Superfuse Hands-On: This Diablo-like ARPG Keeps Getting Better

When I first saw Superfuse in action earlier this year, I was mesmerized by its chunky, absolutely bonkers superpower creation engine – and that was back when it only had one character. Now that I’ve had a chance to revisit it again with an awesome new character, the long-ranged Elementalist, I’m even more impressed. Superfuse is an action-RPG in the same vein as Diablo, but with a comic book superhero flair that pushes the limits with how much you can customize your hero’s powers. And even if they’ve simplified some of those options in this latest build, it still had me freaking out over all the completely badass stuff it let me do.

After just the first hour of dungeon-delving as the Elementalist, I was already giggling maniacally at the absurd fireball cocktails at my disposal. This new hero essentially serves as a mage class, using long-distance ice and fire attacks to do massive damage. Naturally, this means she’s a lot more squishy than the slab-of-beef Berserker I played previously, who rushes in and smashes things like The Hulk. But once I unlocked a few Fuses that turned my fire-centric Elementalist into an incandescent demon, I didn’t find myself missing the ability to take hits at all.

While at first my primary ability allowed me to just shoot plain ol’ fireballs, after burning through a few levels, I was able to customize that milquetoast power to ricochet off of enemies and surfaces, zigzag around the level, or even shoot out of my character’s back – quite useful for doing DPS while running away from a mob of zombies. Similarly, I turned a stock ability to create a small wall of fire in front of me into an overpowered tidal wave from hell. One Fuse let me make that wall much larger, while another made it do more damage, and finally, one let me send that wall flying forward into waves of enemies to do massive damage. The fact that I was able to turn a defensive ability into my deadliest offensive option was pure joy, and I used it to blast through everything in my path with a smile on my face.

I must say though: one slightly worrying change from the last Superfuse build I demoed is that the power creation options have been reined in a bit. My last preview focused on the frightening number of customizable menus that let you tailor your hero’s abilities down to the finest detail, but in this preview many of those menus were replaced with more streamlined options that reduced that flexibility. It’s certainly an understandable change, as I don’t think there was ever any chance the devs were going to settle on the ridiculously complex and unintuitive flood of menus that were in the early build I saw, but it also reduced the customization options in this newer state. Don’t get me wrong – customization is still front and center, with Fuses allowing me to alter my abilities in dozens of ways just from the few hours I’ve played so far. But the ability to alter the mods on Fuses themselves appears to have been removed entirely, which means you lose a little bit of that chaotic goodness.

I was also allowed a sneak preview of multiplayer in Superfuse for the first time, and while I wasn’t allowed to get any footage of it, so far it looks exactly like what you’d hope for from a Diablo-like ARPG, with the gameplay I saw focused on synergy between the in-your-face aggressive Berserker and the Elementalist. I can only imagine the possibilities when it comes to combining multiple heroes’ ultra-customized abilities, and I can’t wait to try it for myself down the road.