Here we are again for another exciting indie metroidvania review and honestly I’m never going to get sick of reviewing this subgenre of games. That may be kind of a biased opinion, but who cares I’m enjoying myself. Today’s indie metroidvania is a more recent entry and it may be one of the most underrated releases of 2021. Do any of you remember me reviewing Axiom Verge a while back? A nostalgia trip to the old school days of Metroid, and developed by solo developer Tom Happ. That game was really good and it may be the best amongst the metroidvania genre. It thrives off of nostalgia, but not so much to the point it is so reliant on the source material. It has a couple of unique ideas and the way the exploration opens up transforms the world of Axiom Verge into a sprawling maze. One that you will always be unsure of where to go next, but feeling clever when you finally do. The rewards for backtracking and finding secret areas are plentiful, and some of the weapons you unlock can be game breaking. The story was also really intriguing as it focused on a man willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of knowledge. Even if it meant discovering something he shouldn’t have.
Axiom Verge was a game I fairly enjoyed and could easily recommend to anyone who enjoyed metroidvanias. There were still a few problems to be had with the first game, but luckily Tom Happ would address those problems as he had planned for a sequel a couple months after the original game was released to success. He knew to fix Axiom Verge and make it stand against the big contenders like Hollow Knight and Bloodstained he would have to change the game entirely and differentiate itself in a way no other metroidvania would take. He spent months drafting up the sequel before eventually reaching an acceptable format. During development for Axiom Verge 2 he even tweeted out screenshots for how the game was shaping up. Finally, during a Nintendo indie showcase Tom Happ released a reveal trailer showing what Axiom Verge 2 would be like. No longer was the game heavily reliant on pure nostalgia. It would focus on the theme of being trapped in a world far from home, and to make this world breathtaking to explore. Tom Happ decided to make the sequel set in the wilds. No longer restricted in sci-fi corridors with dark textures and palette. Instead you would venture through canyons, grasslands, caverns, mountains, and more. He even made the game more survival focused as not every fight had to be won.
The sequel was set up to be more vast than the first game, but the development process for Axiom Verge 2 was quite rocky. Tom Happ had to delay the game a couple of times to work on a couple of areas, and it got pushed back further due to the pandemic last year and his family life. Axiom Verge 2 finally came out this year with followers of the original heavily anticipated. Did Axiom Verge 2 live up to expectations? Yes. It fixes a few of the problems the original game had, and plays entirely like a different game while referencing the original here and there. It’s one of the most unique metroidvanias I have played in recent memory. Today we’ll be talking about why I loved Axiom Verge 2 and why it deserves your attention. So let’s head into the breach.
Story
Let’s see. Some points of Axiom Verge 2’s story are easy to miss, but whatever the case let me recall what I can remember. You play as Indra, the owner of a multi million dollar research company who specialize in robotics and studying the many phenomenons of the world. She likes to take her work seriously and her company is made up of the best of the best. One of these workers being her daughter Hammond, who took over her mothers place in guiding expeditions and studying. One day Hammond was sent to Antartica to invest in one of the numerous research facilities that belonged to the company. Everyone had gone missing and the team was supposed to find out where they went. That research team then went missing themselves and all contact had been cut off. Indra begins to worry about her daughter so she calls a chopper to fly her over to the Antarctic facility. Once there she finds a terminal which tells her to go deeper . She goes through a weird door and once it closes strange things happen.
Indra makes it to the other side, but the shaft she went through is now close shut. The radio she used to communicate with her subordinates is not picking up anything at all, and when she exits the facility she finds it completely in ruins. The snowscape she is standing upon is not the one she came to earlier, meaning she is no longer in Antarctica and she has been teleported to a world unknown to her. A mysterious voice then starts talking to Indra and tells her that she is not safe. The voice tells Indra that she can help her, but first she must go underground into a specific location. Indra falls into a body of water and finds the item the voice told her to locate. The water within the room begins to rise and Indra can’t find a way out. She soon drowns within the room before being revived in another location. The voice that talked to her earlier now appears before Indra as a red holographic being. Her name is Amashilama, one of the many Arms of the world Indra is now in. The Arms were once an intelligent culture of people who converted themselves into machines, otherwise artificial intelligence, and transported their souls into massive mechanical bodies designed to help others. They used their abilities to manufacture machines to defend the people. However, some of these machines became corrupt and the Arms were forced to transfer their souls elsewhere. An apocalypse broke out and now animal machines roam the environment. Basically, this is Metroid combined with Horizon Zero Dawn. Amashilama tells Indra that there are others like her, and if Indra can free them from the vessels they are being held within then Indra can be gifted the abilities needed to explore and survive.
