Pass the Controller | Latest news, reviews and reviews in video games
  • Home
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Forum
  • About
    • Contact
    • Meet the Team
  • Home
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Forum
  • About
    • Contact
    • Meet the Team
>

Immortal Redneck | PS4 | Review

20/6/2018

 
Immortal Redneck PS4 review - Pass the Controller

Imagine being dropped into the blazing Egyptian desert with just a baseball cap, a lumberjack shirt and… a potato launcher. Well, now you can face that reality, as developer Crema’s twitchy first-person pyramid-crawler, Immortal Redneck, breathes a colourful, comical breath of life into the old school, arcade shooter genre.

Picture
          by Amy Mallett
Picture

​@amy_mallet

Picture
Developer: Crema
Publisher: Crema
Platform: PS4,
  Xbox One, PC 
Players: 1
The game begins when a sarcastic redneck wakes up to discover he’s lost, not to mention pretty darn mummified, in ancient Egypt following an accident. He’s not sure what’s going on (that makes two of us), but has a feeling the answer lies within the three pyramids of Giza.

​A quick personal admission: I often find arcade dungeon crawling quite laborious, and originally took Immortal Redneck on because of its creative swearing (you’ll always have me at creative swearing), but its surprisingly accessible gameplay structure kept me engaged this time around. Focusing on a series of procedurally generated tombs within several large pyramids, the goal of each trip is to reach the Apex - the mystical centre which presumably holds as much gravity and metaphysical majesty as the Maze from Westworld. 

Reaching the Apex is far from easy. Why, you ask? “Permadeath!” laughs Immortal Redneck. Yep, it’s possible to ascend level upon level of a pyramid, clearing random tomb after random tomb, just to ultimately get blown to bits by an unseen projectile and go hurtling all the way back to the bottom. 


​​What makes this a little less wounding is the game’s rogue-lite elements, which see you retain some form of progression with each death. You’ll get to keep any gold coins you find, used to purchase items from in-game merchants, as well as experience to invest in the skill tree for whichever class you’ve chosen. There are nine classes, to be exact, each befitting a different play style and boasting abilities directly inspired by Egyptian mythology.

​
Once you’ve had a gander and chosen your favoured class, you’ll venture onward to discover your foes. Standing boldly between you and bragging rights are a dastardly array of enemies that range from lava-belching toads to floating skulls, which look a little bit like angrier versions of rock band Avenged Sevenfold’s logo. Although the visual style keeps things light and cartoony, coming nowhere close to the sheer nightmare fuel of fellow twitch shooter Doom, the game’s bevy of beasties are still a force to be reckoned with, setting your pulse a-racing whenever the music swells because you’re about to be blasted in the face with a fireball. That’s without even mentioning the two huge bosses hidden within each pyramid, which will definitely have you crying for mummy...
Standing boldly between you and bragging rights are a dastardly array of enemies that range from lava-belching toads to floating skulls.
To combat these blighters you’ll have to rely on two things - your rapidly twerking thumbs and a suite of over 50 inventive weapons, found scattered across each of the floors you’ll navigate en route to the Apex. Our hillbilly hero begins with just a basic pistol, but can uncover anything from an electric flamethrower to a wololo staff (you can decide what that means). Each weapon will put a massive smile on the face of any arcade action fan; the shotgun blast is suitably explosive, machine guns are frantic and noisy, and Grampa’s Blunderbuss is simply a great name.

​
With all that awesome firepower, it’s a shame the environments themselves contribute little to the overall experience. Despite doing their job in offing up mythical monsters aplenty, plus accommodating hunts for crazy weapons and madman levels of strafing, areas come up short. They start out large and sprawling, like an Egyptian multi-storey car park, and narrow as the difficulty spikes, with the only real design variation being a few random platforms, more ramps and a few spread out pillars. Alas, that’s the inherent danger in opting for procedural generation over human craftsmanship.
It goes without saying that fans of Serious Sam, Timesplitters and DOOM will no doubt find a familiar home in Immortal Redneck, but those who crave a more narrative-driven experience may find that they get bored long before they ultimately reach the Apex. Even then, it could prove fun to dip in and out of whenever you fancy getting some sand between your toes, and, of course, kicking seven shades out of cute looking rattlesnakes with a taser sword.

