The Technomancer

 PC
User Score
6.6

Mixed or average reviews- based on 201 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 103 out of 201
  2. Mixed: 49 out of 201
  3. Negative: 49 out of 201

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  1. overlot
    Aug 23, 2016
    7
    This is probably the best game made by Spiders so far. But it has some big flaws.
    Pros:
    + very good setting - cities and other small locations on Mars are full of this unique cyberpunk-like (and maybe a bit postapocalyptic) atmosphere + music - another great, melodic and memorable soundtrack made by Oliver Deriviere (Remember Me, Bound By Flame) + pretty nice storyline, maybe not very    This is probably the best game made by Spiders so far. But it has some big flaws.
    Pros:
    + very good setting - cities and other small locations on Mars are full of this unique cyberpunk-like (and maybe a bit postapocalyptic) atmosphere
    + music - another great, melodic and memorable soundtrack made by Oliver Deriviere (Remember Me, Bound By Flame)
    + pretty nice storyline, maybe not very unique, but it has some good moments
    + some good side quests, with a lot of dialogues
    + nice, dynamic combat
    Cons:
    - BACTRACKING - this damn thing pulls the game down to an annoying experience pretty often - you have to go back and forth during the whole gameplay A LOT on exactly the same paths, with the enemies spawning exactly in the same places each time you visit the area again. A BIG minus here!
    - There are moments during the game, when you can break it actually by doing the quests in incorrect order - if the flaw of the game is determined by making quests in a certain order, the game engine should warn the player, or prevent him / her from doing quests in incorrect order. Unfortunately it isn't the case and a couple of times I was forced to load older saves, some of them made several hours earlier, and repeat a large part of the game, because there were bugs which made it impossible to continue with the main storyline. Another Big minus here!
    - face animations aren't really good for today's standards.

    Despite the extremely annoying bactracking and the quest order bugs I managed to reach the end of the game and I must say that the ending was very satisfying to me. I probably won't spoil anything if I just say that actually discovering a certain truth which lies at the very end of this adventure appeared to me to be one of the most moving endings in the games ever. Bravo Spiders for this great idea!

    I think that this game is worth a try for everyone who likes sci-fi stories with interesting setting, good music, quite interesting characters and a dramatic (in my private opinion) finale. But be warned again: if you hate backtracking in games, you should probably avoid this title.    … Expand
  2. SlightlyOP
    Jul 8, 2016
    6
    I Love Mass Effect. I love Dragon Age. I love the Witcher. I love Star Wars: Knights of the old Republic. I like this game. Hope this succeeds and that they're able to make more games.
  3. ChrisPL
    Aug 17, 2016
    5
    Let's be honest here - this could have been a good game, but it turned out to be mediocre. The fighting system, crafting system and the RPG elements are all there and quite impressive too. But the game itself lacks a good immersion. There is no spark in this one.
  4. Rolingachu
    Jul 11, 2016
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Gameplay is great overall. But it falls short on history and general diversity and content. Keep the work Spider, i believe the next will be the good one.… Expand
  5. TheLewdOne
    Aug 4, 2016
    7
    Spyder's back at it again with almost the exact same game as their last two entries. It's fairly clear they have found their comfort point when it comes to games. While I do like these games, there is a certain amateur tinge to them that keeps me from recommending them wholeheartedly, along with them rarely living up to all of the game's promises.

    First thing off the bat; Being a    Spyder's back at it again with almost the exact same game as their last two entries. It's fairly clear they have found their comfort point when it comes to games. While I do like these games, there is a certain amateur tinge to them that keeps me from recommending them wholeheartedly, along with them rarely living up to all of the game's promises.

    First thing off the bat; Being a technomancer is kind of lame. Your power that makes people scared of you is basically the ability to shoot lightning. In a world that has guns. Boo. They make similar promises for games like Mars and Bound By Flame and rarely keep them though, so fans of the company won't be very surprised, just disappointed. However the characters and the story are fun and decently engaging, typical of Spyder as well.

