Axiom Verge 2

[Intro] It's only fitting that this review is so polarized for me that I will say this: I'm recommending you to play this game. I'm recommending you don't play this game. [Graphics] The graphics for some parts of the game are as good as in the first one, meaning you're in for a treat. There's also graphics in this game that are extremely lofi. I understand that it's a design choice, but I really think the parts that are lofi shouldn't be thus, because we as players miss a lot of environmental storytelling. About half of this game's environments are extremely boring and pedestrian looking. Others are amazingly well crated and visually provocative as in the first game. [Sound] Half of this game has engaging synth soundtracks and some throwbacks to the old game, they're brilliant. However, there's also folk/middle east songs that I absolutely didn't care for. But, I must point out that vocalist Mayssa Karaa has an excellent voice, even though I was not a fan of the songs she's featured in. I will point out though that some songs exist in two versions, and that in itself is a massively impressive feat to pull off. [Gameplay] There's a lot of new design elements in this game, half of them, like the hacking system, the new specialized powers, etc, feel new and fresh. The other half, the RPG system, the limited weapons, the focus on melee, felt extremely tedious and was basically holding you back from the action. Also, the bosses of this game feel like an afterthought and at no point was I even remotely intimidated by them. By comparison, the sound you'd hear before a boss in the first game would always instill a sense of deep dread in me even before I had entered the boss room. I really missed the "Oh no no no no, I'm screwed now" feeling of the first game. [Story] It's an incredibly slow burn which then picks up rapidly and ends on a note that just doesn't feel satisfying at all. The first game had some form of conclusion that made you feel you did something. In this game, the impact feels lesser, more grounded. To give you a frame of reference, First game was like an exciting sci-fi show, the second feels like a reality grounded show with some sci-fi elements tacked on to it. [Summary] I hated about half of the exploration in this game, because I was constantly underpowered, the environments were drab, the music was not at all what I associate with AV as a franchise. I loved the second part of the game, where options suddenly opened up, where the story actually went places that made you connect the dots. Then the ending sort of just.. fell flat. So, in closing, this game is the toughest sell I've ever made, because I just intensely dislike half of it. The rest I absolutely adore. Also, special spoilered shoutout: [spoiler] You get to see the location of the mythical filter, aka, the nexus connecting the myriad of worlds in this universe. It's breathtaking, it's incredible. That alone made me feel that suffering through the first boring parts of the game was more than worth it. [/spoiler]

I feel kinda mixed in some things but overall as a game it is quite good, though in some parts it feels it has regressed from Axiom Verge 1 ( i know comparison is the thief of joy but it is impossible to not have it in mind when the reason i decided to give the game a second chance was because i replayed the first) First i will start with what i loved and that is the gameplay it is certainly a separate thing from the first as it isn't long range combat anymore or mostly, but you get used to it and when it comes to movement this just feels soooo much better specially the drone and some other parts you unlock later In the metroidvania sense oh god tomm happs is crazy this has probably 2x or 3x the rooms of the first with a lot of neat surprises i have some gripes with the early zones but afterthat it is hard to not feel like you do a bunch of progress (to be fair i needed 1 or 2 more walkthrough peeks than in the first game) so in that regards the game is really good maybe it doesn't have quite the ambience of the first but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is it enjoyable now come my main gripes and more than anything is the presentation where some Axiom Verge 1 features were gutted, remember those portraits that the game had along the dialogues? well they are gone :) so whenever there is text it feels really empty like the whole time i was playing i couldn't relate to any character as it just felt like random npcs not helped at least personally by the font that was chosen which feels really wonky, same with some cutscenes where the constant scrolling just doesn't sit right with me like let me appreciate the small fragments of pixel art we have It may not hold as a dear place in my heart as the first one but that is probably because i played the first when i was a lot younger and probably my first metroidvania which made me surprised In short if you liked the gameplay of the first and that was what pulled you in hell grab this without thinking now if you liked the ambiance and similar of the first it isn't there as much though i still think is worth a playthrough (maybe wait for a discount) The native linux support is appreciated specially when you think about it going first to epic where they don't even think about us as PC users PD: i don't say much about the story but it is really cool i have some gripes but damn really cool and god i miss having tradings cards and a tip DON'T GO NEAR WATER TILL YOU HAVE HACKING (this was the reason i abandoned the game the first time i played got lost there and without upgrades that place IS AWFUL)

I got to say i love part 2 because they switched up the game play and it's a new character. I got to say it had Zelda 2 and Castlevania 2 vibe and I'm glad the person that made this game make her a Mary Sue because you had find all the abilities in the game. Sucks there is no Axiom Verge 3 because i want to see Trace and the female character work together like Castlevania 3 style story or a co-op story. The ending of 2 ended in a cliff hanger.

