Axiom Verge (2015)

On sale now on Switch! Time to see what the fuss is about. So far, like it. 3 out of the 4 triggers are now in use of the controller and it's taking a bit of getting used to. Controls are smooth and satisfying but don't quite feel organic yet. That should come with time.

I also have Metroid Dread on preorder. Two very different styles to compare. I'll be all Metroidvania'd out after October!

Axiom Verge is a superb game that consumed my mind during my playthrough of it. Even when I wasn't playing it I was often thinking about it. Any fan of Metroid should thoroughly enjoy this game without feeling like they are playing a derivative or "clone" of the game. Axiom Verge stands on the shoulders of its predecessors without being subservient to them.

One of the first things that surprised me about Axiom Verge was... the audio levels. They were about twice as loud as any other game going through my speakers set to the same volume. Throughout the game the audio (both sfx and music) can be a bit jarring and feels a bit rough around the edges making me wonder if it was ever properly mixed, mastered, normalized, etc. This seems like a strange thing to point out right off the bat, but it got in the way of me immediately getting into the game.

As you start playing you'll notice the movement and gamplay feel very solid. There is rarely a moment where the game betrays your trust. That is, until you start augmenting some of your abilities. While conceptually interesting, the execution of the grappling hook and teleportation leaves a bit to be desired. I often found myself triggering the latter, especially with the PS4 joystick, unintentionally sending myself flying off ledges.

With more and more of the world uncovered, sometimes you wish you could go back and revisit those earlier areas. Unfortunately there are two problems. The game prevents you from going returning for a period of time (unable to jump across a gap), which personally I found quite frustrating (although does not impact your ability to proceed in the game), and there is no fast travel between zones, which just makes the experience a bit more tiresome than it needs to be sometimes, especially when you're stuck about what to do next and find yourself roaming back and forth across the entire world several times over.

I've heard praise given to the variety of weapons, however personally I found them a bit underwhelming. There are definitely some standouts, but as a result, I ended up only using 3 or 4 throughout most of the game despite almost a dozen different options. I guess the argument in favour, is that you can find some that really fit some specific situations, but overall I didn't find they changed my experience as much as I hoped (compared to the feeling of elation when encountering a new weapon upgrade in Metroid).

My final critique would be around the colour schemes. In some cases the enemies, environments, and projectiles tend to blend together. This isn't usually a problem, but it was enough to be frustrating at times. It makes me wonder how someone with colour blindness would experience the game (or whether they would be able to at all).

At the end of the day when you add up some of the pros and cons mentioned above I had an extremely enjoyable time, scratching an itch that was left unattended after my unsuccessful foray with Hollow Knight. The map begs to be explored, and then re-explored, with bountiful treasures and cryptic notes found within. Boss fights, despite sometimes appearing uninspiring, fulfill their purpose, and still leave the player with a feeling of satisfaction after memorizing and exploiting their choreographed movements. And finally, the story and lore offer surprising depth for a game that already succeeds on so many other levels, with the exception of the main character who, as a clone, appropriately feels like someone copy and pasted from any number of games this one is inspired from.

Having teleport bound to double tapping the analog stick/dpad kind of kills the game for me.

Celeste's C sides? Hollow Knight's Path of Pain? Beat them no problem. Were they hard as hell? Totally! But given those game's precise controls and well thought out button mappings, I only had myself to blame when I died.

Axiom Verge? Literally just attempting to maneuver the character in a precise manner causes me to randomly teleport all over the place and then when I actually need to teleport, lolnope didn't trigger.

How the fuck did the dev think that double tapping to teleport was a good idea when the L2 button was basically free real estate? The glitch bomb doesn't need a dedicated button, wtf. It should've just been mapped to the combination press of glitch gun + shoot (so depending on the controller that'd be R1 + y/R1 + x/R1 + square aka R1 + left face button) .There, problem solved, now teleport doesn't have to suck so much ass.