It is absolutely amazing to me when games such as this were made by one person. Thomas Happ did an excellent job with creating a well crafted world and a very solid Metroidvania. The love he has for the original Metroid oozes out of every detail from the visuals, music, gameplay, world building, atmosphere, and feel. While it’s obvious where Metroid is the biggest inspiration it does plenty to differentiate its self from not only Metroid but all other Metroidvania. The movement is very different due to your drone and different dashing abilities. There are many different guns that can make you play different ways. However while all 20 or so guns are fun to use, I only found 5 worth using in terms of functionality.

While the game is well put together there are many Metroidvanias are just simply better or more fun but Axiom Verge has a leg up on other Metroidvanias on one specific area, the story.

The story is not an all time great by any means but it is one of the very best I can remember a Metroidvania producing. The best way I could describe it is it is like a creepier space version mix of the Matrix and Inception. I won’t go any further than that because of spoilers but it is definitely worth your time and will make you think once the credits roll. Just make sure to either get or YouTube the full true ending.

My main negative about this game is how long it takes to really get interesting. I will admit it I tried to play this a year ago and quit after 30 minutes because I wasn’t having much fun. I now regret putting it down and I promise it gets much better as you go.

This game ended up being a very pleasant surprise and I’m very excited to begin playing Axiom Verge 2!

My veins are filled with pulsing techno beats
accentuated by alien forms
threatening and helpful - it's hard to know
which is which at times. Impressive unique
upgrades that vary from the genre norm,
like tentacles or teleporting drone,
make backtracking for secrets fresh and fun.
One complaint - despite my bulletstorm,
takes too long to down even normal foes.
But did that stop me from having my fun?
Hell no.

Waiter! One Metroidvania, hold the "-vania" please!

I should really like this game. I think I just had the misfortune of playing the worst possible version of it.

First, the good: the visuals and spritework are amazing overall, and the soundtrack is absolutely killer. If you weren't looking that closely, you could easily mistake this for a Metroid game on GBA, which is pretty cool! And the fact that most collectibles are completely unique weapon types or in-game lore drops is a great change - no more "bomb inventory +5" bullshit here, instead you get rewards like LIGHTNING GUN. And with the password system and secret areas, there seems to be a lot here for people who connect with this game. Cool ideas in a cool world with some cool atmosphere.

Second, the bad: a modern Metroidvania without any kind of fast travel is just poor design, sorry. I never had fun while backtracking to try and find the next objective since that often required me to trek back across the entire map. Combat is also hampered by the lock button not allowing you to move while aiming, making shooting diagonally while evading nigh impossible. And just like in Metroid, vertical platforming through combat areas just sucks, as does pixel hunting for destroyable blocks that have no visual indication that they should be investigated. I know it wouldn't really be a Metroid successor without that, but that's the kind of thing that kills the completionist in me.

And third, the PS Vita: four gameplay actions (two of them major functions) are relegated to pseudo-buttons on the touch screen that require you to take your fingers off of the movement or combat controls in order to use them. I should not have to tell you that this is awful, but the fake buttons are also visible on screen at all times - and yet, the area of input for each is so small and precise that you will never press that bomb button under duress without stopping to focus on doing so. In addition, for some reason, the game would just completely freeze up for almost a whole second fairly frequently, with the most freezes happening in Edin. This game will also lag and drop frames on Vita, if you can believe it. Several times, I thought the game was about to crash on me, especially when a freeze happened after a lag spike when the music stopped looping but failed to start back up again. And for whatever reason, the PS Vita's thumb stick liked to accidentally activate the "double tap a direction to evade" ability, which is truly a heinous input mapping for a game like this.

I dunno fam, I really wanted to like this one. Kind of bummed out that I didn't care much for it by the end.

fantastic aesthetics and music. the gameplay veers between solid or passable to irritating on a moment to moment basis with little in between. i don't think a ton of this is any specific fault of the game itself versus it just not being my thing. (except for the grapple and teleport/dodge controls, those were rancid.)

i think i'm gonna need titles along these lines to have more modern QOL features for me to fully get into them. a fast travel system (beyond the middle area that branches off to the rest) could've went a long way. i know the revisiting old areas to find new stuff is the point but when you're in the end game and trying to just wrap up some last minute exploration or whatever it really drags. especially with the enemies all over the place.

will be keeping an eye out for the sequel. there's definitely room for it to grow on me.

