Axiom Verge

Comentario Analítico: "Axiom Verge"
Quizá uno de los mejores Metroidvanias del sector independiente, Axiom Verge me sorprendió muy para bien. Entré esperando un juego entretenido y acabé enganchadísimo con su historia.
Visualmente es precioso, tiene un aire a Ghost in the Shell, sabe jugar con el concepto de glitch y aprovecharlo para su argumento, no se limita a ser un espectáculo visual e incluso el flickering de algunos sprites ocurre a medias, tal y como ocurría en la NES. La banda sonora es fabulosa también, digna de tenerla guardada en tu celular.
Si tuviera que puntualizar algo negativo diría que algunos enemigos atacan desde puntos muertos que el jugador aún no logra visualizar. Los jefes son fenomenales pero no me gustó Ukhu, creo que con unos cambios en su arena podría ser un combate excelente.
¿En conclusión? Una muy grata sorpresa.

Good game held back by a few nitpicks that could have made it excellent. The good… the game itself is fun. Nice nostalgic look with a hint if new age tech. Great exploration/rank system to upgrade self and weapons. Bosses can be a challenge but nothing too bad that takes only a few tries. The bad… played on the steam deck and the pesky phase through mechanic later in game was constantly triggered via joystick. And probably the worst aspect of game that really made it a chore the last 1/4 of the game for me was the map and having zero idea where to go next. The amount of time back tracking and wondering what the heck do I do next was a total drag. Very little to no direction. If that one aspect of the game was changed I would give this an A tier rating. But because of it I would lean closer to B.

If Contra and Metroid fused together, this feels like this would be the result. Overall fun time. Controls are very smooth and well thought out. Look forward to playing the sequel!

Axiom Verge was an enjoyable game! As far as 2D side scrolling metroidvania types of games go, this one definitely hit on all the retro nostalgia that I was looking for, and it had a cool little story to boot! My only gripe with the game was the necessity of double tapping the joystick and/or D-pad later on in the game in order to use the pretty necessary dash mechanic. It felt terrible. It was wonky, unresponsive, and you'd end up using it many times by mistake. Overall it broke the gameflow, broke immersion, and put a slight damper on the overall experience. With that being said though, despite the controls driving me crazy at times, the positives FAR outweigh the negatives. I'd recommend this game to anyone looking to scratch that 2D side-scroller itch. Overall it was still a very enjoyable experience and worth the buy!

I've heard people tell me this is basically Metroid, but made today, and they were right. For better or for worse, hunting for secrets feels very retro; very limited map management, no fast travel, and visuals to match. The more modern touches were nice to have, though. There were a LOT of different types of weapons you can use. I almost want to say there were too many. But having such a variety was neat. I think the game started out a bit on the tough side, but after collecting everything, the final stretch of the game was a piece of cake on Normal difficulty.

I didn't really connect with the story in this one. I get it, but it just didn't fit my personal tastes, I suppose. I don't think it was bad, however. By the end, everything made sense. I had fun with this! It was a good, solid game that doesn't really win any awards from me. Perfectly adequate. I liked it!

Yeah this game is great so far. (I don't actually have 30 hrs played, Steam Deck bug. It's more like 4.5 hrs)
Will update upon completion.
Edit:
Just rolled credits at around 19 hrs. Overall I enjoyed Axiom Verge. Exploration is probably its biggest strength. Except for the fact that all the game's collectibles are not hinted at. I don't enjoy feeling like I need to refer to a guide to 100% a game.
This game has so many different weapons and I think that's awesome. However, half of them are pretty useless because they're designed with a specific gimmick that just don't compete with some of the better, straight-forward weapons. But when you have to switch to certain weapons to eliminate a specific enemy, I think that's a really fun design. It makes games feel less one-dimensional.
Speaking of combat, some of it can feel clunky. Though that may be because this is a "retro" game and you shouldn't expect it to feel as smooth as Metroid Dread. But overall it's pretty fun, when you're not fighting one of the game's more annoying enemies. Like the final boss. Oh my god what a terrible boss design. You know it's not good when every strategy discussed over this boss is some weird way to cheese the win. There's no fun or fair designed way to beat it and that brought down the score of the game for me. It was bitter sweet to have enjoyed the game most of the way through just for the final area/boss to sour the experience. It made completing the game feel a lot less satisfying. It was more like, I'm glad this is over.
I still recommend this game though. It has some really unique designs that left me impressed. I enjoyed getting each traversal ability. My only complaint about them would be the grapple hook. I wish it was utilized more and didn't feel so janky to use. But teleporting, different jackets with different abilities, drones, hacking? So many cool designs here. And the music was pretty great too. As for story, this game goes pretty deep sci-fi and I basically skipped through most of it because it did nothing for me. But that's okay, I'm never really expecting stellar writing with this genre. All about the gameplay.
7/10

a metroidvania that came out 10 years ago before the genre blew up in indie game sphere feels more unique and fresh than most of the similar games that since been coming out, crazy.