You may have played Axiom Verge, or heard it referenced as a benchmark for indie “metroidvania” adventures. Axiom Verge 2 is part of the same story as Axiom Verge 1 but is a completely new game: new characters, new powers, new enemies, and a new world. You can play it before or after the original.
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Um grande avanço, esse jogo traz muito mais personalidade que o primeiro, tem uma grande melhoria na gameplay e no visual, mas ainda sim traz alguns pontos negativos muito fortes, como o fato do jogo não ter final e ter "boss fights" tão desinteressantes que mal da pra chamar de boss fights.
Devoured it. Maybe liked even more than the first one?
The new art style is a bit inconsistent at times, some of the imagery could be better and I'm not sure I would, overall, prefer it to the original. And yet, I really appreciate that the devs went with something different for a sequel.
All the abilities were fun and meaningful. The exploration, the music, the lore: everything clicked just right for me. Rock solid metroidvania experience.
The new art style is a bit inconsistent at times, some of the imagery could be better and I'm not sure I would, overall, prefer it to the original. And yet, I really appreciate that the devs went with something different for a sequel.
All the abilities were fun and meaningful. The exploration, the music, the lore: everything clicked just right for me. Rock solid metroidvania experience.
When the original Axiom Verge came out, the nonlinear adventure scene was a desert. Nintendo had stopped releasing quality Metroid titles in the late 2000s, with little to fill the void. A love letter to the series’ strengths was very alluring and those fans got their wish granted with an endless ocean of indie tributes that continues to expand as I write this. Even Nintendo would regain their footing with Metroid Dread in 2021 and a glorious remaster of Metroid Prime last year.
The critical and commercial success of the first game meant a sequel would likely sell fine even with the sudden influx of competition. I’m relieved Thomas Happ chose the experimental road, both to keep his series relevant and demonstrate why the genre can feel stale today.
Power-ups have defined Metroidvanias as much as exploration, and yet if you look at the indie scene, you will find plenty with ho-hum upgrades. Hollow Knight and Blasphemous rightfully received praise for their flexible world design, but how much more open can you make an already nonlinear adventure? These experiences now saturate the market. How can we feel awed if the world conforms exactly to our freeform expectations?
I’m willing to bet Happ grappled with this problem, because even more so than its predecessor, Axiom Verge 2 wants to be memorable. First, the combat. The original game had a national army’s worth of guns to discover. It was cool to have tons of options, but one-dimensional enemies and bosses meant the overwhelming majority of weapons never got the opportunity to shine. The sequel trims down combat options to swinging an axe, throwing a boomerang, and hacking foes to disable them. This is a lot more restrictive, but I’m not so stubborn to say this can’t be a nice change if done well. Unfortunately, the results are mediocre at best. The main issue is that each of these tools have miniscule depth. Charging a melee weapon for more damage is a staple of action games and the skill tree perks are basic stat increases nowhere near as creative as the power-ups they represent. Even the hacking, which initially seems more fully-featured, falls painfully short when the most you can do to the vast majority of enemies is slow them down or befriend them to fight other enemies that easily perish anyway. The bosses are almost entirely optional now, and this would have been a great opportunity to test the player’s reflexes and knowledge of their abilities. Instead, they are best tackled by hacking them both electronically and physically while tanking through their elementary attack patterns. They’re somehow more docile than those from the first game, which were already a huge letdown. I respect Happ’s desire to de-emphasize combat in favor of interesting exploration, but he went a little too far here.
The exploration itself is thankfully excellent. The world design isn’t very friendly to sequence-breaking or offering multiple paths to your objective, which is likely why a lot of players reported getting stuck. However, I did notice the correct path forward was always close to where I obtained a power-up. Never are you forced to backtrack to a forgettable square on the map from two hours ago to progress. If you just follow the main story, you will be constantly covering new ground, harkening back to Super Metroid’s sense of progression. The overworld is also connected to an alternate dimension known as The Breach, functioning exactly like the dark world from A Link to The Past. Unlike the SNES classic, however, the Breach is laid out completely differently from the overworld. There’s a lot of clever environmental puzzles that were gratifying to figure out despite most of the extrinsic rewards being skill points I didn’t need after several hours of play. The intrinsic satisfaction was enough for me, but I acknowledge this may not apply to you.