Pros

  • Sharp dialogue & comedy value
  • Solid, responsive FPS action 
  • Over 50 crazy weapons to wield
  • Classes & abilities offer significant variety


Cons 

  • Environments are lacking on the whole
  • Gameplay will seem a little repetitive for some
  • Permadeath & frequent difficulty spikes can be a formula for frustration

7/10
0 Comments

Agony | Xbox One | Review

8/6/2018

 
Agony Xbox One reviews - Pass the Controller

A runaway crowdfunding success story, Agony and its grotesque realisation of Hell recently made it to market with the help of nearly 4,000 passionate backers. While there are plenty of grisly sights to quench the thirst of the gore hounds amongst them, anyone looking for anything more than the modern interpretation of a cheap video nasty will be sorely disappointed.

Picture





by Sam Sant

Picture

@SlamShotSam

Picture
Developer: Madmind
Studio

Publisher: Madmind
​Studio

​Platforms: ​Xbox
​One, PS4, PC

​Players: 1
Initially refused rating due to graphic scenes of rape and infanticide, which were cut to secure an 18 certificate, Agony revels in controversy. It places gore, nudity and satanic symbolism on a pedestal in a desperate effort to shock, but its for none of these reasons that the game is deeply offensive. Awful menus and loading screens adorned with what look like poorly cut out JPEGS offer an immediate indicator of what’s to come, proceeding to drop you at the gates of Hell with the task of seeking the Red Goddess and a hard pass on eternal damnation along with her.

Madmind Studio’s hellscape is hideous in both an intentional and unintentional sense, constructed of bloody bones, entrails and malformed limbs that are poorly realised on a technical level. Despite the familiar, biblical interpretation of the setting, there’s undeniably some intriguingly disturbed imagery to ogle when environments aren’t obstructively lit. You’ll probably need to crank up the gamma setting to comfortably traverse Agony’s dark and winding corridors, unattractively washing them out in the process.

While areas are interconnected and peppered with secrets, everything looks so samey that it’s exceptionally easy to get lost. This is frustrating enough in itself, but once you also account for the sluggish walk speed and highly limited stamina supply, simple traversal becomes laborious. Hell feels labyrinthine in the worst way, making a punishing early venture into a literal maze the point at which many will likely throw in the towel.

That’s also where Agony remembers to shoehorn in its weak, wider gameplay mechanics, incorporating simple puzzles and, frankly, dreadful stealth. You can’t engage demonic denizens in combat, aping the likes of Amnesia and Outlast, but the vagina-faced foes can’t hope to instil the same helpless feelings of dread. They’re pretty thick (in terms of intelligence) for starters, easily distracted with flaming torches and evaded simply by crouching and holding your breath, though that’s not to say they aren’t deadly if you get careless.
Anyone looking for anything more than the modern interpretation of a cheap video nasty will be sorely disappointed.
Sneaking slows the trudging pace to an absolute crawl, which means you’ll inevitably get bored and make a run for it, almost guaranteeing that you get spotted and face swift murder. After succumbing to a screenful of bare busters, your soul leaves the body and you’re presented a window of time in which to possess a lesser thrall and pick up where you left off. Possessions are automatic on easy difficulty, but require input on normal and send you back to the last poorly-placed checkpoint in the event of failure.

Finding and eating Forbidden Fruit - or Fanny Smith apples, as we call them for reasons you can probably extrapolate - allows you to acquire and upgrade skills that’ll at least give you a better chance at survival. That’s assuming you actually want to extend the trip, mind, as masses of alternate endings and a couple of additional modes - one offering endless procedurally generated challenges and the other the chance to replay the story as a succubus - did absolutely nothing to tempt us into holding the controller for any longer than absolutely necessary.
You might think all that seems a tad harsh, but we haven’t even touched on the crippling technical issues yet. Agony’s frame rate is choppy at best, glitches prevented us from making progress on a few occasions, and the audio is completely bust. Diegetic sounds emanate from the wrong directions, while ambient effects and voice overs constantly cut in and out and jarringly loop back on themselves; missing dialogue makes the unengaging narrative harder to follow than it should be, but, more egregiously, deprives you of relishing every syllable of the hysterically awkward scripting and delivery.

