god damn it, dude. i'm a little upset. i think tom happ is an insanely talented developer - the art design, music, and pixel art is all top notch here, and are even bigger improvements over the original axiom verge (which is one of my favorite metroidvanias period). i was hyped for this game for months but it ended up staying on my backlog for two years since its so wildly different from AV - and not in a good way.
combat feels pretty terrible - or at the very least, a MASSIVE step down from AV. going from dozens of wacky weapons to really weak ones that incentivize hacking or just running past enemies means that all your interactions play out mostly the same way. this is made even worse with the breach/drone sections, where you don't have the option to hack so i ended up just damage boosting through as much as i could. also, there are only two required "bosses" that you can't even die to - the rest are just optional. i don't really get these choices, as i thought the boss design from AV was really damn good.
this might be a me thing, but constantly being thrown around the map with "go to x,y coordinates i'll mark it on your map" felt really terrible - especially when you had to bound back and forth between areas searching for the specific upgrade you needed to get there. of course, i wasn't expecting a linear experience at all, there were just a ton of points where i just felt completely lost.
it's a shame too, since outside of combat and shit the game's often MUCH better than AV in several aspects. just like the first game, traversal is awesome - zipping across the map in bug mode, going back and forth between the breach and the overworld, getting new upgrades like the breach attractor that makes shit even easier to navigate... not to mention that the story's not too bad either, even if it ends on a weird note (AV was the same way though so im not gonna fault it). plus i really like the aesthetic it went for - definitely sets it apart from most games i've played.
i ended up enjoying it, but not as much as i would have hoped. it's worth the money, just don't expect it to be a massive step up from AV.
combat feels pretty terrible - or at the very least, a MASSIVE step down from AV. going from dozens of wacky weapons to really weak ones that incentivize hacking or just running past enemies means that all your interactions play out mostly the same way. this is made even worse with the breach/drone sections, where you don't have the option to hack so i ended up just damage boosting through as much as i could. also, there are only two required "bosses" that you can't even die to - the rest are just optional. i don't really get these choices, as i thought the boss design from AV was really damn good.
this might be a me thing, but constantly being thrown around the map with "go to x,y coordinates i'll mark it on your map" felt really terrible - especially when you had to bound back and forth between areas searching for the specific upgrade you needed to get there. of course, i wasn't expecting a linear experience at all, there were just a ton of points where i just felt completely lost.
it's a shame too, since outside of combat and shit the game's often MUCH better than AV in several aspects. just like the first game, traversal is awesome - zipping across the map in bug mode, going back and forth between the breach and the overworld, getting new upgrades like the breach attractor that makes shit even easier to navigate... not to mention that the story's not too bad either, even if it ends on a weird note (AV was the same way though so im not gonna fault it). plus i really like the aesthetic it went for - definitely sets it apart from most games i've played.
i ended up enjoying it, but not as much as i would have hoped. it's worth the money, just don't expect it to be a massive step up from AV.