No spoilers for power-ups, but suffice to say Happ recaptured the first game’s excitement of not knowing what the next ability will be. The world has far more verticality than last time and the new movement options take full advantage of this. I cannot express enough how much the genre would benefit from a more inspired approach to power-ups. When you expect to get a double jump, dash, or grappling hook, and the game neglects to prove you wrong, the experience can feel like being on autopilot.
It’s debatable whether the audiovisuals have improved or regressed compared to the first game. I think it looks great. The use of Sumerian architecture is highly imaginative with sunbaked houses, temples, and Lamassu statues adding variety while preserving the organic appeal of lush grasslands, damp caves, and stepped cliffs. I guarantee if this were a AAA game, the world would be modeled after Ancient Egypt or Persia, so it’s respectable Happ didn’t take the easy way out. Some might miss the retro alien aesthetic being everywhere, and I won’t pretend this has the best pixel art ever, but the organic overworld compliments the blocky and surreal-looking Breach perfectly. The music is also great, though not as well-rounded as the original. Many of the overworld tracks use vocals by Mayssa Karaa. She has a lovely voice, but some of these samples are so high-pitched they become grating when revisiting areas. I could turn the music down, but that also drowns out the rest of the instruments. Better audio balancing on Happ’s part would have helped. The Breach tracks are an earworm though. Shoutout to Argentum Alias.
Axiom Verge 2 is a game you’re going to love or hate. It does feel like two steps forward and one step backward, but it does preserve the idiosyncratic spirit of the original, and that’s all it needed to be memorable. There’s countless games I could play for satisfying combat, but only a handful have genuinely unpredictable exploration and progression.
The critical and commercial success of the first game meant a sequel would likely sell fine even with the sudden influx of competition. I’m relieved Thomas Happ chose the experimental road, both to keep his series relevant and demonstrate why the genre can feel stale today.
Power-ups have defined Metroidvanias as much as exploration, and yet if you look at the indie scene, you will find plenty with ho-hum upgrades. Hollow Knight and Blasphemous rightfully received praise for their flexible world design, but how much more open can you make an already nonlinear adventure? These experiences now saturate the market. How can we feel awed if the world conforms exactly to our freeform expectations?
I’m willing to bet Happ grappled with this problem, because even more so than its predecessor, Axiom Verge 2 wants to be memorable. First, the combat. The original game had a national army’s worth of guns to discover. It was cool to have tons of options, but one-dimensional enemies and bosses meant the overwhelming majority of weapons never got the opportunity to shine. The sequel trims down combat options to swinging an axe, throwing a boomerang, and hacking foes to disable them. This is a lot more restrictive, but I’m not so stubborn to say this can’t be a nice change if done well. Unfortunately, the results are mediocre at best. The main issue is that each of these tools have miniscule depth. Charging a melee weapon for more damage is a staple of action games and the skill tree perks are basic stat increases nowhere near as creative as the power-ups they represent. Even the hacking, which initially seems more fully-featured, falls painfully short when the most you can do to the vast majority of enemies is slow them down or befriend them to fight other enemies that easily perish anyway. The bosses are almost entirely optional now, and this would have been a great opportunity to test the player’s reflexes and knowledge of their abilities. Instead, they are best tackled by hacking them both electronically and physically while tanking through their elementary attack patterns. They’re somehow more docile than those from the first game, which were already a huge letdown. I respect Happ’s desire to de-emphasize combat in favor of interesting exploration, but he went a little too far here.
The exploration itself is thankfully excellent. The world design isn’t very friendly to sequence-breaking or offering multiple paths to your objective, which is likely why a lot of players reported getting stuck. However, I did notice the correct path forward was always close to where I obtained a power-up. Never are you forced to backtrack to a forgettable square on the map from two hours ago to progress. If you just follow the main story, you will be constantly covering new ground, harkening back to Super Metroid’s sense of progression. The overworld is also connected to an alternate dimension known as The Breach, functioning exactly like the dark world from A Link to The Past. Unlike the SNES classic, however, the Breach is laid out completely differently from the overworld. There’s a lot of clever environmental puzzles that were gratifying to figure out despite most of the extrinsic rewards being skill points I didn’t need after several hours of play. The intrinsic satisfaction was enough for me, but I acknowledge this may not apply to you.
No spoilers for power-ups, but suffice to say Happ recaptured the first game’s excitement of not knowing what the next ability will be. The world has far more verticality than last time and the new movement options take full advantage of this. I cannot express enough how much the genre would benefit from a more inspired approach to power-ups. When you expect to get a double jump, dash, or grappling hook, and the game neglects to prove you wrong, the experience can feel like being on autopilot.
