The decade-later third game in the Zeno Clash series, Clash is a fairly significant departure. Rather than a linear first-person brawler, it's now a (mostly) third-person action-RPG. Hand-to-hand combat is still the core of the gameplay, but exploration is key.
You play as Pseudo, aka The Hermit, a guy living in the freaked-out world of Zenozoik who happens across The Boy, a little bird fella with special powers, orphaned when his grandfather dies. As is standard for this sort of Lone Wolf and Cub riff, the Empress wants the Boy's power for herself, and so pretty much everyone you encounter wants to fight you.
The story, though basic and somewhat derivative, is told well, and Pseudo and The Boy's performances are especially great. This game also gives you far more backstory on the world than either of the first two games did, and I could understand if fans of the series don't like it. In a way, it removes a bit of the mystery of Zenozoik, but it made me more interested to see what the future might have in store, especially considering the ending.
The vibes, by the way, are immaculate. This is the most Nier-ass game I've played since, uhhhh, Nier: Automata. Specifically, if you like Nier 1, I think you'll get a lot out of Clash.
Some have described this as a souls-like, and I don't think that's accurate. There are similarities, but if you go into it expecting that, you'll probably be disappointed. To get into the nitty-gritty of the gameplay, you pick from one of three combat stances at the beginning. You can unlock more through totems you find in the world, and you unlock special moves via the same method. You can have 3 special moves mapped at once.
You gain XP through fights, which levels you up and gives you skill points to put into your core attributes. You also collect figurines in the environment that are sorta like weapon upgrade materials, as they're used to power up your stances and specials. Because of their limited availability, you're best off picking a core loadout and sticking with it instead of spreading points around, as there is no respec function.
The game also has a day/night system. Not in realtime, but more like a LTTP-style Dark World phase, where Pseudo can go to sleep and "dreamwalk" in a strange Groot form. At night, the enemies change, you can access areas unavailable when awake, new items will be available, and the Night Avatar form can be customized with different body parts you find while asleep. If you die during normal gameplay, you also respawn in this form to do a corpse run, but if you die again, it's back to a checkpoint.
One interesting, though under-utilized, twist on the gameplay is the Ritual. The people of this world only abide by the One Law, which is that if you're challenged to a weird little dice game, you have to play. You can challenge any hostile, intelligent being you come across, and then whoever wins gets to impose a certain stipulation on the fight, chosen via one of the titular Artifacts. For example, being forced to drink a slow-acting poison, or being allowed to summon an ally, or, my favorite, getting one free hit at the beginning with a giant stick like Bart smashing Homer with a chair.
The issue with this is that there's not really much of an incentive to do it. The complications usually don't make a huge difference, and after a few hours I started just walking up to enemies and punching them.
Lastly, I'll say that the game is still a bit buggy as of this writing. Playing on Xbox Series X, the optimization isn't quite where it needs to be. It's mostly fine, but some areas in particular bog the framerate down to the mid-40s for no apparent reason and it feels pretty bad. A couple of other bugs I encountered:
- UI elements getting stuck (weapon info panels still on screen when moving between tabs at a trader, etc)
- random fade out/ins, almost like it's loading something. These are very quick, maybe a second, but it would occasionally happen during combat. No idea what's happening here
To their credit, the developers have been very good about fixing the game's bugs already. They're super responsive on the Steam forums and whatnot, and actively patching it. I would bet in a couple of months everything will be ironed out.
Even as it stands now, despite some minor annoyances, I loved this game. I'll check back later this year, and if the issues have been fixed, revise this to a 9.
UPDATE: As of December, most issues I had have been fixed, and the developers have also added NG+ and various other features. Performance can still be spotty in some areas on console, but regardless: Revising score to 9/10.
You play as Pseudo, aka The Hermit, a guy living in the freaked-out world of Zenozoik who happens across The Boy, a little bird fella with special powers, orphaned when his grandfather dies. As is standard for this sort of Lone Wolf and Cub riff, the Empress wants the Boy's power for herself, and so pretty much everyone you encounter wants to fight you.
The story, though basic and somewhat derivative, is told well, and Pseudo and The Boy's performances are especially great. This game also gives you far more backstory on the world than either of the first two games did, and I could understand if fans of the series don't like it. In a way, it removes a bit of the mystery of Zenozoik, but it made me more interested to see what the future might have in store, especially considering the ending.
The vibes, by the way, are immaculate. This is the most Nier-ass game I've played since, uhhhh, Nier: Automata. Specifically, if you like Nier 1, I think you'll get a lot out of Clash.
Some have described this as a souls-like, and I don't think that's accurate. There are similarities, but if you go into it expecting that, you'll probably be disappointed. To get into the nitty-gritty of the gameplay, you pick from one of three combat stances at the beginning. You can unlock more through totems you find in the world, and you unlock special moves via the same method. You can have 3 special moves mapped at once.
You gain XP through fights, which levels you up and gives you skill points to put into your core attributes. You also collect figurines in the environment that are sorta like weapon upgrade materials, as they're used to power up your stances and specials. Because of their limited availability, you're best off picking a core loadout and sticking with it instead of spreading points around, as there is no respec function.
The game also has a day/night system. Not in realtime, but more like a LTTP-style Dark World phase, where Pseudo can go to sleep and "dreamwalk" in a strange Groot form. At night, the enemies change, you can access areas unavailable when awake, new items will be available, and the Night Avatar form can be customized with different body parts you find while asleep. If you die during normal gameplay, you also respawn in this form to do a corpse run, but if you die again, it's back to a checkpoint.
One interesting, though under-utilized, twist on the gameplay is the Ritual. The people of this world only abide by the One Law, which is that if you're challenged to a weird little dice game, you have to play. You can challenge any hostile, intelligent being you come across, and then whoever wins gets to impose a certain stipulation on the fight, chosen via one of the titular Artifacts. For example, being forced to drink a slow-acting poison, or being allowed to summon an ally, or, my favorite, getting one free hit at the beginning with a giant stick like Bart smashing Homer with a chair.
The issue with this is that there's not really much of an incentive to do it. The complications usually don't make a huge difference, and after a few hours I started just walking up to enemies and punching them.
Lastly, I'll say that the game is still a bit buggy as of this writing. Playing on Xbox Series X, the optimization isn't quite where it needs to be. It's mostly fine, but some areas in particular bog the framerate down to the mid-40s for no apparent reason and it feels pretty bad. A couple of other bugs I encountered:
- UI elements getting stuck (weapon info panels still on screen when moving between tabs at a trader, etc)
- random fade out/ins, almost like it's loading something. These are very quick, maybe a second, but it would occasionally happen during combat. No idea what's happening here
To their credit, the developers have been very good about fixing the game's bugs already. They're super responsive on the Steam forums and whatnot, and actively patching it. I would bet in a couple of months everything will be ironed out.
Even as it stands now, despite some minor annoyances, I loved this game. I'll check back later this year, and if the issues have been fixed, revise this to a 9.
UPDATE: As of December, most issues I had have been fixed, and the developers have also added NG+ and various other features. Performance can still be spotty in some areas on console, but regardless: Revising score to 9/10.
Weatherby
1 year ago