    If you are looking for a sci-fi action adventure there is little to steer you wrong here, I'm speaking more from a position of wishing that a promising company would step a bit out of it's comfort zone from time to time.    … Expand
  6. SuperkenGaming
    Jun 30, 2016
    7
    The Technomancer
    Dragon Age in Space
    The Technomancer took me on a rollercoaster of emotions, and not necessarily in a good way... This game tells the story of a young technomancer living on mars… You eventually set out to find information on the planet earth… This is the games overall objective But of course there are others inhabiting mars that want this info as well.. They want    The Technomancer
    Dragon Age in Space
    The Technomancer took me on a rollercoaster of emotions, and not necessarily in a good way...
    This game tells the story of a young technomancer living on mars…
    You eventually set out to find information on the planet earth…
    This is the games overall objective
    But of course there are others inhabiting mars that want this info as well..
    They want access to the technomancer secrets
    Being a technomancer means that you have these awesome electrical powers that the other residents on mars don’t…
    You do get to customize your technomancer in the beginning as well as start to build your specific mancer based on your play style..
    You can be a warrior, rogue, or guardian…
    Basically you can choose quick close combat, quick and ranged combat, or guarded close combat...
    All of which can be switched to mid combat just by changing your fighting stance
    But you’re better off sticking to one style
    I personally dumped all of my skill points into the warrior and technomancer skill tree, upgraded my electrical powers and staff attacks…
    I wasn’t too big of a fan of the game during its first few hours..
    The amount of choices and skill perks were far too overwhelming for me to grasp at first, leaving me to believe that maybe introducing the skill tree at the start of the game wasn’t too great of an idea...
    youre practically asked to make a choice on something you have no idea about…
    But as the game went on, by hour 5 I was hooked…
    Leveling up felt satisfying and addicting as any good rpg should…
    The story also started to get its hooks in me as I was learning about all of the characters who enhabited mars.
    This game is most comparable to dragon age…
    This isn’t necessarily an open world game, but an open hub game where you travel from hub to hub to complete tasks and take out enemies along your way for xp and loot…
    You also have the choice to drain your fallen enemies for serum which is a currency on mars...
    The only issue though is that doing this will kill that person and life is still valued on mars... and doing so will give you bad karma…
    And all of this may seem like it doesn’t matter, but much like dragon age you also have companions with you..
    You can bring any 2 along and change their weapon and gear, but they pay attention to every choice you make as you play the game, and if they don’t agree with your decisions they can and will leave you...
    So if you do get attached to any of your companions make sure you listen to them and try to stay on their good side..
    Which can be done by helping carry out their requests in side missions, or to choose the answer they feel is best during a main quest...
    The best is that their kills do count towards your xp, so they never feel like they get in the way of your progress and are great to have by your side….
    My biggest issues with this game is its combat and lack of overall variety…
    Combat is probably the least satisfying aspect of this game…
    You do have awesome moves depending on the skills you choose to unlock, but the weapons stay the same throughout just with different stats... you can upgrade your weapons through crafting, but even if you pour your skill points into crafting you still have to find the diagrams to craft a new part… and the world really isn’t engaging enough to want to go out and do this…
    Because by hour 15 of 25 this game really starts to get boring as it takes your nowhere new
    you’ll go to 3 different hub cities throughout the games campaign but for all 25 hours you’re going back and forth between the same 3 places….
    You literally get a task, complete it, are told to return to a city to update your progress, then are told to go back to the same place to do something else, then told to comeback, then you’re told to go to a different place, complete, come back, go back to the first place comeback rinse and repeat for 25 hours…
    I got so tired of walking through the same paths over and over…the scenery literally doesn’t change from hour 1 to hour 25 other than the city you return to to turn your mission progress in..
    And the worst is you have to fight the exact same enemies in the exact same place over and over and over…
    and the combat itself can feel super cheap and frustrating at times and is really trash…
    The hit detection is straight up garbage..
    Enemies don’t really have a block animation.. Your attacks just sometimes won’t do damage when you can clearly see your staff going right through them…
    This poor hit detection greatly hinders any sense of satisfaction as you pull off cool moves and dodge your enemy’s attacks…
    Meanwhile you don’t have this luxury…
    if their weapon hits you - you’re taking damage no questions asked…
    And any area can definitely have you out numbered with multiple heavies or ranged enemies which will lead to constant deaths even on the games easiest difficulty...
    And if you do die in the middle of a city you have to restart from where you entered the city, and guess what?
    Fight the enemies you already fought...
    This can thankfully be overcome by manually saving after you complete an enemy encounter as this game only AutoSaves when you climb a ladder or open a door….
    But when you come back later they will be back...
    Even if you kill them…
    Honestly I think choosing to kill for the bad karma but in return not having to deal with that creature or human enemy anymore would’ve really made the choice of kill or not much more meaningful and consequential… But unfortunately, this choice doesn’t go that deep… The combat highlight is definitely the games bosses… But you don’t have to do much to defeat them other than spam attacks and dodge… Every encounter especially the final encounters all ultimately feel anti-climactic… There’s a lot to do in the technomancer… There’s just not enough variety to want to do it all… I Give the Technomancer a 6.5/10    … Expand
  7. ArchonSaar
    Jul 5, 2016
    6
    Summary Review: Like all previous Spider Games, Technomancer has a lot of potential yet it lacks the polish. Most of its content feels served in a raw, uncooked form - an amalgam of flavors that sometimes hits, but more often misses. Yet taken for what it is - a budget AA title - I can certainly recommend it during a sale.