​
Let’s not mince words here: Agony is a sub-par, early access product masquerading as a finished release. Patches can only hope to make it stably abysmal, as opposed to plain broken, so you should absolutely avoid the unnecessary agony it’ll so ironically impose upon you.

Pros

  • Environments are occasionally interesting
  • They didn’t steal the Kickstarter money

Cons

  • Totally borked audio
  • All shock value & no substance
  • Moves at a gruellingly slow pace
  • Tedious stealth sections
  • Hideous visuals

2/10
0 Comments

ONRUSH | Xbox One | Review

7/6/2018

 
ONRUSH Xbox One review - Pass the Controller

ONRUSH isn’t your typical arcade racer, in fact, it’s not really a racing game at all. You don’t win by being the first to cross a finish line, and you generally don’t want to be ahead of the pack, but rather in the thick of its metallic stampede of destruction. Inspired by class-based multiplayer shooters like Overwatch, you and five teammates - be they human or CPU - will cooperate to achieve victory across four unique, objective-based game modes.

Picture





by Sam Sant


Picture

@SlamShotSam


Picture
Developer: Codemasters
Evo

Publisher: Codemasters
​Platforms: ​Xbox
​One, PS4

​Players: 1 - 12
Developed by Codemasters Evo, a new team largely comprised of former Evolution Studios staff, ONRUSH shares plenty of DNA with the ill-fated studio’s most famous product - MotorStorm. After selecting from eight varied classes - comprised of two nippy-but-vulnerable motorbikes and six four-wheelers ranging from lightweight buggies to hefty hummers - you’re unleashed on one of twelve off-road tracks that boast multiple paths and ample opportunities to catch big air.

Razzing around in them is simple, thanks to the basic arcade handling, but the sheer amount of carnage unfolding at any given moment requires you to remain perceptive of your surroundings. That goes for the entire 360 degrees, as you’ll not only face tussling and t-bones from opposition on the ground, but also ground-pounding aerial assaults from those that are airborne. Takedowns are never the aim of the game, but momentarily removing a driver from the equation is a good way to place your team at a temporary advantage; with this in mind, while it’s tempting to pursuit spectacular write offs, settling for lesser hits that place vehicles into vulnerable states is a safe bet that doesn’t risk your bumper - and then the rest of your crumpled shell - coming into inglorious contact with a wall.

Neutral vehicles, known as Fodder, further pack the field and ensure you’re witness to smashing spectacle even when undertaking this more careful approach. They aren’t active participants and can be demolished with just a nudge, gifting their destroyer a sliver of boost in the process. Turbocharging your movement speed, boost is absolutely essential to keeping up with the crowd and staying competitive, though you will be deposited back into the action if you fall too far behind. It shouldn’t often come to that, as boost can also be earned by performing team maneuvers, jumps (which can be styled out with tricks on a bike and barrel rolls in a car
), near misses, or even hitting custom tombstones left behind when a racer is destroyed.
You don’t win by being the first to cross a finish line, and you generally don’t want to be ahead of the pack, but rather in the thick of its metallic stampede of destruction. 
This means ONRUSH moves with a breakneck pace and a tense sense of danger, though you haven’t seen the best of it yet. Utilising boost and playing to the strengths of your chosen class of vehicle, be that by supporting teammates or bulldozing competitors, will gradually charge the Rush meter and eventually allow you to unleash an ultimate ability unique to your equipped off-roader. You’ll always rocket forwards at blistering speed, bonnet combusting and screaming vocals kicking in as you go, though you might also leave a damaging trail in your wake, debuff enemies, buff teammates, or eliminate foes as if they were Fodder.