It’s debatable whether the audiovisuals have improved or regressed compared to the first game. I think it looks great. The use of Sumerian architecture is highly imaginative with sunbaked houses, temples, and Lamassu statues adding variety while preserving the organic appeal of lush grasslands, damp caves, and stepped cliffs. I guarantee if this were a AAA game, the world would be modeled after Ancient Egypt or Persia, so it’s respectable Happ didn’t take the easy way out. Some might miss the retro alien aesthetic being everywhere, and I won’t pretend this has the best pixel art ever, but the organic overworld compliments the blocky and surreal-looking Breach perfectly. The music is also great, though not as well-rounded as the original. Many of the overworld tracks use vocals by Mayssa Karaa. She has a lovely voice, but some of these samples are so high-pitched they become grating when revisiting areas. I could turn the music down, but that also drowns out the rest of the instruments. Better audio balancing on Happ’s part would have helped. The Breach tracks are an earworm though. Shoutout to Argentum Alias.
Axiom Verge 2 is a game you’re going to love or hate. It does feel like two steps forward and one step backward, but it does preserve the idiosyncratic spirit of the original, and that’s all it needed to be memorable. There’s countless games I could play for satisfying combat, but only a handful have genuinely unpredictable exploration and progression.
Surprised to find that I'm not vibing with this game at all. Like not even a little bit. It's been so long, but I remember really liking Axiom Verge, though without replaying it (which I'm not going to do), it's hard to say if those feelings were based more in the fact that both metroidvanias and games made entirely by one person were more unusual and felt more special back then, or if the original is a strictly better game, but either way, I really don't think I can make myself continue with this game after a few hours and I already want to move onto something else.
Was the original this...boring? The immense arsenal of the first game seems to have been minimized to just an icepick and a boomerang and enemies are either passive and boring or obnoxiously aggressive, like how the very first enemy type is a crazy little bastard that can platform almost as well as you can and chases you everywhere, which is so annoying when all you wanted to do was pass through a room quickly. I started the game because some reviews promised that the game is exploration heavy and light on combat but that simply isn't true. There are just as many defensive robots waiting to kill you here as there are any other game in the genre, the combat just kind of sucks now, and there's no XP or drops or really any reason to kill the bots, so you end up jumping over most of them and rushing to the next room, which really doesn't feel right or like it was the intention.
And the art style... While it's not quite as bad, I think this game almost qualifies for the list of belated sequels to indie darlings that switched to a very ugly new artstyle for reasons no one understands. While this isn't quite as bad as Nidhogg II and saying so would be unfair and insulting, I'm still not sure why this sequel looks the way it does. The original was a strong and very identifiable homage to Metroid, and this game is an homage to...industrial photography or something equally boring, I guess? Okay, that didn't really make sense, but you've probably had similar thoughts, wondering why the top-tier NES graphics game got a sequel that looks like middling PS1 graphics from a studio that couldn't afford to convert to polygonal graphics yet. Point is, it really doesn't look good to me and I don't feel that aesthetic excitement when I enter a different biome and see new visuals.
On the subject of visuals, I thought the map was a really cool upgrade of the classic Metroid map style, since it does use typical squares with borders that denote walls and gaps that denote doors, but it also has a miniature replica of the actual room graphics on the map itself. Hard to describe in words but makes perfect sense if you look at it. This seemed super cool at first, but really, all it managed to do was make the map hard to read. I think Happ should've kept white borders for walls instead of doing like a green border for the forest area and a blue border for the water area. White would've been much more readable on different screens, lighting conditions, etc.
To pick apart the aesthetics some more, I really don't like this new soundtrack. If I recall, the original had fitting chiptune music, but this game has full fidelity with guitars and vocals and stuff, but I'm just not vibing with it. Like the foresty area has an acoustic guitar with a woman singing wordlessly, which is clearly meant to be kind of serene and maybe a little haunting, but there's just something off about the sound and to me it vibes more as aggressive and intense than mysterious and pretty. The worst part for me was the desert area, where I was stuck for a long time since another major problem with this game is that it's constantly unclear where you're supposed to go, and how the area has a soundtrack heavily inspired by arabic music and I'm sorry but I loathe arabic music. That bagpipe-sounding snake charmer flute that mostly just produces obnoxious sounds, that high-strung guitar-type instrument that hits only the annoying notes on a regular guitar and female singing that sounds, again, more harsh and aggressive than soothing. Yes, the desert area has an actual "Ayayayayayay!" part of the soundtrack and I hate it. The worst part is, this arabic influence is in other areas too and the acoustic guitar of the forest is joined by a snake charmer flute synth.
