The populated systems are enslaved by an army of cosmic fanatics, and all those who disagree are declared heretics and given to all-cleansing. However, on the outskirts of the galaxy, the armada meets aggressive resistance, at the head of which the former first executioner of the sect unexpectedly rises. Let's talk about Chorus.
The heroine of Chorus is called Nara. She is the pupil of the self-proclaimed Prophet, who chose as his mission to bring to mankind the doctrine of Horus, which meant harmony and security for everyone and everyone. The prophet taught the girl to connect to the ether and draw from the abyss of strength inaccessible to ordinary pilots, and in return, Nara became his main executioner.
Her devout devotion to the doctrine collapsed overnight when the great healer and beacon for the lost ordered Nara to destroy an entire colony in Nymika Prime that refused to accept Horus. The girl opened a rift that killed millions of innocent souls. And while a fierce battle was going on in orbit between the Circle and the colonial security forces, the Nara rushed away in horror from what they had done.
Seven years have passed since then. Nara burned out almost all the rituals (special gifts of the ether) from her memory and found a second home somewhere in the outskirts of the galaxy, moonlighting as a scavenger in a small Enclave. Of course, she didn’t tell anyone about her inglorious past, and sealed the Krug’s ship in the ruins of the “faceless”, transferring to an old and maneuverable AR-1 fighter.
But the past catches up with the girl: the makers of the Circle invade the system through the jump gates. Nara helps the locals repel the first attack, but understands that now the fanatics will not stop until they have enslaved or destroyed all the inhabitants of the central Stega. Gathering a small militia, Nara prepares to strike back at the heart of the cult, but first she needs to go through the rituals again and return an old friend - the sentient ship Forsaiken.
Chorus is revealed to the players in seven (if you count the "Void") spacious areas, which you have to explore in turn, performing main and side activities. The classic "flying shooter" will not let pilots go beyond the station hangars, and even more so will not let them wander on their own two feet - all game activities from an online game developer Friv2Online will be reduced to flights, dialogues, research and battles.
Chorus' cutscenes are quite budget-friendly, but the space is filled with a variety of moving particles and attractive areas. With well-crafted lighting and reflections, the world looks picturesque and mysterious. Locations are animated by the movement of various ships, dynamic events and side tasks, and space highways are stretched between large stations.
The ships in the game have a nice, but somewhat nondescript design. Most of them are well developed, their designs contain many moving elements (deflectable flaps, turbine elements, guns), but it is difficult to call them memorable. Even Nara's ship will yield in sophistication to most of the vessels from the same Star Conflict.
But Deep Silver did not forget to make a photo mode. It does not have too many settings, but everything you need for beautiful space shots is provided: background blur, the ability to turn off your ship, simple filters, vignetting.
As you might have guessed, the controls in Chorus are as arcade-like as possible: pulling, jerking to the sides and choosing a direction, tied to a single sight for all guns. Unfortunately, there are no strafes - the game allows you to "level" the ship by pressing the appropriate button or do it yourself after some time.
The Nara gunship is equipped with a repair drone and three standard space shooter weapon types: a kinetic repeater for structure damage, an anti-shield laser, and rocket launchers. At the docks of stations, you can use credits to strengthen the shields and armor of the ship, as well as fill three Forsaken slots with mods with passive bonuses.
The Nara development system is built on the principle: the more you use, the better it works. All guns, some of the ship's systems and rituals (unique abilities of the female pilot) gain levels and become more and more effective. Even the very first "sense ritual" that the Nara uses to search for echoes of memories, objects hidden from the radar, and footprints of pilots imprinted on the ether, begins to bring more profit, the more Nara uses it to discover valuables.
As you progress through the story, Nara will receive more and more powers. For example, he will learn a "hunting ritual" that will allow you to sit on the tail of the enemy, and master the "drift trance" - something like Decouple-mod, which allows the ship to maintain a given pace and course while the pilot rotates the hull in any direction to hit the pursuer sharply or change course.
By combining Nara skills and three types of guns, pilots can optionally defy classic dogfights by teleporting to optimal attack positions, severing enemy ship systems, or even ramming the enemy in the form of a light lance. The combat system in Chorus is easy to learn and quite effective, but fast and merciless - just one missed maneuver can cost the player most of the body armor. Especially on medium difficulty and above.
I did not see any significant, clearly defined shortcomings in Chorus. In a few hours, the quest marker broke one single time, in one single place (on the Xbox Series X ) the frame rate dipped a little, there were not enough distance indicators for the marks detected by instinct - it is quite possible to coexist with all these little things.
However, Chorus has one unpresentable feature that affects almost all aspects of the shooter - the friv game is too ordinary. There are no charismatic characters here, just as there are no memorable ships, and out of dozens of side missions, there is not even one that you want to tell your fellow pilots about over a mug of "transgalactic ale".
The heroine is haunted by gloomy thoughts, her AI partner Forseiken, who is stingy with words, is gloomy and also some kind of depressed. Whatever they have a conversation, then about the unsightly past. There is a mysterious and multi-colored space around, and you are always on an oppressive wave. It's like going on a long-awaited adventure with a depressed, indifferent friend - sooner or later his mood will be transmitted to the whole company.
Chorus looks decent and combat is well implemented in it. The design of locations, the main plot and the musical arrangement are also pretty good here, but you can’t call them impressive or, for example, fascinating. There is no resonance that usually motivates pilots like me to explore space, discover its secrets and learn history.
A comparison with some second-rate science fiction book comes to mind. If you love and therefore read a lot of fiction about space, sooner or later you will come across works that you will read in their entirety and put on the shelf with the rest, and in about a month, when a friend, seeing a new spine in your collection, asks: “A what book is this ? Did you like it? Worth a read? ”, you will not immediately find what to answer.