Enslaved is an extremely ambitious and flawed game. In an era where color was all but gone from the popular games media of the time, Enslaved commits itself to vibrant colors and varied visuals getting the most from Unreal Engine's ability to represent both mechanical metallic textures, apocalyptic city-scapes, and varied greens and reds. For that, I think the game deserves praise. Beyond that, the narrative and gameplay choices made in this game will make you wonder if Neil Druckmann of Naughty Dog fame was a big fan of the game since the dynamic between Monkey and his traveling companion/enslaver Trip feels eerily similar to a certain post-apocalyptic game released three years after Enslaved's original release.

With that out of the way, I think gameplay is another thing to talk about here. Ninja Theory pushes for a lot of variety in their encounters throughout the game with shooting, stealth, basic platforming, and melee combat sprinkled throughout this 6-8 hour story. Although these different elements are ambitious, the game has many shortcomings on the gameplay side. Admittedly this comes from the perspective of someone who played on hard for my first runthrough. The melee combat is extremely basic and at times feels frustrating as the lack of variety for handling multiple enemies shows its ugly head in the most difficult encounters. In fights with more than 3 enemies the game feels borderline unfair when Monkey's combat feels extremely slated towards single-target attacks. You have your basic fare of light and heavy combos with a few options including a terrible wide sweep, a heavy charge for breaking blocks, and finally a block and dodge roll with a few frames of invulnerability for defense. This kit feels good in single fights but with groups and more aggressive enemies it feels terrible. Next, let's talk ranged combat. Monkey has a staff with the ability to shoot two types of projectiles: a stun which locks enemies down for a second and a plasma beam which does damage. If you upgrade Monkey's damage with the staff the shooting goes from a chore to a joke where you can one-shot most enemies in the game. The melee combat was so mediocre at times I often tried to whittle away at the mechs with ranged attacks when I was attacked by large groups. The way Ninja Theory avoids or balances this issue is by heavily segmenting the game into melee bits where no ammo drops and ranged bits where most enemies are untouchable by melee and ammo is so plentiful that it may as well be infinite. This is a very poor way to split the game because it makes Monkey's kit feel separate instead of parts of a full arsenal. It also makes the upgrade system odd because until you hit a proper shooting segment you have no reason to invest in that tree at all.

Upgrades aren't the only thing that feels like it was half-developed. The whole partner system in the game felt undercooked and so strangely implemented that it bordered on frustrating at times. The ambition of that system was too much for the game in my opinion. I think the best example of this is how the game handles healing. Your partner, Trip, carries all of your healing items you can use mid-combat. You can hold multiple full heals in the game via Trip but the problem is these are only usable when you are near her. The game often splits you from her to perform cooperative things like puzzle platforming or combat where she hides in the back so I do not understand where you're supposed to use those heals. It honestly frustrated the hell out of me when any time I thought to try healing, the game decided I was too far from Trip to use these things. I beat the entire game without ever using that healing system because the upgradable health regeneration ability further undercuts this central mechanic of having a cooperative AI buddy who can do unique things.

A final thing to critique is the narrative. The strongest portions of the narrative are the shifts in the relationship between Trip and Monkey. The actual overarching plot gets extremely loose in its back half and goes from somewhat compelling to a complete trainwreck by the end. The epilogue might be the dumbest thing I have ever seen in a game that up to that point barely felt like it had any primary antagonist or threat besides an abstract slaver group responsible for the mechs you fight throughout the game. Fair warning on that, do not expect high art when it comes to the narrative or anything like that. I was just kind of here for the vibes anyways.

In all, I do not hate this game but there is a lot to critique or find issue with which is always the case with highly ambitious games like this. I think for the time Enslaved is an impressive game with a lot of interesting attempts at doing something unique. That ambition also feels like its downfall at times so buyer beware if you go in expecting a masterpiece.