This is a neat metroidvania that is surprisingly only made by one person. I found the exploration to be fun, but I wish the movement was a little faster as it can feel like a slog to get around sometimes. There were also a few points where it got rather confusing what was a platform and what was just decoration, but it didn't hinder my experience that much. I enjoyed the enemy variety and how unique they were, even if a few were annoying to fight. The big assortment of guns is also cool, but I would've greatly preferred more unique upgrades instead. Speaking of guns, they (along with some optional upgrades) were usually hidden in great spots, but there is a good amount of them that I feel were really cryptic, which can be frustrating for a metroidvania. Despite the many flaws, I did enjoy most of my time with this game, and I'm interesting in trying the recently released sequel down the line, which I'm hoping solves some of my problems with this game.

It is absolutely amazing to me when games such as this were made by one person. Thomas Happ did an excellent job with creating a well crafted world and a very solid Metroidvania. The love he has for the original Metroid oozes out of every detail from the visuals, music, gameplay, world building, atmosphere, and feel. While it’s obvious where Metroid is the biggest inspiration it does plenty to differentiate its self from not only Metroid but all other Metroidvania. The movement is very different due to your drone and different dashing abilities. There are many different guns that can make you play different ways. However while all 20 or so guns are fun to use, I only found 5 worth using in terms of functionality.

While the game is well put together there are many Metroidvanias that are just simply better or more fun but Axiom Verge has a leg up on other Metroidvanias on one specific area, the story.

The story is not an all time great by any means but it is one of the very best I can remember a Metroidvania producing. The best way I could describe it is it is like a creepier space version mix of the Matrix and Inception. I won’t go any further than that because of spoilers but it is definitely worth your time and will make you think once the credits roll. Just make sure to either get or YouTube the full true ending.

My main negative about this game is how long it takes to really get interesting. I will admit it I tried to play this a year ago and quit after 30 minutes because I wasn’t having much fun. I now regret putting it down and I promise it gets much better as you go.

This game ended up being a very pleasant surprise and I’m very excited to begin playing Axiom Verge 2!

Pros:
+ Extremely innovative and interesting metroidvania with an engaging story, lore and focus on philosophical themes
+ Tens of cool weapons to obtain and almost every one of them is useful in different situations
+ Fascinatingly unique abilities, upgrades
+ Amazing art and character designs
+ Graphics pop really well on handhelds like the Switch
+ Really good music for the most part, even listenable outside of the game which isn't always a given in metroidvanias (check out Cellular Skies if you're unsure)
+ Fun to speedrun
+ Sets up an infinitely entertaining storyline that I can't wait to see completed

Cons:
- For such a fascinating and deeply layered game, its ending and final boss is a bit of a letdown. Not spoiling anything, but the main character is seemingly given an option to choose his ending or at least affect it in some way, but then it's not carried through. In general, the ending feels just a tad bit unfinished even though the rest is phenomenal
- Secret Worlds should maybe be just a bit easier to find
- A few tracks can get a bit jarring when repeated, like Inexorable
- Music also doesn't properly loop around, the tracks just abruptly end and start back up from the beginning again without any mixing which can break immersion
- Some bosses are great, while others are easy button-mashers if you know the exact place where to stand
- Fast travel can be a bit of a pain and is improved upon greatly in the sequel
- Some weapons and abilities feel a bit clunky to use with the aim lock controls

The face on the cover always caught my attention and I finally tried playing it. It starts very solid and the game surely is super impressive seeing it's made by only 1 person. Sadly it has flaws, which didn't hold up the game as much as I hoped it would.

