Check Out Our First Impressions of Cross-Platform ARPG Undecember

This is largely thanks to its highly impressive graphics, which look just as good on the big screen as they do on the small screen. But developer Needs Games has included a couple of other clever innovations in the hope of making Undecember more than just a pretty face.

After a long wait, the game finally launched earlier this month. We’ve dipped our toes into the first couple of hours of the PC version, and this is what we took away.

First up, yes. Undecember looks incredible, with pin-sharp high resolution backdrops and eerily authentic character faces.

The art design is seriously accomplished, too, from the disintegrating landscape of Traum to the great lumbering Sand Walkers that roam its deserts. Undecember promised to be a looker, and it delivers.

In terms of gameplay, Undecember feels like a mobile game blown up for PC rather than a PC game shrunk to fit on a smartphone.

The clearest evidence of this is in the on-screen prompts that occasionally invite you to touch the screen. But it’s also obvious from the controls, which see you clicking with your cursor to order your character around, rather than moving them directly with the W, A, S, and D keys.

To attack, you click the right mouse button or press Q, W, E, or R to deploy the skills bound to those respective keys.

The click-to-move controls make for a slightly unusual setup, but it works just fine. The combat is just as gratifying and excessive as you’d expect from a top tier hack-and-slash RPG.

Undecember’s classless growth system – one of the game’s flagship innovations – allows you to equip any type of weapon and use any type of skill in any every conceivable combination.

Of course, certain skills are specific to certain types of weapon – e.g., skills that modify what you can do with a bow are totally worthless if you’re holding a sword. But aside from commonsense restrictions like this you’re totally free to do whatever you like.

Skills in Undecember are linked to Skill Runes, and there’s more innovation in the way that you equip and modify them.

In the Runes menu you’ll find a hex grid that you can place hexagonal runes into. Each side of these runes is color-coded, and you can modify them by placing them next to Link Runes of the same color.

In fact, a Link Rune can modify multiple Skill Runes at the same time, as long as you’re clever about where you place them. This makes the simple act of equipping runes a fairly engrossing puzzle-like process.

The Zodiac system, meanwhile, lets you assign Trait Points flexibly to three different attributes of your character: Strength, Intelligence, and Dexterity.

The opening couple of battles in Undecember are both spectacular in their own ways. The first is a prologue in which you’re hugely powerful, and the second takes place on a platform being carried by a gigantic Sand Walker.

Once you’ve hacked and slashed your way through those, you reach Malo Front, a small village that serves as the central hub for everything else you do in the game.

Dotted around Malo Front you’ll find the Blacksmith, the Peddler, the Gear Shop, the Mystic, the Mailbox, the Recruitment Board, and other amenities besides.

Plus, you’ll find NPCs, some of them muttering to themselves about bandits, others ready to give you quests. And you’ll find human players, milling around before heading off on their next adventure.

There are multiple paths leading away from Malo Front, and it’s by following these paths that you get to explore the other areas of Traum, killing various fantasy monsters and collecting loot. Whenever you’re ready to go home, you just create a return portal and hop into it.

Like many MMORPGs, Undecember lets you summon pets to assist you in the game. Rather than aiding you in combat, however, they collect loot and disassemble gear while you get on with the hacking and slashing.

The first pet you unlock, Toduba, is a stout, frumpy little monster who waddles along behind you like an upright toad, looking utterly harmless amid the carnage.

Undecember also celebrates Halloween from October 26 until November 23. This would be a great time to jump into the world of Undecember as there will be some valuable loot given out. More information can be found on the official Discord or Website. You can also download it from the App Store or Google Play.

Undecember is a free-to-play MMORPG. That means its true worth can only be measured over the long term, when it becomes clear how fair the in-game economy is.

But in the first instance, as a straight-up action-RPG, Undecember has plenty going for it.