Waiter! One Metroidvania, hold the "-vania" please!

I should really like this game. I think I just had the misfortune of playing the worst possible version of it.

First, the good: the visuals and spritework are amazing overall, and the soundtrack is absolutely killer. If you weren't looking that closely, you could easily mistake this for a Metroid game on GBA, which is pretty cool! And the fact that most collectibles are completely unique weapon types or in-game lore drops is a great change - no more "bomb inventory +5" bullshit here, instead you get rewards like LIGHTNING GUN. And with the password system and secret areas, there seems to be a lot here for people who connect with this game. Cool ideas in a cool world with some cool atmosphere.

Second, the bad: a modern Metroidvania without any kind of fast travel is just poor design, sorry. I never had fun while backtracking to try and find the next objective since that often required me to trek back across the entire map. Combat is also hampered by the lock button not allowing you to move while aiming, making shooting diagonally while evading nigh impossible. And just like in Metroid, vertical platforming through combat areas just sucks, as does pixel hunting for destroyable blocks that have no visual indication that they should be investigated. I know it wouldn't really be a Metroid successor without that, but that's the kind of thing that kills the completionist in me.

And third, the PS Vita: four gameplay actions (two of them major functions) are relegated to pseudo-buttons on the touch screen that require you to take your fingers off of the movement or combat controls in order to use them. I should not have to tell you that this is awful, but the fake buttons are also visible on screen at all times - and yet, the area of input for each is so small and precise that you will never press that bomb button under duress without stopping to focus on doing so. In addition, for some reason, the game would just completely freeze up for almost a whole second fairly frequently, with the most freezes happening in Edin. This game will also lag and drop frames on Vita, if you can believe it. Several times, I thought the game was about to crash on me, especially when a freeze happened after a lag spike when the music stopped looping but failed to start back up again. And for whatever reason, the PS Vita's thumb stick liked to accidentally activate the "double tap a direction to evade" ability, which is truly a heinous input mapping for a game like this.

I dunno fam, I really wanted to like this one. Kind of bummed out that I didn't care much for it by the end.

Axiom Verge is an experience that defines the normally nebulous "braindance." Where you will be swallowed by a world of monstrous eldritch flesh, rending it apart with alien weaponry, mending it with that same gun. All the while you will feel the delight of a Hippocampus getting rewarded for exploring such a nebulous place. The Occipital Lobe will familiarize itself with the soundscape of the game, between smooth ceilings, sharp edges, unfamiliar chants, and a booming drum. Though, the navigation particularly towards the end of the experience will make you feel like your Amygdala is being prodded by demands of dodging the undodgable, shooting the unhittable, and navigating the wild wrinkles of the brain. If you can overcome that pain point at the end, this is a masterclass successor to Metroid.

Very strange game, and not what I was expecting but I think it was an overall good experience. Finding all of the collectible was kind of a pain because there was no clear indication where there was a secret, or hidden passage, or anything. Metroid put dots on the map and let you use bombs to find breakable blocks so something like that would have been good in this game. The story of this game was pretty difficult to understand but it did also seem interesting with all the logs and letters and stuff. The Secret Worlds were also cool but again strange and I didn't really know what was going on there.

Dear God, this game is so. fucking mid
And the enemies are bullshit
And I don't care about the story
Do you know how much of a slumber a story has to be for me to not give a shit about it?? A LOT MAN, A WHOLE LOT

I'm tilted, I'll get back to it en algún momento
Rn I'm kinda fighting the urge to uninstall it
P.D I did lol

The face on the cover always caught my attention and I finally tried playing it. It starts very solid and the game surely is super impressive seeing it's made by only 1 person. Sadly it has flaws, which didn't hold up the game as much as I hoped it would.

My thoughts:
(+ = (mostly) positive; - = (mostly) negative)
+ Gameplay;
The upgrades are very unique and work pretty well. There are a lot of different weapon upgrades, but some don't really feel useful and others are just way stronger than the rest. The layout is good, in a way that you never get really lost and always find a way to progress. Sadly the last part to the final boss is a pain in the ass. For me it felt like the difficulty suddenly spiked in an unfair way. The boss fights all felt the same with minor changes.

+ Music;
Memorable and unique. All music really fit the atmosphere of the game.

++ Graphics;
Visually extremely impressive. The pixelart is beautiful and unique.

+- Story/Characters;
The story is fine and to the point. If you want to dive deeper you can read the documents you collect.

Recommend?
Not if it's your first Metroidvania. If not, try it for sure! Took me 9h+ to complete the main story and collected everything I could find on my own.

Axiom Verge was the first MetroidVania I played on stream. Although I was a fan of the genre, I think this was the turning point for me. I had played game in the genre prior to it like both Ori games and a few others. This game however started me down a path of MetroidVanias become my favorite genre.