Rush can generally be utilised a few times throughout the course of a match, often proving a tide-turning highlight, especially if coordinated with teammates. This and its audiovisuals make it true to its name, though ONRUSH is no presentational slouch in general; the high energy soundtrack and punky neon visuals, beautifully enhanced with 4K and HDR support on Xbox One X, quickly serve to get your adrenaline pumping.

That’s true across any of the four game types we alluded to earlier, which offer novel interpretations of some familiar favourites. Overdrive is the premier mode and tasks you with stringing boost chains to score the most points; Countdown sees you pass through gates to top up a depleting timer and outlast the opposition; Lockdown spawns a moving capture point for your team to occupy; while Switch gives each driver three lives and forces them to swap vehicle as they’re expended, with the first team to fully deplete their supply losing. Each event is split into rounds and each victory earns the relevant side a tally in a best of series, contributing a sporting feel and accommodating rousing comebacks.


Events can unfold very differently depending on your approach - for example playing the evasive survival game on a bike in Switch, rather than going on the offensive and doing work as a heavy - and you’re afforded the opportunity to spawn in a new class of vehicle after wrecking in most competitions, presenting the opportunity to tweak strategy and balance team composition on the fly.

Superstar, the game’s career equivalent, sees you climb the ranks of the fledgling ONRUSH scene in pursuit of the tantalising Founders’ Trophy. It’s a journey punctuated by zany cutscenes that can be taken in solo or co-op, with each event - or multi-event series - carrying its own set of challenges to complete in order to earn points and work your way up to the more difficult stages, which incorporate complex tracks alongside different lighting and seasonal effects.
ONRUSH moves with a breakneck pace and a tense sense of danger.
It shouldn’t be too long before you get your mitts on that trophy, which leaves you with single events to consume solo/cooperative/competitive until Ranked play is added at a later date. While we can’t speak for Ranked, naturally, casual online events pad player counts with bots and rotate game types between matches to nix lobbies and keep things moving along nicely. If you’ve been playing solo, it’s also great to finally get some use out of the quick chat system and implement advanced strategies with human players.

Coordinate well and you’ll rack up the wins, earning bonus XP as your reward. Each level gained in ONRUSH grants a Gear Crate, which is essentially a loot box, but don’t panic too much, as they’re free from the shackles of the microtransaction machine. They cough up three random cosmetic items when opened, tiered by rarity, with the better quality stuff not really being held back. You can receive duplicates, which are converted into an in-game currency that can then be put towards something of your choosing.

Credits can also be gathered by completing profile objectives and Daily Quests, which you’ll probably want to keep on top of, as there’s a serious volume of sweet stuff for your bikes, cars and avatars.

While daily tasks might draw you back in for a session here and there, ONRUSH doesn’t have a huge breadth of content, unless we’re purely talking cosmetics. If you aren’t looking to fully stock your wardrobe, the white-knuckle action that’s here is modern, unique, characterful and social all at once, making every effort to remove barriers to entry and offer relentless entertainment - which it does, for a time.


Pros

  • Blends genres to create something new & compelling
  • Intoxicating sense of speed, danger & destruction
  • All four objective-based game types hit the mark
  • Eight vehicle classes feel distinct
  • Exciting, madcap presentation

Cons

  • Relatively brief career mode & not a huge amount else to do
  • Missing Ranked play at launch doesn’t help the issue

8/10
0 Comments

Vampyr | PS4 | Review

5/6/2018

 
Vampyr PlayStation 4 review - Pass the Controller

The latest entry in the rapidly expanding Focus Home Interactive stable, Vampyr is brought to life by sleeper development studio DONTNOD Entertainment (Life is Strange, Remember Me). An ambitious action RPG, Vampyr casts players as Dr. Jonathan Reid and unleashes them on an occult interpretation of 1918 London, framed by relevant Victorian themes in class, disease, race and religion.

