- Game purchased at the Epic Games Store and finished in about 11h
- Final report: 73% of found objects, 88% map explored, 54 dead
- Be warned: musical themes remain in the head!
You may not know Thomas Happ but he deserves your respect, mine, that of your grandmother, even of all humanity. Why? Because this talented programmer has developed entirely alone the excellent Axiom Verge released in 2015 and repeated the exploit with its release suite a few weeks ago. The man not only produced the games solo but he also commissioned himself to compose the scores, to create the entire artistic direction or to design the level design. There's something to keep your mouth shut by imagining the workload that will require such a project, all the more so as the young family father was going through at the same time harsh personal hardships raised with modesty in this documentary of which je strongly recommends viewing you. But beyond the creator, what about the work?
Metroidvania + Ummagumma = love
The metroidvania is one of my favourite genres. I love as he caresses in the sense of the hair my desires for completion, his way of making me scratch indices in a notebook, its cartography science, his blush when I think naively I'm unlocked to get to a dead end... I am thinking of my adventures with Samus on Tallon IV in Metroid Prime, when after hours of wandering I finally found the so desired ability that would allow me to go forward. I remember the enchanting underground galleries ofHollow Knight and their vocation to keep me awake until late in the night to search the least corners. In the case we are interested today, I launched Axiom Verge 2 Rethinking about the intense confrontations of the first opus. With the number of games that I finish each year and over the winters that pass, I notice that my video memories become more and more selective, the fault perhaps to an encephalic hard drive is going to be full. As we shall see, this suite redirects the philosophy of the original.
The secret of the ice packs
HeroinAxiom Verge 2 has a problem. She was CEO of the Globe 3 conglomerate and the members of her expedition were doing a good job but she had made the most serious mistake by exploring an ancient cave trapped. This cave had tried to drown her, but only her body envelope had been affected. Risen thanks to a magic ballot box, she was now on the Antarctic side: a billionaire pursuing the truth and running after voices, a miraculous named Indra. – Guitar Riff – The intrigue unfolds in the same universe as the first episode but no need to have travelled it to enjoy the second. The scenario is nice in the absence of being taking, deliberately cryptic even in its documents to pick up, but no matter because we're not here for that.
The title differs from the mass of independent metroidvanias that come out each year by proposing a level design Two-dimensional. This will alternate throughout the adventure between one reality and the other, one of the two being exclusively drone playable. This welcome relief sometimes encourages us to overlay maps and keep in mind the imprint of an imaginary layer, to try to access places a priori inaccessible to first clearing. Mapping is judiciously facilitated by a simple system of badges to pin to the coordinates that interest us, history to come back later with the skill necessary for our advancement. Tom Happ here signs a brilliant, much more elaborate and complex level design than that of his first creation. Sometimes vertical, sometimes horizontal, the appropriation of the territory is all azimuts and contains secret caches where to find permanent improvements to the summary statistics of our character.
Tranquil Emile: Antarctica is easy
The progress is extremely satisfactory and we always find the power we lacked to go further. This routine in the path seems to be set like music paper, at least up to a certain stage... We actually quickly realize that the game struggles to follow the evolution of our power, reducing the challenge proposed as the skin of grief. Where the first Axiom He placed us in difficult situations until his final duel, his sequel made the dared bet of relegating the fighting to the background, even up to almost depriving us of bosses or long-range gunfire. Ended frenetic meatball trade multicolored between you and a filthy extraterrestrial bug on an overvitamined electronic flight background.
This new orientation is reflected in the musical atmosphere, much more posed and the mystical tones that seem to echo a civilization Alien Dropped. We regularly surprise ourselves to whistle, in full part or as we walk around the street. In addition the vocals of the Lebanese-American singer Mayssa Karaa majestically subjugating some of the compositions. It should be noted that, on the other hand, the soundtracks of parallel drone worlds contrast drastically with the ambient zen and tend to quickly type on the nerves, especially when the dimensional journey sterns and our robot's grapple misses for the fifth time the edge of a platform to one pixel, due to lack of gameplay accuracy. Similar survey against noise, mostly very aggressive. Moreover, it is advisable to go to the parameters to decrease their volume by several steps. These passages at the controls of the small machine are in their majority irritating, in addition to misleading the artistic direction by suddenly switching to a low resolution with washed fluo-pastel colours that remind us that it is necessary to separate the white from the colors when sorting its linen.
Finally, let us note the hacking, a significant but little exploited novelty since we will have done faster to cross a picture by ignoring the enemies rather than by facing them. The function is still fun during the rare games during which we enjoy overheating the guns of our opponents or turning their missiles against them. The other abilities to unlock have the merit of being inventive and for some of them not being seen elsewhere, which proves Thomas Happ's ability to instill a little novelty in a genre as visited and popular as that of metroidvania.
Verdict
From its colour palette to its paradigm, Axiom Verge 2 is very different from its predecessor. It is thus difficult to issue an objective verdict as to the possible superiority of Thomas Happ's latest-born, according to the preferences of each in terms of metroidvania.Clairely better in its exploration part, the level of labyrinthic design on two dimensional axes impresses by its construction. Moreover, the pregnant musical atmosphere reinforces the coherence of this mystical alien world in which cosmic deities wander and our polymorphic heroine struggles to escape. The judicious design of the levels of this suite, although finally quite academic, cannot, however, overshadow the overall lack of challenge. An outrageous benevolence illustrated by fighting for their vast majority avoidable, from bosses to absent subscribers or even an insignificant game over. In particular, the main conductor wire is unable to tame the player's power curve. We thus emerge from the satisfied experience, but in essence a little disappointed not to bring with us any epic memory. As an impression, in short, of having made a cruise in Antarctica rather than having lived a real journey there. We certainly come back with beautiful photos but without scratches.For
- Satisfactory progress...
- The hypnotic music that sticks to the atmosphere...
- The high design with two bright faces
- The variety of environments
- Many secrets to find
Against
- ... but which struggles to contain the evolution of power of the player
- ... despite some irritating noises
- hacking: a good under-exploited idea
- Fighting back and the shortage of bosses
- Global lack of challenge
- No guns: no balls are sent
- Some frustrating drone levels
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