- Total Score - 8/108/10
Summary
Despite some rough edges, Chorus provides a fun campaign with excellent combat.
Developer – Fishlabs
Publisher – Deep Silver
Platforms – PC, Xbox, Playstation
Chorus, originally shown during the Series X premier showcase and known for confusing everybody with the look of it’s title card. Now that I’ve spent a dozen hours with it, I can firmly state that Chorus is not as confusing as the title card implied, and is in fact a tremendous throwback to classic space bound action adventures.
Chorus is a semi-open world game, with several massive hub worlds featuring towns, quests, side missions, random encounters and various NPC’s to speak with and meet. It honestly surprised me when I first started playing, as most space flight games fall into two camps as of late.
On the one hand, you have titles such as Elite Dangerous, and the many games that followed suit. Hardcore space sims, sandbox in nature with very little narrative thrust. On the other hand, you have rogue-lites. Games with strong gameplay but not many inter-connected systems and their run based nature don’t lend themselves to a narrative arc by an large.

Chorus is a throw back to a different time. When games such as Warhawk, Starfox 64, Colony Wars, and Wing Commander. Space opera’s used to be the norm once upon a time, and it’s quite a long time since the genre has seen much growth.
From the very moment you begin the game, Chorus thrusts players right into the thick of it. Playing as Nara, a chosen warrior piloting for a vast cult known as The Circle. After an explosive intro, you are placed in the first hub. Nara, now an exile from her former cult, is in hiding and scavenges to get by.
Without getting into specifics, she has to reunite with her most powerful weapon, a sentient ship that can enhance her powers known as “Forsaken.”

Once united with her ship, Chorus goes from a space opera to a full blown character action game in a ship. Players get introduced to a mechanic known as a drift trance.
This mechanic completely transforms the moment to moment gameplay of Chorus. When activated, you enter a trans like state that allows you to take deep cuts and normally impossible angles while remaining locked onto a target. Developing your skill at the trance is key to progressing through the campaign, as it becomes essential to survive most combat encounters.
This isn’t the only power you gain however, through out the campaign multiple abilities will unlock that provide a nice suite of powers to augment the more traditional weapons and flight this genre provides.

As you venture into various hub spaces and engage in more traditional open world activities, you gain tiered upgrades and power-ups for your weapons, ship and powers. Chorus at no point tries to become a sprawling RPG. Upgrades are straightforward, and the arsenal at your disposal is small and focused.
Lasers for shields, kinetic weapon for hull, and missiles for larger targets. Using this triumvirate of weaponry alongside Nara”s power set and mobility create a completely different flow to combat. Each encounter feels exciting instead of cumbersome, and the expanded power set brings a satisfying power fantasy to the end game content.
The expanded tool-set is important, because Chorus is actually challenging. You are a small fighter, and even later on you can’t really take much direct hits. Most space games can feel a bit easy, with the only challenge provided comes from a lack of upgrades. The enemies in Chorus are ruthless, and if you stand still for a moment they will hound you relentlessly.

Chorus is also a great looking game. Playing on the Series X, not once did I encounter any performance issues regardless of how massive the battles became. The music is stellar as well, with a game titled Chorus, the main theme resonates and the tribal choir’s and drums provide a very unique audio backdrop than the average sci-fi adventure.
Not all was perfect however. The side quests and mission chains they can lead too were just okay at best, and they would frequently break and cause mission failure states over and over again.
Multiple side missions where you have to follow a target would lead to a fail state despite having the target right in front of me for no reason at all. These failure states happened less following the day 1 patch, but still happened enough to frustrate.
Despite the issues I encountered with side quests, the main story and the core gameplay and story were incredibly satisfying to experience. Nara and her story arc, the spells mixed with technology combat and the great visuals all come together to create a well paced homage to a long lost genre.