Picture





by Sam Sant

Picture

@SlamShotSam


Picture
Developer: DONTNOD
​Entertainment

Publisher: Focus Home
Interactive

​Platforms: ​PS4, Xbox
One, PC

​Players: 1
It’s an immediately engaging premise, all the more so when the good doctor awakens to find himself amnesiac, undead and succumbing to an insatiable bloodlust; unable to resist feeding on the first person he sees, the newborn vamp unwittingly draws the ire of a professional beast hunting company. Flashbacks piece together how Jonathan came to be in such an unenviable situation, leading him to seek concealment by pursuing a job as resident surgeon for a struggling hospital.

From here on in, you’ll aim to seek out the vampire responsible for turning Dr. Reid, whilst also juggling occupational and moral commitments to hospital staff and patients. It’s easy to dismiss the familiar exclamation that your choices will carry significant consequences - they very rarely do, in spite of many games spuriously spewing similar boasts - but through its dynamic difficulty and community systems, Vampyr makes good on its promise.

Every single citizen you encounter has a personality, relationships and community standing within their borough. As you interact with the people of London you’re drip fed tidbits that slowly lead you to unfurl the city’s intricate social tapestry, gleaning valuable knowledge that can be employed in numerous ways, for example unlocking unique dialogue options that might lead to optional side quests.

Dining on these rounded townsfolk is by far the most efficient way to acquire experience points, which you’ll need to evolve and acquire a wide range of powerful abilities. Deviously, the experience you earn from ‘embracing’ a character increases alongside your perception of them, so supping on those closest to you is the most rewarding. In a world so desperately bleak, you’ll find that every character is sympathetic to some degree, making for a constant moral quandary as combat encounters grow increasingly more difficult should you choose to abstain from having a friend for dinner.
Every single citizen you encounter has a personality, relationships and community standing within their borough.
Furthermore, should your moral compass be broken, you aren’t entirely off the hook. Mounting homicide cases may lead people to flee, stores to increase their prices due to the dangers of operation, or, if you’re a real glutton, even plunge a district into irreparable chaos and eradicate its population. That’ll lock you out of any content tied to the unfortunates at hand and also prevent you from rearing any more meat in the area, so it’s best to use your skills as a medical practitioner to craft cures from looted gubbins and subsequently use ‘em to keep the health of a borough at an even keel.

When Shadow of Mordor and later Shadow of War were lauded for their ‘revolutionary’ Nemesis Systems, which supposedly served to build meaningful rivalries, we wondered if we might’ve missed something. The community systems within Vampyr don’t fall similarly flat, realising the potential in attaching a player to what would otherwise be secondary NPCs by making every exchange consequential on multiple levels.

Exploring the quasi open world, rich with environmental detail and written lore as it is, can be as fruitful as conversing in the pursuit of useful information. You’re often kept to a relatively linear path by unpickable locks that gate progress, which isn’t an inherent issue, but is somewhat galling when you consider Jonathan has the ability to teleport and could feasibly get anywhere, but arbitrarily can’t outside of designated contextual prompts. Regardless, streets and interiors alike are a dark and moody treat to turn over for crafting components, used to upgrade weapons and produce injectable buffs that aid in violent confrontations with humans, vampires and additional beasties.

As an immortal, Dr. Reid eats bullets for breakfast, but the likes of fire and holy symbols will quickly turn the tides. Each enemy has their own unique strengths and weaknesses, which, when coupled with a range of classes, create a varied opposition that present challenge in numbers. They’ll work in synergy to bring you down, necessitating knowledge of their respective attack patterns and target hierarchy.
Vampyr PlayStation 4 review - Pass the Controller
The community systems within Vampyr attach players to what would otherwise be secondary NPCs, making every exchange consequential on multiple levels.
Bouts are fast paced and scrappy, very similar to Bloodborne both visually and mechanically, seeing you lock-on to a single target before launching attacks and dodges at the cost of stamina. Firearms can be equipped to the off-hand when using a one-handed weapon and unloaded without need to manually aim, or, alternatively, a secondary off-hand melee weapon can be used to inflict negative status effects, like a stun that presents feeding opportunities.

