Quick Look: Axiom Verge

I played this at Pax East, the early part they played in the Quick Look actually.

This game is legit.

@onemanarmyy: I feel better about this than I did about Shovel Knight which to me seemed more guilty of not innovating on an idea in the slightest.

Hey i think you guys did a pretty good job in this quicklook preventing any really big (or even small) spoiler stuff. I also say this in light of the recent bombcast (read: dan fucking ryckert). I had just listened to the 8-4 play podcast on the SNES anniversary and they were emphasizing how amazing super metroid was, in particular how the game used zero text to dish out the story line. The music in this game seems incredibly well thought out and placed (even timed to the jumps) and curious to if it would have benefited from the same craziness that super metered had employed to deliver the story. Granted, this isn't super metroid and the creator is obviously entitled to do whatever they want with the series not to mention that @jeff emphasizes that it turns your preconceived notions of metroid on it's head. Just a thought as it was in recent memory.

Axiom Verge! NOOOOOO!

I was doing so well not buying a PS4 yet. Not sure how long I can wait to play this.

NES Metroid aesthetics, Super Metroid bones, and someone advancing the gameplay concepts by about twenty years. Sign me the fuck up.

Also, someone get Tom Happ a high-ranking job at Nintendo, as they desperately need someone this inspired on staff to tackle the rest of their properties.

WHY CAN"T I GIVE SONY MONEY FOR THIS. TAKE MY MONEY

Man, I really hope Jeff didn't spoil like almost all of this game's weapon/ability content. :/

This looks really cool. What a surprise!

I wasn't sold with the address disruptor, then I saw the traversal stuff

@onemanarmyy: Err, I think it's pretty apparent what sets it apart in this Quick Look. The glitching and traversal stuff is really original and the graphics are also completely unique. I don't think I've ever seen a game that looks like this.

That said, I haven't actually played this. Waiting for the PC version. Also, Ori is so far the best game I've played this year (Freedom Planet was also surprisingly good), so I'm curious to see if this will change my mind. It looks quite a bit easier and I enjoy a challenge in my 2D platformers.

Also, them saying that this is in any way faithful to the 8- or 16-bit consoles is bizarre to me. Neither the graphics nor the music or sounds would've been even close to possible on those. Shovel Knight is MUCH closer, with the music being straight-up composed in a NES tracker.

Yes and yes. I've seen this kind of idea thrown around before. Give a franchise that is seemingly doing nothing atm (Metroid), some money, and a small team to someone like Happ and see what happens. I mean, why they hell not? It is not too far off (aside from scale) from what Nintendo did with Metroid Prime and Retro over a decade ago.

You're not wrong and I think they get around to agreeing with you at about 29 minutes in.

@griffinmills: Yeh. Comment section apparently doesn't agree or see it.

Awesome. Totally awesome.

It's pretty cool when Jeff is excited about a game.

Alright, somebody help me here. I just don't get the consensus about this game at all. It plays alright at base level but there are big, glaring, gaping design issues here. I don't need everybody to agree with me, but surely I'm not the only one that notices, right? Have I gone completely mad?

I mean, the game gives you two abilities, both of which unlock secrets that are invisible to the naked eye. It's an OCD nightmare. If you're into looking for pickups and secrets the first playthough is spent randomly spamming those abilities to try and find things. Sometimes the secrets require glitching enemies, too, so you also don't kill anything before you glitch it and see what it does. It's excruciatingly slow and annoying, since 80% of the time there's nothing to find.

And then you randomly hit a breakaway piece of wall and go "oh, right, I am expected to keep doing this", so you can't even ignore it.

And the enemies are all about harass tactics, just sitting inside your hitbox until you stop blinking (it happens to Jeff in this QL) and there seems to be no quicktravel in the few hours I've played, so I'd like to check my new stuff in the early sections but I don't know if it's a waste of time to circle back or if the game will loop me into those again or unlock warping across save spots. And the graphics can't seem to decide if they're NES, NES with modern effects on top or just something else entirely. And...

You get the point. Again, don't need everyone to agree with me, I like and dislike games other people don't and that's alright. It's the fervor and consistency of the praise. Do you NEED to have been a NES kid to get this? Because I played some obscure ass stuff on my 80s and 90s non-Metroidy platforms, but even by those standards some of this is clearly annoying.

It's great to see Jeff really enjoying this game! I can't remember the last time he endorsed something so heartily.

I played this game after having it installed for like a year last night. I only played about 2 hours before I bounced off. I have fond memories of Super Metroid like most people, but I don't think i want to go back to play it.

Maybe I'll give this another shot sometime in the future.