I'm not big into metroidvanias. But after I spoiled myself on the lore for the first game, and learned that the second had more emphasis on exploration with even having skippable bosses, I knew I HAD to play the second game. And guess what? I did the bosses anyway! I did a 100% run! I got 18 Great hours out of this game! This is a metroidvania that I would recommend even to someone who doesn't like metroidvanias.

I liked the first Axiom Verge well enough. It was weird, but in a good way. Exploring bizarre environments, finding strange guns, and figuring out what they did made it feel like a proper Metroidvania where I actually cared about what I might discover next. Axiom Verge 2 just isn't doing that for me. The plot is hard to follow, the combat isn't very good, and the weapons and abilities I've found don't feel particularly meaningful. Instead of being intrigued by the weirdness, I'm mostly just confused. The biggest problem is that I find myself wandering around without really caring what I find or what happens next. I never had that feeling with the first game. Maybe there's a good game here for people who really value exploration for its own sake, but for me, this feels like it lost the things that made the original work.

3/10 Firstly, the gameplay has nothing to do with the first game. Secondly, it's boring.

Axiom Verge 2 is a very different game from Axiom Verge 1. Most notably, Axiom Verge 2 heavily disincentivizes direct combat as a means of progression and as a fun reward in and of itself. Where Trace enjoyed blasting monsters to high hell with an arsenal of over-the-top weapons, Indra instead utilizes an eclectic toolkit giving her some pretty tight movement - [i]double entendre intended[/i] - and hacking abilities in order to evade enemies. Precisely so, the average enemy in Axiom Verge 2 is better evaded than engaged head-on. I feel like this is likely the biggest point of disconnect that other players have with this game as opposed to the first. If gibbing enemies to bits with badass guns was what made Axiom Verge 1 so compelling for you, you likely won’t have a very good time with Axiom Verge 2 and Indra’s far more grounded toolkit. That said, I still found Axiom Verge 2 to be a great game. As previously noted, the average enemy is better evaded than engaged head-on. This is clearly intentional not merely as a gameplay mechanic, but as a means of influencing how the player identifies with Indra and the world she inhabits. Indra isn’t meant to feel like a warrior, or at least I don’t feel like she’s meant to. Arguably she becomes one over the course of the game, but she’s otherwise just an ordinary woman looking for someone she lost. As such, those moments when she narrowly evades death by the skin of her teeth and the savvy of her cunning make it feel all the more real. There are still some metroidvania-esque weapons to find and Indra can become quite powerful by the end of her journey, but not before already having needed to flee from so many combat encounters that it feels a bit moot. Even once I was kitted up, I’d grown so accustom to evading enemies that I simply continued to do so as a matter of course. Axiom Verge 2 trades the wholly alien setting of Axiom Verge 1 for a far more grounded alt-history setting. The breaches – which are quite plentiful in Axiom Verge 2 – remain as alien as in the first, but the overworld setting feels rather familiar. The game even includes several human NPCs to chat with; as such, the environment of Axiom Verge 2 feels markedly less isolating and daunting than that of the first game’s setting. Concerning the story, I’d thought it might be a bit easier to understand than that of the first game given the far more grounded setting, but I thought wrong. The story of Indra and her journey is relatively straightforward; rather, it’s the lore of the world she finds herself in which remains beyond my understanding. There are plenty of journal entries/codices/history logs to find throughout the game which elaborate on little bits and pieces of the world’s lore and give some ideas as to how things went down, but not enough to paint a complete picture of it all. There’s still a lot that I don’t get about the Lamassu, Udug, and the other worlds at odds with each other. After meditating on it, I feel like this is likely intentional storytelling and Tom wanted to leave some things up in the air so as to compel the player’s intrigue in the world itself; as the hypothetical of what [i]could[/i] be may be more compelling than stating things outright. Either that or I’m too stupid to pick up what Tom’s putting down lol. I also encountered a few bugs in my playthrough. Most were minor enough that they don’t bare mention, but one was: occasionally when in the map menu the screen outside the map would glitch and rapidly oscillate between light and dark. I experienced this glitch multiple times over the course of multiple play sessions, although I couldn’t figure out what caused it. I personally didn’t mind it very much and felt like it was only mildly immersion-breaking, but this glitch may be a tangible concern for those with photosensitivity so I feel it’s worth mentioning. I feel like I could write a whole lot more about Axiom Verge 2 but I’m running out of steam at the moment, so I’ll sign off by saying that I overall found Axiom Verge 2 to be a game with gorgeous visuals, intriguing lore, a fantastic soundtrack, tight platforming, and sublime body horror. If you’re open to the idea of playing an atypical metroidvania which foregoes direct combat in favour of evading enemies via a combination of platforming + hacking tools, then I strongly recommend you give Axiom Verge 2 a shot.