Axiom Verge

Ta weno

oh my god im on the verge of axioming right now

My ears hate that game, but I liked it so it's fine. If you miss the old Metroid games, Axiom Verge is for you !

Любопытный платформер в стилистике Ханса Гигера. Что-то в нем есть )

When I first looked at Axiom Verge, I was expecting an experience similar to Metroid and Super Metroid, but what I got instead, was a massive headache of frustrating game level, enemy and boss design. I've played many games with awful bosses in the past that were absolutely horrible, but at the very least there could be at least a few bosses worth fighting on it. Unfortunately I didn't find any single good boss on this game. I was expecting to play a metroidvania, but what I got instead, was a bullet hell of annoyances. I played this game in one sitting on normal difficulty, and already early on I was already feeling like this experience would be annoying. There is little hints on where to go, you have the classic metroidvania map, but there is no indicator of anything in the game. It's not like I absolutely need the game to let me know where to go, but the way this game was designed, is meant to be backtracked a LOT, and sure, you usually tend to backtrack on Metroidvanias, but this game amps it to an eleven. You reach a new area that you only traverse for 15 minutes to get something that you have to use on a place 2 maps ago, to find something you need on the very area that you were previously, all leading to another area far away. This is a very disjointed map design, and unfortunately, most of this backtracking hell happens to be on a map that has the most annoying music ever, whoever decided that adding a very ominous native sounding woman doing screeches on the background in the most repetitive fashion, needs to learn a thing or two about music design, because for a metroidvania, soundtrack makes ambiance, and ambiance makes the experience, if both the experience and the music completely demolish each other, well, you end with an attempt. Outside that track, most of the soundtrack is fine, with a personal favorite that is similar to Red Soil Brinstar from Super Metroid, and the boss theme, which is probably the only good thing going for the bosses. As for the bosses themselves... they're bad, really quite terrible. Some of them are big, some of them are small, but they all have something in common, they will have a hard to hit weakpoint, meanwhile you're facing with a bullet hell. The second boss I faced, could be defined as either hell or a joke, why a joke? well, if you happen to be able to slip past behind it, you can cheese the boss, which is what I ultimately did (which was probably not intended) but fighting this boss the legit way, is just infuriating to say the least, and unfortunately, this pretty much set the tone for the rest of the bosses which worked similarly. In games like Metroid, usually the bosses are gimmicks for the abbilities you're about to obtain, this vital game design was missing on this game, as bosses did not represent the ability that you were about to obtain, not like this is a bad thing, but at least that made the bosses memorable to some extent. Since the bosses don't stand out in particular, because they only know how to spam attacks and be a literal bullet hell, this only contributed towards my frustration and qualms against the game design. Enemy placement and enemy attacks were, for the most part, okay for up to 2/4 of the game. On the 3rd quarter of the game, enemies start being way more annoying, either being fast, or placed in a way where you will always get hit no matter what, or enemies that you can kill but will drain your health, this only became more aggravating during endgame, because enemies on endgame are absolutely dreadful, they chase you, they turn normal mob fights into bullet hells, they deal a lot of damage, and they're absolutely awful to fight, I found myself attempting to avoid them, which works in some sections, but this one last section where I had to go towards the room of the final boss, was excruciatingly annoying that I was almost on the verge of uninstalling and quitting. Usually, you'll have a save point right behind a boss, not here, you'll have to fight your way through several annoying enemies that are just a pain to deal with and are overall not worth fighting, but that you have to kill anyway, because if you try to skip them, eventually, you'll just mass them up for a 3 v 1 fight which is not something you want. I was half expecting the final boss fight to be at least worth it, but that was not the case, the game spawns and keeps spawning, up to 3 big laser eyes that moves in every direction, and you have to hit something on the ceiling, the issue is that these big laser eyes spam attacks and keep moving in your direction. The only reason to klill these eyes is that they (sometimes) spawn heals on the field for you to survive hell, which was my go through, kill a bunch of them to have enough heals to spam a laser upwards. There is no smart way to push through bosses, you just throw what you have expecting to land and survive long enough for it to be defeated, this is not good boss design in the slightest, it's extremely frustrating. I hated it on Hollow Knight, and I hated it here. Metroidvanis aren't meant to be bullet hells. I admit there are cool things on the game, like having a glitch gun that you can use to access secrets, or to make enemies have a different function (like revealing paths and being solid objets) unfortunately, the little bit of good things are extremely overshadowed by the terrible things this game excels at. I also almost forgot to mention that a certain ability that you'll use a lot during late game, happens to be tied to the directional pad, which would constantly fumble me towards more frustration... It also never works the way I want it to, >:( brb, I need to listen to something else, otherwise the track I mentioned above will completely drive me crazy.

I just didn't have much fun with it. Music was grating. Plays like an old-school Metroidvania which is fine if that's what you like but I didn't.

Received this game in late January for my birthday. Gameplay is very similar to Metroid, which isn't bad but nothing too exciting either. You do get more than a dozen of gun options, and the drone mechanic is much cooler than the morphball. The story, however, was the coolest thing. Brief, yes, but lots of tidbits to uncover when exploring. Like a true Metroidvania, the game rewards exploring a lot.