This is where the more unique aspects of combat come into play, as you’ll periodically want to clamp your jaws around someone’s neck to keep your blood gauge topped up - blood being required to perform a range of lesser and ultimate abilities that range from simply healing yourself to boiling an opponent’s blood. There’s really a lot at your disposal, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that combat here isn’t nearly as polished as its clear inspiration, lacking the same engaging challenge thanks to some simple exploits.


Animations can also come off as a little stiff, pulling you out of the moment in the midst of an otherwise satisfying combo, but even on the odd occasion that Vampyr underwhelms visually it continues to impresses aurally. Battlecries are particularly guttural, while theatrical voiceovers commit to the patchy script with convincing verve, all complemented by the bellowing chelos and screeching violins of an excellent - and also decidedly Bloodborne-esque - ambient soundtrack.
Picture
Whilst Vampyr can feel overly familiar in certain areas, it borrows from the top and at its core holds a unique and intelligent social framework that intertwines engaging themes and characters to birth an enthralling, meaningfully manipulable narrative. It mixes up the conventional RPG structure whilst maintaining a nice balance between management, conversation, combat and exploration to retain the same moreish X factor that made so many fall in love with the genre to begin with. If you can take the rough with the smooth, you’ll find a lot to love in what’s easily DONTNOD Entertainment’s best game yet.

Pros

  • Thoroughly engaging social systems
  • Dynamic, morality-based difficulty
  • Impactful decision making
  • Developed characters & setting
  • Satisfying, varied combat...

Cons

  • … Which can at times feel derivative & exploitable
  • Some jarring animations & ugly character models
  • Areas are restrictively gated

8/10
0 Comments

Aragami: Shadow Edition | Xbox One | Review

4/6/2018

 
Aragami: Shadow Edition Xbox One review - Pass the Controller

Bundling the base Aragami experience alongside its new Nightfall expansion, Aragami: Shadow Edition brings the eponymous shadow assassin and his stealth exploits to Xbox One for the first time.

Picture





by Sam Sant

Picture

@SlamShotSam

Picture
Developer: Lince Works
Publisher: Lince Works
​Platforms: ​Xbox
One, PS4, PC

​Players: 1 - 2
After being conjured by the imprisoned Yamiko and tasked with her rescue, vengeful spirit Aragami quickly sets about the task, threatened with evaporation come sunrise. You’ll journey across 13 open levels, approaching them as you see fit, along the way collecting six talismans needed to break the seal holding Yamiko in place. When Aragami begins experiencing memories that seemingly couldn’t belong to him, the quest becomes twofold in also uncovering his true origin and motivation.

While the narrative can be melodramatic and predictable, for the most part, it’s vaguely interesting and fittingly understated, preventing the compulsory Japanese voice over from beginning to grate. Developer Lince Works are similarly committed to an oriental presentation across the board, with lovely cel-shaded visuals and an evolving feudal soundtrack serving to finish the ensemble.

It’s all very Okami, which is just one of many classic inspirations that Aragami proudly wears on its sleeve. Perhaps the most obvious borrow is the titular ninja’s Shadow Leap ability, which is almost a direct implementation of Dishonored’s iconic Blink manoeuvre, though here the short-range teleport limits you to hopping between areas bathed in shadow.


Shadow Leap and other special abilities have their usage limited by Shadow Essence - a mana equivalent resource elegantly displayed on your cape - which drains when stood near a strong light source and is replenished by skulking in the dark. While all stealth games rely on an interplay between light and dark to some extent, this makes their juxtaposition absolutely integral to gameplay - mirroring the story and bringing things full circle.
It’s visually very Okami, which is just one of many classic inspirations that Aragami proudly wears on its sleeve.
Taking a risk and stepping out into the light - or, better yet, painting temporary shadows into the environment for concealment beforehand - will often reward you with a collectable scroll used to purchase from a range of upgrades. Included amongst these are powerful new techniques, which draw from a limited pool of charges, as opposed to your Shadow Essence, allowing you to turn invisible, mark enemies, perform ranged kills and much more.