    Overall Score: 6/10 Story: 6/10 Gameplay: 6/10 Dialogue and    Summary Review: Like all previous Spider Games, Technomancer has a lot of potential yet it lacks the polish. Most of its content feels served in a raw, uncooked form - an amalgam of flavors that sometimes hits, but more often misses. Yet taken for what it is - a budget AA title - I can certainly recommend it during a sale.

    Overall Score: 6/10

    Story: 6/10
    Gameplay: 6/10
    Dialogue and VA: 6/10
    Graphics: 7/10

    --------------------
    Long Review:
    --------------------

    After finishing the Tehcnomancer I have a bag of mixed feelings about this title. It certainly was enjoyable - for the most part - yet I can't shake the feeling that with some more polish it would've turned into a memorable game.

    Technomancer starts of great, with a prologue and chapter 1 that has tons of content, lore and chararacters for you to discover. Yet amidst all that content it misses two of the most essential things in RPG games: context and a lore book. Too many times you are told about organizations or people that you have no idea who or what they are, yet the game treats it like you are super familiar with. It gets even more frustrating when you have to decide the fate of a person you just met minutes ago and of which you know next to nothing. I'm not sure if the fault lies with the writers or it's just content that got cut due to lack of time, but it feels like watching a sequel movie without having watched the original.

    Gameplay wise technomancer feels like a mix between dragon age 2 and witcher 3. Your adventure is shared with 2 other companions, which - for what is worth - are remarkly well done. I was quite impressed when having a specific companion helped to solve quests (that otherwise would require fighting) or offered insights into why certain events happened. Sadly, your interaction with them is quite limited in terms of personal dialogue, yet even so I could definitely see unique personalities from each of them.

    Combat is a bit hard at the begining, but once you level up and get deeper into a skill tree it becomes less of a challenge and more of a tedium. The most annoying part is how often enemies respawn - almost always whenever you reload the map - making it quite frustrating when you gotta kill the same moles/insects just to navigate the underworks. As far as animations are concerned, I was quite impressed by the quality, especially for the staff style - they are gracious and fluid, and I'm curious which stunt actor they used to mocap them!