The story is really neat. There are some twists and turns. But still pretty typical. The story isn't really at the forefront of most MetroiVanias though. It's the exploration and world building. This game sure has that.

The world is just so strange. So mysterious. Very colorful and varies a lot. Those you meet along the way are interesting. Especially what's on the cover of the game.

Exploring is genuinely fun. Traversal is mostly good. Although one specific traversal move requires you to double tap a direction. I hated this. It didn't work well to be honest. Might have been user error. But I personally hated it. I never got it to work consistently. The game controls well enough but can be a bit jank.

Combat is fun. You get a variety of ranged attacks. This game lean heavily on Metroid side of things. Once I found a weapon I liked, I stayed with it. Rarely changing unless forced.

Challenge wise, it fine but had odd difficulty spikes. There are a few early bosses that were really hard. But for the most part the game is well balanced.

One last complaint is that some enemies are either too small or blend in too well to the background. That was extremely annoying not knowing something was there and getting beat up for something that was not my fault.

The music is absolutely amazing. Like in my top 10 game OST amazing. Axiom Verge as a series as very good music and I highly suggest you listen to it. Music is really important in the genre as you will be going backtracking a lot.

I have given this game a lot of praise. It's such a great game. A bit jank. A bit unbalanced. A few late game collectables are well...not fun to get. They require a mastery of the controls and I gave up. But most can be obtained without a mastery. The dev even put in a few super funny trolls and jokes.

Play this game if you love MetroidVanias. Play it if you love Metroid. It leans so much on Metroid. I love this game, but I personally lean more towards Castlevania than Metroid. It's a great take on Metroid without all the things I hate about Metroid. Please play it.

I was very excited because the idea of this game had everything I love:
- Hard Sci-fi
- Pixel Art
- More metroid than vania

But the execution is ok. Traversing the map is not fun, and sometimes is really hard to understand where you need to go.

The weapons are very nice and varied and the gameplay is fun. Overall a solid game, but expected a little bit more

Sights & Sounds
- Excellent pixel art all around. Gave me warm fuzzy memories of playing Super Metroid as a kid and Zero Mission on GBA in high school
- Similar to those games, you'll be fighting weird biomechanical monsters and giant bosses (most of which look pretty cool)
- The music runs the gamut from good to stellar. The music from Kur is going to be stuck in my head for a while
- Even the menus are nice. All in all, the presentation feels well-crafted and faithful to its inspirations

Story & Vibes
- The music and visual style do great job setting the tone of the game, which is largely mysterious and a little ominous
- To give anything away about the story would do a disservice to the game. Let's just say that it's heavily sci-fi with some parallel universe/time travel elements, and is decent enough on its own
- What really makes the world feel more interesting is the environmental storytelling. You'll find yourself clamboring over and shooting bad guys on a bunch of weird scenery. Stuff like piles of skeletons, corridors of cages, and weird incubation tube looking things. If you take the time to explore for notes and pay attention to the dialogue, you'll figure out why most of it is there

Playability & Replayability
- The game's Metroid inspiration obviously bleeds into the gameplay
- Exploration is the centerpiece here. Drill everything, jump everywhere, and use the glitch mechanic on anything that looks slightly out of place. If you can't access a location yet, note the room. You'll be rewarded with some cool stuff
- That "cool stuff" is indeed really fun to use. The drone teleport and labcoats were notable highlights that really open up movement throughout the environment. Some of the weapons are also very fun to use, even if some are only situational or gimmicky.
- The equipment and upgrades are almost enough to balance out all the backtracking they require to obtain, but not quite. Enemies respawn if you move more than two rooms over, and there is no teleport option to speed up traversal in the huge world. This is really my only gripe about the game, though
- Don't think I'll be back for a replay, but I will certainly be tucking into the sequel at some point

Overall Impressions & Performance
- I played the game on the Steam Deck to up the GBA Metroid nostalgia factor. Also, it's way easier to play with the d-pad on the Steam Deck, which is great for 2D games
- Ran very well the whole way through

Final Verdict
- 9/10. I know "metroidvanias" have saturated the indie game scene for several years, but this is definitely one worth playing though (especially if you lean more towards the Metroid side of that portmanteau)

While I felt that the ending to the story left more to be desired, I still think this game is one of the best Metroidvania games out there. While not super dense, the story was intriguing and had me invested the whole time, and the world design was well thought out and made for good gameplay, and the controls were tight.

Movement felt great, especially when I unlocked more of the options available, and the weapon types were also great to utilize. By the end, I felt all-powerful with nothing that could stop me. That said, Some of the puzzles were quite difficult, to the point of frustration. I also didn't like the backtracking due to no fast travel in the game. Finally, some of the weapons felt very niche and rarely got any use from me.

