“A Stinker Of A Hack-N-Slash”
This right here is one of the weirdest games I have ever played, but it's also one of the most unpolished ones I’ve played as well. While it contained huge set pieces pushing the PS3 towards (and most of the time past) its limits, it provided a ridiculously strange story full of a mixture of terrible cliches and completely insane characters. The plot is complete rubbish, the character voice acting is some of the worst I have ever heard, and the combat is terrible. Yet for some reason, this game had enough charm to keep me going towards the very end - though I wouldn’t recommend you finish it yourself.
This game’s first impression on you will no doubt be its visuals. They appear to look good at first, but as you examine textures, animations, and the color palette, you’ll begin to notice the lack of visual clarity. Textures suffer from pop in, the colors are mostly a dull brown/green/red, and character models are pretty strange looking. There is some nice lighting, but it's not the best looking game by a long shot. There is a lot of detail in breakable environmental objects though, which is a very nice touch for a launch PS3 title to have. Additionally, the scale of battles is impressive at times, though they’re a bit rough on the eyes…
The game suffers from a slew of performance issues, at least on my PS3 (which has never had issues with any games besides some parts of the “Ratchet & Clank Collection”). Large groups of enemies cause the frame rate to plummet, and the game is capped at 30fps despite not maintaining it in any consistent manner. There are bugs where you can’t attack some enemies, objects are not able to be picked up, and massive desync for voice acting. It really makes the flaws of the game stand out even more when the presentation is constantly interrupted by weaker visuals and glaring technical problems that lead to a bit of a jarring experience.
When the game is functioning properly, it still leaves something to be desired. Combat revolves around alternating between three variations of the “Heavenly Sword”, a weapon that can be transformed into different forms to suit various combat encounters. It’s a neat concept, but the huge amount of input lag really deters the experience from being anywhere near something fluid. Combos are tricky to figure out and the delay does nothing to help the cause, and hitting enemies just feels unsatisfying due to the mediocre sound design in combat. It’s weird to see Ninja Theory make a large action-oriented title seeing that they found more mainstream success with a slower and more methodical title like “Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice” many years later.
Yet, despite all of its technical issues and weak gameplay, the characters kept me intrigued in the experience. Not because they were quality (far from it), but because they might add up to the strangest cast of protagonists and antagonists I’ve ever seen in a video game. Each character has a really strange way of delivering lines, the story makes absolutely no sense, and there is a complete tonal shift when interacting with them. It’s hilarious and puzzling at the same time, and single-handedly drove me to want to finish this title. Words really don’t do it justice, so you’d have to see for yourself (preferably on YouTube - the gameplay is still not very good).
There are some weird gimmicks involving the PS3’s SIXAXIS function that I hated as well. There are segments where you have to throw objects in order to solve a simple puzzle or defend against waves of enemies, but the controls just feel AWFUL. The input is really delayed but also floaty, so it is really tricky to land precise shots on enemies. Maybe it was my controller (I did buy a knock off set from Amazon due to cheaper price), but they worked fine for other games that used that input (“Shatter” being one of them). I wish the game had optional puzzles that used these inputs instead of relying on them in such an active way, since I don’t feel like they were polished enough to make it into the game.
As a whole, this is just a really weird PS3 launch title. The forced inclusion of motion controls made many sections of the game more unbearable than they needed to be. The gameplay felt delayed and confusing, with impacts of the sword lacking in weight with the poor audio design. The performance was horrible, and the game generally ran below 30fps for most of the playthrough. Yet the strange character performances in the story carried me all the way through the experience though just barely)! While this game is definitely one of the weirdest ones I’ve ever played, I would Not Recommend playing it. Outside of its strange characters and story beats, it doesn't have much else going for it.
Final Verdict: 3/10 (Poor)
This right here is one of the weirdest games I have ever played, but it's also one of the most unpolished ones I’ve played as well. While it contained huge set pieces pushing the PS3 towards (and most of the time past) its limits, it provided a ridiculously strange story full of a mixture of terrible cliches and completely insane characters. The plot is complete rubbish, the character voice acting is some of the worst I have ever heard, and the combat is terrible. Yet for some reason, this game had enough charm to keep me going towards the very end - though I wouldn’t recommend you finish it yourself.
This game’s first impression on you will no doubt be its visuals. They appear to look good at first, but as you examine textures, animations, and the color palette, you’ll begin to notice the lack of visual clarity. Textures suffer from pop in, the colors are mostly a dull brown/green/red, and character models are pretty strange looking. There is some nice lighting, but it's not the best looking game by a long shot. There is a lot of detail in breakable environmental objects though, which is a very nice touch for a launch PS3 title to have. Additionally, the scale of battles is impressive at times, though they’re a bit rough on the eyes…
The game suffers from a slew of performance issues, at least on my PS3 (which has never had issues with any games besides some parts of the “Ratchet & Clank Collection”). Large groups of enemies cause the frame rate to plummet, and the game is capped at 30fps despite not maintaining it in any consistent manner. There are bugs where you can’t attack some enemies, objects are not able to be picked up, and massive desync for voice acting. It really makes the flaws of the game stand out even more when the presentation is constantly interrupted by weaker visuals and glaring technical problems that lead to a bit of a jarring experience.
When the game is functioning properly, it still leaves something to be desired. Combat revolves around alternating between three variations of the “Heavenly Sword”, a weapon that can be transformed into different forms to suit various combat encounters. It’s a neat concept, but the huge amount of input lag really deters the experience from being anywhere near something fluid. Combos are tricky to figure out and the delay does nothing to help the cause, and hitting enemies just feels unsatisfying due to the mediocre sound design in combat. It’s weird to see Ninja Theory make a large action-oriented title seeing that they found more mainstream success with a slower and more methodical title like “Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice” many years later.
Yet, despite all of its technical issues and weak gameplay, the characters kept me intrigued in the experience. Not because they were quality (far from it), but because they might add up to the strangest cast of protagonists and antagonists I’ve ever seen in a video game. Each character has a really strange way of delivering lines, the story makes absolutely no sense, and there is a complete tonal shift when interacting with them. It’s hilarious and puzzling at the same time, and single-handedly drove me to want to finish this title. Words really don’t do it justice, so you’d have to see for yourself (preferably on YouTube - the gameplay is still not very good).
There are some weird gimmicks involving the PS3’s SIXAXIS function that I hated as well. There are segments where you have to throw objects in order to solve a simple puzzle or defend against waves of enemies, but the controls just feel AWFUL. The input is really delayed but also floaty, so it is really tricky to land precise shots on enemies. Maybe it was my controller (I did buy a knock off set from Amazon due to cheaper price), but they worked fine for other games that used that input (“Shatter” being one of them). I wish the game had optional puzzles that used these inputs instead of relying on them in such an active way, since I don’t feel like they were polished enough to make it into the game.
As a whole, this is just a really weird PS3 launch title. The forced inclusion of motion controls made many sections of the game more unbearable than they needed to be. The gameplay felt delayed and confusing, with impacts of the sword lacking in weight with the poor audio design. The performance was horrible, and the game generally ran below 30fps for most of the playthrough. Yet the strange character performances in the story carried me all the way through the experience though just barely)! While this game is definitely one of the weirdest ones I’ve ever played, I would Not Recommend playing it. Outside of its strange characters and story beats, it doesn't have much else going for it.
Final Verdict: 3/10 (Poor)