And, as just mentioned, the whole game is built with much more non-linear world design than your typical MV, where you're supposed to head pretty deep into the water area to fetch Thing A, then head out to the desert to fetch B, then back to underwater and so on, and you constantly have a million open passageways on the map (that aren't actually open because you need some ability to get past there), and this is pretty much "Where Do I Go Now?: The Game". Combine that with aesthetics I really don't appreciate and a world I really don't want to get lost in and you have the recipe for ultimate boredom and a game I'm going to just uninstall. I want to give this game a higher score because I want to respect this game for what the original did and for the ambitious nature of not only being a single dev but also attempting to deepen and expand both the story and the gameplay experience, but I have to be honest and give this game the very low score I was feeling the entire three to fours I spent with the game before I had enough and decided that I really don't want to keep going.
Was the original this...boring? The immense arsenal of the first game seems to have been minimized to just an icepick and a boomerang and enemies are either passive and boring or obnoxiously aggressive, like how the very first enemy type is a crazy little bastard that can platform almost as well as you can and chases you everywhere, which is so annoying when all you wanted to do was pass through a room quickly. I started the game because some reviews promised that the game is exploration heavy and light on combat but that simply isn't true. There are just as many defensive robots waiting to kill you here as there are any other game in the genre, the combat just kind of sucks now, and there's no XP or drops or really any reason to kill the bots, so you end up jumping over most of them and rushing to the next room, which really doesn't feel right or like it was the intention.
And the art style... While it's not quite as bad, I think this game almost qualifies for the list of belated sequels to indie darlings that switched to a very ugly new artstyle for reasons no one understands. While this isn't quite as bad as Nidhogg II and saying so would be unfair and insulting, I'm still not sure why this sequel looks the way it does. The original was a strong and very identifiable homage to Metroid, and this game is an homage to...industrial photography or something equally boring, I guess? Okay, that didn't really make sense, but you've probably had similar thoughts, wondering why the top-tier NES graphics game got a sequel that looks like middling PS1 graphics from a studio that couldn't afford to convert to polygonal graphics yet. Point is, it really doesn't look good to me and I don't feel that aesthetic excitement when I enter a different biome and see new visuals.
On the subject of visuals, I thought the map was a really cool upgrade of the classic Metroid map style, since it does use typical squares with borders that denote walls and gaps that denote doors, but it also has a miniature replica of the actual room graphics on the map itself. Hard to describe in words but makes perfect sense if you look at it. This seemed super cool at first, but really, all it managed to do was make the map hard to read. I think Happ should've kept white borders for walls instead of doing like a green border for the forest area and a blue border for the water area. White would've been much more readable on different screens, lighting conditions, etc.
To pick apart the aesthetics some more, I really don't like this new soundtrack. If I recall, the original had fitting chiptune music, but this game has full fidelity with guitars and vocals and stuff, but I'm just not vibing with it. Like the foresty area has an acoustic guitar with a woman singing wordlessly, which is clearly meant to be kind of serene and maybe a little haunting, but there's just something off about the sound and to me it vibes more as aggressive and intense than mysterious and pretty. The worst part for me was the desert area, where I was stuck for a long time since another major problem with this game is that it's constantly unclear where you're supposed to go, and how the area has a soundtrack heavily inspired by arabic music and I'm sorry but I loathe arabic music. That bagpipe-sounding snake charmer flute that mostly just produces obnoxious sounds, that high-strung guitar-type instrument that hits only the annoying notes on a regular guitar and female singing that sounds, again, more harsh and aggressive than soothing. Yes, the desert area has an actual "Ayayayayayay!" part of the soundtrack and I hate it. The worst part is, this arabic influence is in other areas too and the acoustic guitar of the forest is joined by a snake charmer flute synth.
And, as just mentioned, the whole game is built with much more non-linear world design than your typical MV, where you're supposed to head pretty deep into the water area to fetch Thing A, then head out to the desert to fetch B, then back to underwater and so on, and you constantly have a million open passageways on the map (that aren't actually open because you need some ability to get past there), and this is pretty much "Where Do I Go Now?: The Game". Combine that with aesthetics I really don't appreciate and a world I really don't want to get lost in and you have the recipe for ultimate boredom and a game I'm going to just uninstall. I want to give this game a higher score because I want to respect this game for what the original did and for the ambitious nature of not only being a single dev but also attempting to deepen and expand both the story and the gameplay experience, but I have to be honest and give this game the very low score I was feeling the entire three to fours I spent with the game before I had enough and decided that I really don't want to keep going.