    Story is relatively interesting, but predictable and it suffers from the lack of context I mentioned earlier. Without that it is really hard to get emotionally involved for a character os group you know nothing of. It also looks like the devs focused most of their efforts on chapter 1 and 2; As detailed and full of content as they are, chapter 3 and 4 feel like the total opposite - a rushed, streamlined experience that feels half done. It's a shame, especially since the end is supposed to be grand and philosophical, yet gets so rushed so badly that it feels you watch a trailer for a TV-shows season finale, after having invested time in all the previous episodes.

    All in all, Technomancer is not a bad game, but not a great one either. It falls on the 'meh' side with a bit of special favor, just enough to justify buying it during a sale.    … Expand
  8. Letiste-Gaming
    Jun 30, 2016
    7
    The Technomancer es un juego interesante. La ambientación está muy bien conseguida, las habilidades son muy llamativas y le dan un toque muy dinámico, así como la toma de decisiones, que lo convierten en un título muy atractivo.Pese a todo el título no es perfecto y peca como todos los juegos del género con misiones secundarias insulsas y repetitivas, los gráficos son mejorables y la IA esThe Technomancer es un juego interesante. La ambientación está muy bien conseguida, las habilidades son muy llamativas y le dan un toque muy dinámico, así como la toma de decisiones, que lo convierten en un título muy atractivo.Pese a todo el título no es perfecto y peca como todos los juegos del género con misiones secundarias insulsas y repetitivas, los gráficos son mejorables y la IA es nefasta.… Expand
  9. Tomle1202
    Jul 2, 2017
    5
    The Technomancer holds a lot of potential, yet these promising settings cannot justify the poorly executed final outcome desperately lacking charm and polish.
  10. leSange
    Feb 15, 2020
    6
    Сначала проматывал, а потом как втянулся, сопереживать даже начал, в целом сюжет нормальный, интересный
  11. rahan
    Oct 16, 2016
    7
    Me agradou o tema de tecnomago futurista. Geralmente esse desenvolvedora faz games medianos mas estão a melhorar com o tempo. O jogo tem uma bela arvore de habilidades, itens customisaveis em quantidade rasoavel.Pontos negativos são pela historia cliche e pela camera nos combates que atrapalha as vezes. È jogavel caso tu goste muito de RPG e não tenha nada melhor do genero no momento.
  12. Yulduz
    Jan 5, 2020
    6
    -ARPG with sci-fi setting, is quite worked and tries to be a mixture of The Witcher and final bosses but it does not succeed.
    I think the main problem is that the story does not work, it tells me nothing and that is a big problem when it has so many cinematics, also the mission design is very poor.
    -ARPG con ambientacion de sci-fi, esta bastante trabajado e intenta ser una mezcla de    -ARPG with sci-fi setting, is quite worked and tries to be a mixture of The Witcher and final bosses but it does not succeed.
    I think the main problem is that the story does not work, it tells me nothing and that is a big problem when it has so many cinematics, also the mission design is very poor.

    -ARPG con ambientacion de sci-fi, esta bastante trabajado e intenta ser una mezcla de The Witcher y jefes finales pero no lo consigue.
    Yo creo que el principal problema es que la historia no funciona, a mi no me dice nada y eso es un gran problema cuando tiene tantas cinematicas, también el diseño de misiones es muy pobre.    … Expand
  13. razzzor
    Sep 2, 2022
    7
    Do Spider listen to the fans on how to improve their games? The exact same problems with Mars are also in The Technomancer. The biggest issue; backtracking. Backtracking over the same rooms with the same exact enemies in the same positions. Sometimes you'll leave the room, a few minutes later return and the enemies are all back!

    Later in the game you're still going back to the same    Do Spider listen to the fans on how to improve their games? The exact same problems with Mars are also in The Technomancer. The biggest issue; backtracking. Backtracking over the same rooms with the same exact enemies in the same positions. Sometimes you'll leave the room, a few minutes later return and the enemies are all back!