This game is still a great time and I think that any fan of 2D Metroidvania games will have a great time with this.

A pretty good Metroid inspired game, but sometimes it became really annoying to play

The exploration is great... sometimes. Although it has some really good shortcuts, the exploration in this game is pretty lacking in comparison to other games. I'm an exploration type of guy, I always check every single corner when I'm playing a game, but with this game, I just wasn't that invested on it. Most secrets are really easy to find, but I never found them all because I simply did not care about finding them.

The movement abilities are mostly good, but some of them just feel like glorified keys, and I personally think that abilities in metroidvanias should work not just to unlock new areas, but also to improve the overall gameplay by changing how you approach new situations, that's the reason why wall jump, double jump, and dash are so common in these types of games, Because they are useful at all times, not just when you need to unlock a new path. The only movement ability in Axiom Verge that made me feel that way was the late game dash, but it is a nightmare to use because you need to press the directional button twice to use it; this generates two issues: 1- You need to stop your movement before dashing, which is annoying and leave you open to attacks; and 2- You can easily use it by mistake when you're just trying to walk, and be prepared, because you are going to do it A LOT.

The combat is also pretty problematic. Most weapons you acquire are either useless or really situational, and I used only 4 or 5 of them to beat the entire game. Every time I got a new weapon I was like "Pretty cool, now back to my green zipitty zap". I doesn't help that some enemies are a chore to deal with, and that last area was really annoying. Also, do not forget that by the end of the game, you are going to use the dash ability in battle a lot, so prepare to deal with misinputs.

The story is... actually, I didn't pay attention to the story, like at all. Most of it is told in some pretty boring cutscenes that are hard to pay attention to when they interrupt gameplay so abruptly. I still have no idea of what the Breach is supposed to be. Maybe if it was told with enviromental storytelling instead of cutscenes and some journals I could be more invested, but we will never know. But some story moments are pretty good, specially THAT moment.

Even so, I honestly still had a good time playing it, it still is a good game that deserves to be played by more metroidvania fans, and I hope the sequel improves on it. I will play it eventually.

Axiom Verge es un indie de estos de pixel chulo desarrollado por una sola persona y muy inspirado en la saga Metroid. Quizá por la época que salían metroidvanias indies a tutiplén, pudo pasar más desapercibido, no lo tengo muy ubicado en mi memoria. Me puse a jugarlo un poco por jugar a algo portátil (en PS Vita) teniendo en cuenta que me he estado moviendo y, al final, ha acabado siendo el juego de cabecera al que he estado dándole en los ratitos libres hasta acabarlo. Han sido 9 horas y media de puro disfrute.

Aproveché para explorar el mapa y buscar sus secretitos y tal, cosa que se presta bastante pero que por otro lado, encuentro una de sus mayores pegas, me explico. A medida que vas explorando, como siempre en este género, desbloqueas poderes que permiten investigar zonas de manera más exhaustiva lo que incita a revisitar zonas para conseguir nuevas armas o bufos permanentes. La putada está en que no hay forma de viajar de manera rápida (quitando una especie de tren entre tres zonas y tampoco es la gran cosa) entre puntos de guardado, como suele ocurrir en este tipo de juegos. A esto súmale que no es especialmente facilón (llega un punto en que algunas zonas las puedes pasar hasta dejándote golpear, pero en early o algunas zonas de mid game, atravesar zonas puede suponer alguna muerte y reiniciar el recorrido) y se hace tedioso el revisitar ciertas zonas.

El gameplay es muy sencillo, no revoluciona nada y no le ha hecho falta. Está muy bien llevado y los jefes son retantes, sobretodo me viene a la cabeza una especie de abeja que telita. El plataformeo está también guay y es, en algunos puntos, retante. Hay buena cantidad de zonas secretas por lo que tendrás que explorar bien las paredes y fijarte en un llamativo estilo artístico de pixel.

Se combina muy bien este estilo artístico con la temática y la banda sonora. Es una combinación de tres buenísima, creando una atmósfera opresiva en muchos momentos y con batallas muy frenéticas contra algunos jefes.

La historia es algo confusa y tampoco me ha llamado excesivamente la atención como para querer fijarme más allá de la capa superficial que se explica. Hay unas tablillas también que aportan algo más, pero lo dicho, no ha creado una fuerte curiosidad en mi como para querer saber más.

En general me parece un juego muy sólido, atrapante y divertido. Yo lo completé en normal y palmé unas 80 veces, miedo me daría probar el modo difícil. Sé que no es nada novedoso ni del otro mundo en el panorama de los metroidvania (más metroid que vania) pero me parece un muy buen título y lo he pasado bastante bien jugándolo. 7.8.