When it comes to action-platformers with gated progression (a.k.a. metroidvania) style games, 2015 has been good to us. PS4 owners got their hands on Apotheon earlier this year, then came Ori and the Blind Forest on Xbox One and PC, and now PS4 owners also get Axiom Verge.
Created and developed by Thomas Haap, a one-man development team, Axiom Verge takes elements from classic action platformers such as Contra, Bionic Command, and Metroid to create a game that looks and feels as though the three gave birth to a weird hybrid. The game visually takes multiple queues from the Metroid series, from its dark and lonely atmosphere, to its haunting and, at times, jarring soundtrack. It has the shooting mechanics and various weapons that reminded me of Contra. And it literally gives you a bio-organic arm to use to swing around with, (cough) Bionic Commando (cough). Though I’m sure the gun isn’t made from anyone’s loved one.
You play as Trace, a scientist who inadvertently gets killed by a blast that destroys his lab. But instead of waking up in the afterlife, Trace find himself in Sudra, and alien world. However, before he can figure out where he is, a disembodied voice urges him to obtain a gun that he must use to survive the hostile inhabitants of Sudra. Without any other plan of action, Trace obeys and thus sets out on an adventure to figure out where he is, why he was brought there, and how he can get back home.
The first thing you’ll notice when playing Axiom Verge is the 8-bit art style that will flood old-school gamers with memories of their NES. However, you’ll quickly discover that this game is not an old-school game. Axiom Verge has the general look, feel, and even the difficulty of an NES game, but it blends those aesthetics with a more modernized gameplay style. As you traverse the world and collect upgrades, both optional and mandatory, you’ll have to use every ability you come across in sometimes unintuitive ways.
There were many times when I was wandering around in the game unable to figure out where I should go next to progress further into the game. And that was only compounded by the fact that the in-game map sometimes just didn’t help at all. Half the time when I thought I found a new path to travel, it turned out that I needed a new ability to get past that area. Granted, situations like these are common in metroidvania games, but it doesn’t make them any less frustrating.
When you find the right way to go, however, the game becomes a delight to play once more. The shooting mechanics are exceptionally solid considering you are given about twenty different weapons to choose from. You start off with your standard gun that shoots normal projectiles, but soon after you begin the game you are practically pelted with weapons, upgrades and collectibles to the point where it’s hard to stop playing because the next power-up could be just around the corner.
The only problem is that sometimes when you turn that corner and go through a red door, you’d find yourself face-to-face with one of the handful of bosses in the game. The bosses add an interesting and sometimes frustrating spike in difficulty to the game. At times I found myself wondering if I should backtrack through an area and find another upgrade at any kind in order to aid my fights against the bosses. But once they go down, the sense of accomplishment is intoxicating. And, more often than not, an upgrade awaits you in one of the following rooms.
Unfortunately, Axiom Verge falls for some of the trappings of the games it’s emulating. You’ll often find yourself fighting against enemies that respawn as soon as you move two screens away from them, which you’ll deal with often because most rooms aren’t that big and you’ll backtrack through them a lot. Save points are generously distributed throughout the world, but the second you forget you save and you die, you’ll find yourself in the same handful of rooms a few times.
Dying isn’t too bad of a consequence, however, since every time you die the game sends you back to the last save point you saved your game at and saves automatically upon your respawn. So if you collected a new power-up and died immediately after, you’d at least still have that new power-up. But at a certain point you’ll find yourself lost. And once you do, the only thing you can really do is just use every ability you’ve attained thus far to try and make a new path for yourself.
Axiom Verge is full of secrets. A good fifty percent of the items you can collect are hidden throughout the world; hidden so well in fact that chances are if you’re not studying every pixel intently, you’ll never find those secrets. And even then some secrets are impossible to find unless you’re just deliberately trying to manipulate every single block in the environment. A few of the abilities you get revolve around “glitching” the world around you. One ability allows you to glitch through walls, while another allows you to glitch block out of existence. Using these abilities makes you feel as though you can do anything, but still leaves you scratching your head as you try to figure out where they come in handy. As of the writing of this, I’ve only collected about seventy percent of the hidden items and uncovered about ninety percent of the map, which means there’s a ton of hidden items in areas I’ve already scoured.
My biggest gripe with the game though, is that Axiom Verge’s story is incredibly boring and uninspired. The game does sport interesting and new gameplay elements but the story overshadowed those entirely. At one point in the game you’re given a choice to kill a certain enemy, but choosing to kill it or not, the outcome is the same. And at the very end, no spoilers, it seems like you’re about to be given a choice but it ends up not being the case.
Axiom Verge is a fantastic game. It has solid gameplay mechanics, a gorgeous art style, and an atmosphere that’s elevated by its wonderful soundtrack. If you’re the type of gamer that enjoys metroidvania games, then give Axiom Verge a try. Sure, the story might not be all that great but the rest of the game is good.
Axiom Verge is out now for the PS4 and will be coming to the PS Vita in the near future.