More opportunities open up as your arsenal grows, making what was already quite an easy outing a veritable cakewalk. While being clocked by a foe will generally result in your death, avoiding that fate isn’t much of a challenge, due to easily manipulable AI and the general advantages you’re afforded on top of your supernatural powers. Being spotted isn’t immediate cause for concern, and neither is lingering in the enemy gaze long enough for them to make you, as you’re afforded a slow motion reaction window by default (though it can be disabled).

Cutting straight through early levels is a hot knife through butter, but as the opposing Army of Light grow in size and diversity - integrating ranged bowmen and soldiers with portable light sources - you’ll be forced into an ever-so-slightly more considered approach towards the tail end of the game. As such, stealth aficionados will want to jump straight in at the highest difficulty setting to sharpen enemy wits and bolster their numbers.

Though we did crave more of a challenge - which a scoring system looks to provide, but there’s little motivation to get involved in the absence of leaderboards - there’s definitely satisfaction to be gleaned from playing the ultimate assassin, requiring only a small time investment to plot and execute a swift and deadly strike, erase the evidence and disappear without a trace.
Picture
Though we did crave more of a challenge, there’s definitely satisfaction to be gleaned from playing the ultimate assassin.
While improving your letter grade likely won’t draw you back for a second playthrough, achievements and skins awarded for completing polarising lethal and pacifist runs might just do the job, across both the main game and its Nightfall expansion.

A prequel story featuring two new playable characters, each equipped with a condensed set of fresh abilities, Nightfall spans four of the strongest chapters found in the Shadow Edition. Whether you choose to play as Shinobu or her sensei, Hyo, you’ll traverse complex new environments littered with debuting enemies and obstacles that, combined with the more limited array of shadow powers on offer, inject an engaging level of challenge that the main game mostly lacks.

It’s very apparent that Lince Works put a lot of time and effort into Nightfall, making it a rare example of an expansion that surpasses the game it’s attached to. Concise diary entries flesh out the narrative and offer a subtle guiding hand, while the buddy dynamic between its leading duo contextualises the game’s cross-platform online co-op, rather than just cloning the protagonist without explanation.
Picture
Clearly then the development team have learnt a great deal in the nearly two years since the original launch of Aragami, which has us eager to see what they might come up with next. When it comes to their current product, while a mixed bag, many will rightly be tempted by the prospect of playing as one of the industry’s best-realised ninjas in terms of pure, death-dealing gameplay. It’s just a shame that this power trip can come at the cost of your overall engagement, letting you breeze through the beautiful environments with a nonchalant approach to stealth and story alike.

Pros

  • Powerful abilities make you feel like a legendary assassin
  • Nightfall expansion is a great addition
  • Striking commitment to an oriental presentation
  • Marries narrative & gameplay through its light vs. dark theme
  • Open levels with multiple avenues of approach...

Cons

  • … Many of which you’ll never use, as carving a direct path is easy
  • Hard to get invested in a protagonist that only exists for one night
  • Feels like an amalgamation of classics you’ve likely already played
  • No leaderboards to make pursuing highscores worthwhile

7/10
0 Comments


    READ MORE

    News
    Features
    Videos

    Comment Here


    Categories

    All
    Action Adventure
    Adventure
    Air Combat
    Arcade
    Family
    Fighter
    Hardware
    Horror
    Indie
    Open World
    Platformer
    Puzzler
    Racing
    Role Playing
    Shmup
    Shooter
    Sim
    Sports
    Stealth
    Strategy
    Survival
    Virtual Reality


    Archives

    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    July 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016


    RSS Feed

Pass the Controller

News
Reviews
Features
​
Videos
Forum
About

The Forums

Gaming Discussion
Xbox
PlayStation
PC Gaming
Nintendo
Off Topic
​Achievements and Trophies

What is PTC

About Us
​Meet the Team
​
Contact Us
OpenCritic
Find our reviews on OpenCritic
vrgamecritic
Find our reviews on vrgamecritic
© COPYRIGHT 2014-2019 PTC / JMP.
​ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.