions for the texts and descriptions. At least the English and German versions are usable throughout. Only rarely there were negative outliers. The English language version is rather at the lower end of the quality scale.

Opinion and conclusion

Conglomerate 451 is a very deep game on the role-playing side. This has brought me a lot of fun. Players who enjoy tweaking and tuning different hero setups can find a lot of nice gameplay here.

Even without an RPG numbers fetish, you can enjoy yourself here, but if you really go into the depth of the values and mutually reinforcing effects here, you’ll get more out of the game and probably make a lot more progress. And for the high level of difficulty, it will probably also be urgently necessary.

The cyberpunk setting is very well done, the graphics, as well as the general gameplay, the characters, and everything else about it, offer good entertainment for cyberpunk fans. Often the environment is still too clean for my taste. A little more dirt and garbage would have been good for the cyberpunk feel.

The variety of opponents is amazing and also the choice of skills available to heroes and also to opponents is far above boring. In this area, Conglomerate does quite a lot right and surprises with variety.

The mini-games are well done. Besides the fights, there is also some loosening up on the trips. Here the combination of scanning, searching for key cards, and finding hidden containers and switches provides variety in the dungeons.

The scope of the game is quite considerable. Playing the game completely will take some entertaining hours. For collectors, there are more than 60 Steam-Achievements to get. And so this game offers a lot of entertainment for fans of turn-based role-playing and strategy games.

But the game could still use more variety in the design of the dungeons. After some time, the created levels are very similar again and again. With a little more work on more different components for the random generators, you could have gotten out a lot more. It’s not totally bad in this area, but also not much better than mediocrity.

The grid basis limits the game so that there are not too many surprises waiting for you when it comes to the level design in terms of walking paths. Maybe stairs or 45-degree turns could have been a huge improvement here and could have made the game more three-dimensional. But unfortunately, this will probably not be in this game.

What Conglomerate is really good at is the role-playing depth of the agents. Optimizing and equipping the heroes is fun and motivating. The balancing looks sophisticated and juggling the many items, skills and values offer a lot of depth.

Conglomerates 451 Review – Rating

For the price of $19.99, Conglomerate 451 provides great entertainment for fans of rogue-like role-playing games and turn-based dungeon crawlers. For my taste, it might be a bit cheaper for what is offered, but by and large, the price is still ok.

If you put this price in relation to the fun offered, I would like to give Conglomerate 451 a base rating of 80%.

I would like to deduct 3% for still a little too few dungeon components. There are quite a few, but more variety in this area would really help the game. But I guess there won’t be anything more until the release.

This brings me to a final score of a solid 77%. If you get the game for less than the basic price of twenty, the price-performance ratio will improve a lot depending on the money you save.

You can save 10% for example via this affiliate link to Gamesplanet (Affiliate Link / Ad), for every purchase I get a small commission and with that, you also support my work.

How do you like this Cyberpunk Roguelike Game? Do you like to send your agents right away or does the bare metal of the armor leave you completely cold? Please write to me your opinion in the comments. More reviews and gaming news can always be found on my website Zapzockt.de Subscription button and thumb may be used and then I wish you a great day, ciao ciao, your Zap.

Conglomerate 451

Zap from ZapZockt.de

The Roguelike Dungeoncrawler Conglomerate 451 Review – Cyberpunk round-robin role-playing game
Zap Zockt Conglomerate 451 Review and Test – Conglomerate 451 brings the roguelike dungeon-crawler RPG genre into the future. In the year 2099 in a dystopian cyberpunk world, we send out DNA-enhanced clone agents to defeat the gangs of sinister corporations. Cyberware, armor, weapons need to be researched and our base, reputation, and sphere of influence need to be expanded.

Graphics

Role-play

tactics and turn-based strategy

Sound

Setting

Price – Performance

Longtime-motivation

Rating

For the price of $19.99, Conglomerate 451 provides great entertainment for fans of rogue-like role-playing games and turn-based dungeon crawlers. For my taste, it might be a bit cheaper for what is offered, but by and large, the price is still ok.

If you put this price in relation to the fun offered, I would like to give Conglomerate 451 a base rating of 80%.
I would like to deduct 3% for a little too few dungeon parts. There are quite a few, but more variety in this area would really do the game well. But I guess there won’t be anything more until the release.

This brings me to a final score of a solid 77%. Should you get the game for less than the basic price of twenty, the price-performance ratio will improve a lot depending on the money saved.

3.9

Links and sources

Steam Page:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1022710/Conglomerate_451/

Dev Website:
http://www.runeheads.com/

Dev Twitter:
https://twitter.com/RuneHeads