    Later in the game you're still going back to the same goddamn hub you basically started the game in, with the same but upgraded enemies, but many navigation points closed off so you spend a substantial amount of time just trying to navigate the effing layout with the minimap constantly on your screen. Yes, there are no way points. The amount of time I spent lost in the poor maze-like design of The Underworld and The Exchange!

    This was the same problem in Mars, backtracking. It's a poor mans way to extend a game, in this case probably almost 50% of the game is just from backtracking and replaying the same enemies.

    Looking over the old screenshots of Mars to refresh my memory, I'm seeing the same graphics, same art style, same enemies and special abilities. Is this a bit of a lazy sequel at re-using all the same assets.

    The combat can be hard at times. I heard the beginning is especially hard, but it never really let up for me even when doing most of the side quests to level up appropriately. The problem with combat is you can get overwhelmed quickly so it's a repetitive process of hit-hit-dodge-hit-hit-dodge, working on one enemy at a time. The powers you get become pretty useless in tougher fights because they're too slow. But later on the combat becomes a frustrating display of slowdown with every second hit on an enemy. You have to constantly come in and out of slow motion, and what for? I assume maybe it's something to do with going for a critical hit.

    Overall the upgrades don't give much, crafting doesn't give much, the items you get throughout the game barely improve. I guess this is so Spider didn't have to level up enemies too much, so you go back to the start area and they're still not much easier despite 10 hours of levelling and item collecting. In fact I think the game may only get easier as you perfect your own combat skills at dealing with certain enemies (dodging at the right time etc).

    That being said the pros are

    Although there aren't a huge amount of areas (probably similar to a 8 hour Call of Duty game) they do like good. Not amazing but good enough.

    Side quests aren't always just fetch quests, they are more interesting, sometimes you need to make decisions. Albeit no new areas to go though

    Despite being difficult and repetitive, combat does have it's good points. I like that the dodge is far more responsive than Dark Souls. You can literally be in the middle of slash and can dodge out of it mid-air. Makes it feel smooth and it is always quite action packed.

    The story is long and interesting enough, and choices during quests do make a difference later on.

    I see Spiders' next game, GreedFall at least changes the setting to fantasy, but if they can fix the backtracking that would improve their games a lot, even if they're 1/3 shorter, that's fine because I don't need to fight the same enemies in the same room ten times over.    … Expand
  14. PenetratorGod
    Aug 20, 2023
    5
    Like all Spiders games, this one is a failure. If you don't have any games left to play, maybe give it a chance. Spiders is a mediocre company that constantly tries to copy popular games of the time. They always look mediocre because they try to make big games that are too big for their budget. They will never be successful unless they know what they can and can't do.

Awards & Rankings

74
#74 Most Discussed PC Game of 2016
90
#90 Most Shared PC Game of 2016

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
56

Mixed or average reviews - based on 34 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 34
  2. Mixed: 25 out of 34
  3. Negative: 8 out of 34
  1. GameOver.gr
    Oct 21, 2016
    65
    The Technomancer is one of those rare games in modern gaming industry. Medium budget games with AAA ambition in mind. The game offers a rich sci-fi world with tons of lore and meaningful choices, but it’s combat can be a great hit and miss and it’s graphics seem outdated. It does everything in adequate fashion, but nothing in spectacular way. We need more games like this one.
    Read full review
  2. CD-Action
    Sep 16, 2016
    50
    The game offers five endings but I’m sure most players will not even see one, because The Technomancer is disappointingly shallow, confined and devoid of passion. [09/2016, p.42]
  3. Game World Navigator Magazine
    Aug 23, 2016
    53
    Synopsis of story looks promising: Mars, secrets of technomancers, government conspiracies, etc. – but in practice it’s incredibly bland, lacking both interesting characters and twists. Same goes for tasks: the game will make you protect dumb NPCs, find N spies before time is up, and, of course, complete a truckload of fetch quests. [Issue#211, p.64]
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