Kiraverse

Overview

Kiraverse is an online multiplayer game, in the form of a third person shooter. This game, like many in web3 gaming, is still very early within its development stage, so this review is of the current experience within the game and will be revisited once significant progress has been made that warrants an updated perspective of Kiraverse.

Gameplay

Currently playable is the classic elimination mode, between 1 and 10 players get dumped into a map, red vs blue. Whichever team gets the required number of kills is the winner, or boringly if the time limit just runs out and the team with the most kills wins by default. The plan is to introduce a new mode down the line, a battle royale, which at this point is pretty standard for shooting games. It is understandable as it is my personal favorite mode for any shooter.

Kiraverse already has a number of integrations with other projects within the NFT scene, which is wonderful to see, getting to play as a 3D variation of something previously only seen as a 2D image is certainly a point in the favor of Kiraverse. However, this is also where my first issue arrives. Due to the difference between these new 3D variations, the hit boxes between characters are a bit scuffed. To further elaborate, you will probably notice one of two issues; either the graphics do not represent the hit box correctly, or there are clear ways to exploit a smaller hit box due to the appearance of these 2D-NFTs-turned-3D in-game models.

The map is relatively lackluster, as I have only experienced one map so far, I may just be unlucky. On top of that, it suffers from a case of what I assume is a visual artistic direction, which unfortunately can make the whole map rather visually noisy, making it hard to be able to identify what is shooting at you opposed to what is part of the map. I would go out on a limb and assume this could be even worse for people that suffer from being color blind, making it difficult to enjoy Kiraverse calmly without having to not only focus on finding the enemy but playing a mini-game of Where's Waldo in between the map's assets.

I have played with four different weapons during my Kiraverse playthrough. To be more specific; the SMG, the Sniper, the Shotgun and the Assault rifle. All the guns handle well and the sound effects and visuals work well together. If you imagine these are all power weapons or electric weapons, I have no information to tell me that they are not. All of them except the shotgun, which has a woeful bad sound effect, to the point I would continue shooting after it was already out of ammo, without the realization it was out of ammo. Another fatal shortcoming to a game trying to make it in the web3 gaming shooter genre.

One issue that I would like to see altered slightly down the line is that all players have the same selection of weapons opposed to the method of a class system or being able to create your custom loadouts. I believe Kiraverse would benefit from this sort of customization as it requires thought from a player when entering a battle.

Review

Whilst Kiraverse is certainly fun when you are playing with friends, not just because you are playing with friends, it would still be fun with random players as well, it suffers as most do with empty matches due to the current development stage. Something I preach to every game that is solely PvP, is that the game will require a decent bot system. Whilst bots obviously are not comparable to playing against real players, and often times frowned upon by the gaming industry in general, it does provide the player the ability to at least play if there aren’t any players currently online and in queue. 

Overall, Kiraverse is a very pleasant third person shooter to jump into if you can bring players into the game yourself. The studio's continued development to increase the variations of gameplay and their further integration of NFT projects is certainly something to watch out for.