Unsighted is an incredibly interesting game, and one that way too many people seem to be overlooking. To describe it in a single sentence, Unsighted is a Metroidvania set in a post-war world between humans and sentient robots called "Automatons", and the mysterious substance giving them sentience is steadily running out.
Players take control of an Automaton named Alma who fights her way through the "Unsighted" (AKA Automatons who have lost their Anima and their sentience) using a variety of Chips she can equip similar to something like Nier Automata. This is where a lot of the build diversity comes in, and is something a lot of players would've like to know before starting the game, so let’s go over the general best chips to use and why.
Disclaimer: There are quite a lot of Chips that players can find and use in Unsighted, so it seemed like the best idea to group the similar ones into broad categories, rather than making an extra-long list of individual Chip recommendations. Also, most if not all of the Chips in Unsighted can be stacked on top of each other and can either be collected again in NG+ or have multiple copies spread throughout the game.
6 Health & Stamina Chips
First up are the Health and Stamina Chips, two resources that are vital to games like Unsighted or other indie darlings like Revita. At the start of the game, Alma dies in two to three hits and can only swing her weapon three times at most before getting winded (do robots get winded?). So, these chips make a huge difference for the moment-to-moment gameplay, especially for those who are struggling to learn the Parry system timing.
Each chip takes up a single slot, which may entice players to run three to four of each, but generally, two of both Health and Stamina seem to do the job just fine.
- Health Chips: These give one pip of health for every Chip slotted in, though there is the Big Heart Chip players can get from making out the NPC Ana's Bond that takes up three Chip Slots and gives five total points of health, which is about as efficient as it gets.
- Stamina Chips: Gives Alma six points of Stamina per chip equipped, which basically boils down to adding what looks like a third of the size of the default bar for every two Chips slotted in.
5 Base Damage Chips
Next up are the damage chips, a category entirely focused on buffing the damage of the two different weapon types or just Alma’s overall damage output. There are three Chips that fit this description
- Strength Chip: Every weapon in Unsighted has two stats, a number for its damage, and a number for its stamina usage per swing. These Chips Increase the base damage of any melee weapon Alma has equipped by two.
- Sword Chip: It's obvious, but these should only be used if players are currently using a sword melee weapon. Increases Alma’s damage with Sword-type melee weapons by 20 percent.
- Axe Chip: Same as Sword, but with Axe-type weapons.
Honestly, these chips are best used on the players who don’t fully rely on the game’s parry system, but even for those that do these Chips make a huge difference, especially since they can stack.
4 Resource-Based Chips
Coming up on some of the most important Chips for Alma in the game, it’s the resource-centric Chips. Like most Metroidvanias, Unsighted has a currency system (in this case, Bolts), but it even has a crafting system built into the game as well.
To get some of the more useful items and better weapons, players are going to have to craft a fair few items and collect a lot of Bolts, and using these three Chips are the best way to get it done:
- Wallet Chip: By far the most useful Chip in the game, hands down. Unsighted has a punishment on death system that feels an awful lot like Shovel Knight. When Alma dies, she drops her Bolts in a bubble, and players have to go retrieve it or they lose that currency permanently. But, with the Wallet Chip equipped, that no longer happens, and there's no punishment at all for dying anymore.
- Greed Chip: With this Chip, Alma now receives double the amount of Bolts from enemies, but as a consequence, she also loses all of her Bolts when she dies instead of just a portion of them. But, the funny thing is, if the player has both the Greed and Wallet Chips equipped, Wallet cancels out only the negative aspect of Greed, meaning players get double the Bolts with no downside for just a measly four Chip slots.
- Scavenger Chip: Causes enemies to drop materials/items more frequently. To be honest, this is the least useful of this category of Chips, as players will find themselves with a massive surplus of crafting materials before they know it. But, for the players who like to craft everything or the ones who are building a ton of Support Cogs, this Chip can make a difference.
3 The "Almighty" Anima Chip
The whole “timer” aspect of Unsighted is so incredibly unique for a Metroidvania game to have, and they've somehow managed to also integrate it both into the gameplay and the narrative naturally. Players are constantly worrying about which of their favorite NPCs are on the edge of becoming Unsighted, so they scrounge the map for Meteor Dust in the hopes of giving them just a little bit longer to live.
Thankfully, there is a Chip that makes this whole process a bit easier. The Anima Chip literally doubles the time that is added when giving an NPC Meteor Dust, jumping from 24 hours to 48. The only downside is that this chip is the max Bond reward from Clara an NPC who eventually relocates to the Gear Village, but starts in the Industries Outpost, an area that isn't accessible without Double Hookshots (AKA a Grappling Hook, the beloved tool for many game characters) or after beating the boss of the number three crystal.
2 Gun & Reload-Based Chips
The ranged combat in Unsighted, quite frankly, leaves a lot to be desired. It’s not bad by any means, but the active reload mechanic is so distracting in combat. Not only that, because players have to use ranged weapons like the Hookshot or Shuriken to constantly solve puzzles, actually using the gun-type ranged weapons requires tons of tedious menu navigation.
But, with these Chips that focus on making guns more viable to use, players can actually pull off a fully ranged build:
- Double Barrel Chip: Doubles the projectiles each gun fires, doesn’t quite work for every ranged weapon, but when it does, it quite literally doubles the damage inflicted.
- Reload Chip: Almost mandatory if a player wants to use guns as it greatly reduces the time it takes to standard reload (AKA not using the "active reload" mechanic).
- Drifter Chip: The perfect option for someone who always misses that active reload window. Reloads weapons with Melee Attacks, essentially eliminating the need to interrupt the flow of combat by reloading.
1 Special-Type Chips
And last up, there’s the “Special” category of Chips that are unique and usually focus on improving a specific attack or gameplay mechanic. These Chips aren’t quite as widely useful as the other ones, but if used correctly, they can make the game a cakewalk.
- Jumper Chip: Increases the damage of the Jump Attack by a flat 50 points. Insanely useful as Jump Attacks are the quickest way to hit the enemy immediately after a successful parry, as they tend to always stagger back just far enough for a standard swing to miss.
- Quick Attack Chip: Increases Melee Attack Speed, sort of an obvious benefit, but is pretty much required for an ax build that doesn’t only rely on Jump Attacks.
- Parry Master Chip: A reward from Master Cecilia after maxing out her Bond. It’s a chip that massively buffs the damage of the next attack after a perfect parry. With this Chip and a decently strong weapon, almost every enemy in the game is one-shot'able. This emphasis on parrying in Unsighted is great, but it's so good compared to any other strategy that it almost becomes a flaw.
Unsighted is currently on Xbox Game Pass and is also available on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.