This is a weird sequel:
the first game was a very actiony metroidvania, with the map being generally small and linear. this time, the map is much bigger, having 2 different worlds to traverse through, and traversal is the main gameplay loop here. they made the main gameplay loop a puzzle of traversal, figuring out where to go, moving around both dimensions to find new stuff. that also allowed them to build the story a lot more than the first game, this is a major step in presentation......
and then they forgot to add bosses, or make the combat engaging like in the first game. seriously, this game is very much like ori 1, combat is incidental and inconsequential and there are no bosses beyond exactly 2 scripted story events that can barely be qualified as bosses.
the first game was a very actiony metroidvania, with the map being generally small and linear. this time, the map is much bigger, having 2 different worlds to traverse through, and traversal is the main gameplay loop here. they made the main gameplay loop a puzzle of traversal, figuring out where to go, moving around both dimensions to find new stuff. that also allowed them to build the story a lot more than the first game, this is a major step in presentation......
and then they forgot to add bosses, or make the combat engaging like in the first game. seriously, this game is very much like ori 1, combat is incidental and inconsequential and there are no bosses beyond exactly 2 scripted story events that can barely be qualified as bosses.
It's been a few years since I played through the first Axiom Verge, but what stuck with me the most was the creepy yet beautiful "H. R. Giger"-esque art style and an incredible variety of weapons. I also remember being lost by the story, but felt that the gameplay was definitely fun enough to just treat the narrative as a side aspect of the experience.
Aside from also being a metroidvania, Axiom Verge 2 changes up nearly every key element from the original game, for better or for worse. Instead of a biomechanical aesthetic, the visuals follow the typical environments you'd see on most planets (rainy jungle, snowy mountain, etc.), but there's still some cool sci-fi tech popping up. There's also only about a quarter of the number of unique weapons that the original had. The trade-off here is that this game features many more upgrades to your character abilities, primarily to improve movement options with climbing and grappling.
One new aspect in Axiom Verge 2 that I found to be a straight-up improvement is the design of the map(s). This game's world actually has a parallel universe that matches up to the general layout of the main map, but with the individual locations themselves being completely different. It might sound a bit overwhelming, but it makes sense pretty quickly when going between them. Some of my favorite puzzles were all about this mechanic and involved identifying holes in one map, then finding the right spot to traverse from one map to the other.
Like with the original Axiom Verge, this entry can get hard to follow when it comes to the story. This one splits up the narrative between short cutscenes and lore-filled notes scattered around the game. The heavier emphasis on story also brings many more character names and sci-fi terms with it, and I'll admit I was button mashing through the plot for the second half of the game. Luckily, exploring the map and discovering secrets was enough of a motivation for me to keep on playing. I usually find environmental storytelling to be at its most effective in the metroidvania genre, so I hope any future Axiom Verge games use their fantastic worlds more to tell their tales.
Aside from also being a metroidvania, Axiom Verge 2 changes up nearly every key element from the original game, for better or for worse. Instead of a biomechanical aesthetic, the visuals follow the typical environments you'd see on most planets (rainy jungle, snowy mountain, etc.), but there's still some cool sci-fi tech popping up. There's also only about a quarter of the number of unique weapons that the original had. The trade-off here is that this game features many more upgrades to your character abilities, primarily to improve movement options with climbing and grappling.
One new aspect in Axiom Verge 2 that I found to be a straight-up improvement is the design of the map(s). This game's world actually has a parallel universe that matches up to the general layout of the main map, but with the individual locations themselves being completely different. It might sound a bit overwhelming, but it makes sense pretty quickly when going between them. Some of my favorite puzzles were all about this mechanic and involved identifying holes in one map, then finding the right spot to traverse from one map to the other.
Like with the original Axiom Verge, this entry can get hard to follow when it comes to the story. This one splits up the narrative between short cutscenes and lore-filled notes scattered around the game. The heavier emphasis on story also brings many more character names and sci-fi terms with it, and I'll admit I was button mashing through the plot for the second half of the game. Luckily, exploring the map and discovering secrets was enough of a motivation for me to keep on playing. I usually find environmental storytelling to be at its most effective in the metroidvania genre, so I hope any future Axiom Verge games use their fantastic worlds more to tell their tales.