My thoughts:
(+ = (mostly) positive; - = (mostly) negative)
+ Gameplay;
The upgrades are very unique and work pretty well. There are a lot of different weapon upgrades, but some don't really feel useful and others are just way stronger than the rest. The layout is good, in a way that you never get really lost and always find a way to progress. Sadly the last part to the final boss is a pain in the ass. For me it felt like the difficulty suddenly spiked in an unfair way. The boss fights all felt the same with minor changes.

+ Music;
Memorable and unique. All music really fit the atmosphere of the game.

++ Graphics;
Visually extremely impressive. The pixelart is beautiful and unique.

+- Story/Characters;
The story is fine and to the point. If you want to dive deeper you can read the documents you collect.

Recommend?
Not if it's your first Metroidvania. If not, try it for sure! Took me 9h+ to complete the main story and collected everything I could find on my own.

rly cool stuff ! definitely better at channeling the Unknowable Alien Semi-Lovecraftian vibes in the actual play then in the writing...i didnt have much patience for the way the protagonist's Normal Dude-ness was expressed thru early 2010s type quips tho at least those phase out. and rly the whole thing is carried v well by not only the atmosphere and map design, but also the fact that this is one of the only indie metroidvanias ive played where i had Genuinely No Idea what kind of abilities i was gonna unlock...rly rly admirable for that alone, the sense of discovery thats so important to this genre is harder to achieve when yr following super metroid So Closely as a template. bangin tunes, and rly awesome boss fights too, even with an unaccommodating difficulty spike in the ending stretch. i genuinely treasure every moment i can in these games where i have no idea where to go, thats what video games are all about

contrary to popular belief, this game is not that bad. a lot of the exploration is fun and rewarding, the music is pretty kickass, and the plot is surprisingly engaging. the game itself was a really solid experience, however, that does not mean it's perfect.

the controls are pretty awkward as doing diagonal attacks and teleporting can be extremely botherwise. the lock feature helps with the diagonal attacks , but the problem was trying to achieve the diagonal shots in the first place. the bosses range from good to bad, with the worst being a boss that is pathetically easy and visually boring (teleport behind it and then unleash your wrath upon it.) the game itself didn't offer much in the visual department either, as many of the environments were roughly the same except snowy or deserted. there was variation here and there but they were nothing to write home about. a lot of the game does feel a bit underdeveloped in terms of level design and enemy placement, as i often died from bullshit placement and overall annoying enemies.

one of the best things i can comment on is the plot. the plot is surprisingly nuanced and dynamic, as it poses various philosophical questions on whether or not people can be redeemed, if the death of others is worth the happiness of another, and more. i found myself shocked by how well written the dialogue was at times, and i even snuck a few peeks at the notes.

the worst thing about the game would probably be the ending. the game abruptly ends with a lukewarm boss fight and an anti-climatic cutscene which only acts as sequel bait. for as well made as the rest of the game was, i was expecting the climax to be something powerful, but yet i was left thoroughly disappointed. just when you think there's still more to uncover, the game just abruptly ends.


it's time for the sequel i guess.

Honestly, going into it cautiously due to the reviews here, this far exceeded my expectations. It's very fun to play and explore, and I really dig its aesthetic, though I could imagine it isn't everyone's cup of tea. While clearly inspired by Metroid, it felt like its own thing. I was also consistently surprised and engaged by the power-ups it gave me to progress. In the sequel, maybe something akin to the X-Ray Scope or even Power Bomb to look for secrets more easily would be welcome, since this game seems to inherit the "bomb every wall" philosophy of Metroid's extras.

Its world is very intriguing and I am considering 100%ing it to get the full lore. It reminds me of the way games like Metroid Prime, Bioshock, and Doom 2016 allow you to gain more insight into their backstory if you choose to get the respective extras.

I would recommend it not just if you like Metroidvanias, but especially if you like Metroid. I am a big Metroid fan, and I imagine Axiom Verge's similarities to that series played a part in me liking it so much.

This was a perfectly fine metroidvania game. Some really good music and good level design, but I felt like most of it was trying to imitate something else instead of being its own thing. Still, I had fun.

There's also, like, no reason to have that many weapons in a metroidvania.

(BacklogBeat’s Game Club - March 2021 Nomination)