They'd have some tricky platforming and enemy-dodging between one and another and I'd die repeatedly, knowing that I must be close to that next point. Sometimes they seemed to be just a little too far apart.
What I found at first is that I became annoyed at the save points. There are design subtleties that need to be imbued into the game to really make it sing, and initially I was concerned that Axiom Verge hadn't quite gotten everything right. The gameplay is the key factor of any Metroidvania game, and it's not just about making a good platform game. It's like somebody blew on a rediscovered NES cartridge, stuffed into the front of your PS4, and it magically worked. Even the story is told in what feels like slightly mistranslated, occasionally grammatically broken English. And the control scheme will be instantly familiar with anyone who's played the original Metroid games. The music is period chiptune – seamlessly mixed in with brilliant contemporary music - as are the sound effects. The backgrounds are authentically tiled, colors and black space have been cleverly used to create period-style shading and depth, and even the way the enemies move and fire feels absolutely spot-on. Anyone who gamed through the late 80’s and early 90’s will love the meticulous attention to detail poured into the game’s looks and cut scenes. No Ori and the Blind Forest here, with modern-day visuals festooned over a Metroidvania framework.
The result is a Metroidvania par excellence one of the most engaging and addictive I've played in years.Īs you've no doubt already ascertained by the screenshots, this thing is an authentic retro game. Fortunately, developer Tom Happ has done just that with Axiom Verge – and then some.Īn unabashed tribute that at first, and perhaps even second glance could easily be construed as an original NES game running on PS4, Axiom Verge uses a Metroid blueprint as its foundations, and builds upon it something old, yet something new, weaving in deft control and design touches from other games of the period, like Blaster Master, Star Control, and Contra. If you're going to clone a classic, much-loved game series, you'd better make sure what you're doing stands up to history.
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