Indra does just that while meeting a child who claimed to be transformed into an artificial intelligence just like Amashilama. Indra finds that to be a cruel fate, but the child then gives Indra a drone with the ability to enter portals. Gateways to an alternate world that allows Indra to breach to and from locations. Indra uses this to her advantage and starts meeting other people who ended up in the world she is trapped in. Some of them being part of the team sent to research the facility in Antarctica. Indra finds terminals throughout the world and they each contain messages left behind from an unknown source. The messages say that they know where Hammond is and that she is somewhere deep within the forbidden wilds. Indra, wanting to see her daughter again, prepares for a treacherous adventure. She’ll discover the history of the Arms, what led to their society’s downfall, locate Hammond, and find a way to return back home to earth. Something isn’t right with the Arms, but Indra doesn’t know it just yet.
Gameplay
The gameplay department for Axiom Verge 2 is where the game strives best and in some cases it’s much better than the first. The first game's world was massive and found ways to loop back into earlier areas, but at the same time the space you were given to work was restrictive and some enemy encounters were made difficult due to that little space you have. Axiom Verge 2’s is more massive than the first game, but this time they decided to give each area a ton of space. You are no longer within cramped hallways. You are in the open wilds where grass grows, birds fly, and giant mechanicals beasts roam around. You explore the world and try to go where you need to go next, but the way you navigate it isn’t like a majority of metroidvanias. You climb up walls, grab onto ledges, and navigate the environment with just your physical capabilities.
Combat in Axiom Verge 2 has also been changed up to fit the centralization of survival. You don’t have a gun with multiple firing modes to pick off enemies from afar. Now you have a small array of man made tools to smack away at machines. Your starting weapon is a pickaxe which has a short range and hitbox, but can be swung rapidly and is the weapon you’ll have to get used to for a while. You eventually unlock a hammer which deals more damage and has a larger hitbox, making it the more versatile tool. The boomerang is your main method of attacking from a distance, but it’s throwing range is limited and it can be flimsy at times. You can call it back quickly by holding down the button you mapped it to, and when it quickly travels back it deals more damage. You also unlock upgrades to make some weapons more viable. You can unlock a downward slam attack with the hammer to comet onto enemies below you. The boomerang can unlock a longer throwing distance and later on remote control.
Enemies come in a variety of flavors from small scorpion drones, birds who fly in the air, those who shoot projectiles from afar, and mech enemies that serve as bosses. They often search the area for your presence, but whatever you do don’t try to alert all of them and fight them all at once. Remember that this game is survival focused and you aren’t the heavily armed badass Trace that was in the first game. Enemies can kill you within seconds if you are not careful, and fighting a group can be more stressful. You’ll want to pick a majority of them off one by one. Bosses on the other hand can be challenging if you come underprepared. Sometimes you want to return when you have more powerful tools. Unlike other enemies they drop a special item and won't respawn which means you won’t have to deal with them again if you backtrack through the area.
Two major upgrade items can be found while exploring the world. The first are health nodes which you may remember from the first game. There are the complete nodes that immediately increase your maximum health upon pickup, and fragments which you will need five to match the equivalent of a full health node. The newest addition to Axiom Verge 2’s are the Apocalypse Flasks which when smashed will give you a skill point. Yep. Axiom Verge has a skill tree now. The skill tree is broken up into several categories and the stuff you unlock from it will make the game easier depending on what you get. This includes increased maximum health, so it means you don’t have to get all the health nodes to get a bigger health bar. Dealing more damage with melee attacks, swinging weapons faster, more range for your ranged weapons, and much more. The traits you unlock from the skill tree are useful, but outside of one specific branch these abilities aren’t really going to change how you explore the environment.
Another new addition to Axiom Verge 2 is hacking. By charging up a small energetic field, any machine that falls in range can be hacked. Mainly you’ll use this ability to open doorways , but you can hack enemies as well and turn the tides of a fight. You can slow them down, disable them from using their equipment, or make them fight by your side for a short period of time or until they are killed. Stronger enemies will require more skills in hacking though, and that’s why I said only one skill branch that is needed earlier. Plus certain gateways to upgrades and better gear can’t be opened up unless you have put enough points into hacking. Shouldn’t be that hard to be honest.
The drone from the first game makes its return in the sequel, and the way the drone is used here makes it more useful. Not just for reaching areas you can’t normally get to. The drone can scout out areas that you think are too dangerous to venture into and help pick off enemies. It doesn’t have a limited amount of health and it’s attack range is small, but it attacks in rapid succession and can cheese bosses at times. It can fit in small spaces, and eventually you unlock a grappling hook which launches you upward. You do unlock the ability to transform back and forth between human and drone. This does remove the aspect of sending a drone up ahead to scout an area, but it means the way you navigate can be switched on the fly. The drone could fit through a small tunnel and fling itself upward quickly, but let’s say there’s a wall that only your human form can break. Swap and break it. Some fights I came up with clever tactics. This one bull mech had a first phase easy with the drone, but the second phase cut me down quickly. So I swap to my human form and start smashing it with my hammer.
There are even portals scattered throughout the world that only the drone can enter through. You are then taken to a place known as The Breach, this alternate world that is connected to the real one and acts as a passageway. When you exit the Breach you enter back into the real world except in a different location. Sometimes you’ll have to go into the breach to open up a doorway or be able to reach the area you need to go to next. There are even health nodes and Apocalypse Flasks hidden here in the Breach as well. Outside of all this there really isn’t much else to be said about Axiom Verge 2. You are less likely to get lost as there are now icons on the map showing you where to go next for the main story. Then there’s a scan ability later on which reveals what secret passageways may lie in an area. It’s your standard metroidvania, but that’s something I have grown to love. Hopefully you can find escape the world you are trapped in.
Thoughts
Axiom Verge 2 is a damn good time and if it weren't for a few minor flaws I’d be calling this one of the best metroidvanias in years. The world is an absolute blast to explore and spending the time to find optional upgrades makes moving forward satisfying. The sequel is more challenging when it comes to combat due to the limited weapons you can defend yourself with, but finding those upgrades allows you to stand a chance. Combat in Axiom Verge has never been that great to be honest, but it isn’t bad at the same time. It’s the right mixture and you won’t be forced to participate in every fight the game throws at you. The game is more focused on exploration and that is what it does best. I really felt my character grow stronger with each upgrade and skill unlocked. Cutting down beginning area foes with a few hits and being able to reach locations I didn’t think were possible to get to. The skill tree is a nice addition and the stuff you unlock from it is good, but to be honest Axiom Verge didn’t really need a skill tree. They could have just made all of these character upgrades scattered in the world. You won’t need a majority of these skill tree abilities to beat the game and half of them you can just ignore. Besides maybe your hacking skills you aren’t gonna need anything else as the basic abilities you unlock are good enough even at the final boss.
The environments are more stunning than the first game, are more varied, and Tom Happ made a world that wasn’t an eyesore to look at. The art style and color palette of the first game wasn’t bad and helped add nostalgia to the first and how it too had a limited color palette. However, the flashing red and animation of the background makes Axiom Verge headache inducing at times. The environments this time around are more fleshed out and don’t utilize so much of one color. You have green valleys, blue snowy mountains, colorful jungles, deserts, underwater temples, and more. Even the Breach which tries to recapture the more retro feeling that the first game had decided to use a color palette that wasn’t painful to your eye sockets. The jump between the first and second game is like the jump from the NES to the SNES which is amazing.
Now I do have some complaints with the story of Axiom Verge 2. The story wasn’t bad and it did manage to intrigue me to see what happens next. There is a clear distinction between beginning, middle, and end. There are a ton of documents to be found which expand the history of the Arms and what happened before you came. The questioning that Indra brings up about what makes her and the Arms human. There’s even this one event that happens later on that reminds me of Soma and the major twist that happens in that game. There are references to the original game and at one point there was a message I believe was written by the first game’s protagonist. I even hyped myself up thinking he would show up at some point as a cameo. That didn’t happen, but I wasn’t disappointed. You end up ignoring the story half the time and completely forgetting it. When the game was reaching its ending I didn’t even know it was going to happen until it did. I thought to myself, “That was abrupt”, and it was. Axiom Verge 2 fails to stick the landing with its story and leaves on a short note compared to the first game. It’s forgettable, but the story doesn’t drag down the game too much. The core game is still fun, the world is beautiful, and exploration is much better this time around.
Axiom Verge 2 was a fun metroidvania and gameplay wise it was more imaginative. I don’t know which game is better, but both of them combine to make a lovely duo. The game is set for a reasonable price of twenty dollars and it doesn’t take that long to beat. Took me around roughly eight hours to beat Axiom Verge 2,which is a good runtime for a game like this. I do recommend this game for how calm it feels to explore the beautiful world Tom Happ spent six years setting up, and how it rewards the player for taking their time. It’s shocking to see some review outlets give this game a seven out of ten score when there are overhyped games being given higher scores. In the end I am going to give Axiom Verge 2 a 9/10 for excellence at best. Congratulations Tom.
Comments