Axiom Verge 2 got one of those good release day announcements during the Nindies show, as in, it's coming out later today. Epic Store on PC, Switch and PS4 as platforms.

I had some difficulties with the first game, but overall I did have a pretty good time with it, so I'll likely tackle this one too sooner or later.

Sounds like a perfect Switch Game Pass game hope it comes to the service soon. The first one didn’t grab my attention but this one seems to be really different and have a lot more interesting environments so I might give it a shot.

I got absolutely lost in the first game and eventually just had no idea where to go anymore. But I'll give this a shot!

I need to know if Thomas Happ dedicated a button to dash or if it's still a double tap. Because that's what has kept me from replaying the first game - no matter what controller I used, I constantly found myself dashing when I didn't mean to.

After watching the stream I dunno. Something about Axiom Verge 1 always failed to draw me in and something about the way the second game looks and moves isn't doing it for me either. On paper it ticks all the right boxes for me, but watching the gameplay.. ehh.. looks kind of, boring? Maybe it's one of those games you need to actually play to "get it" so to speak.

I played the first Axiom Verge. To tell the truth, I consulted a guide a couple of times because I had not played too many A.V. like games before, and it helped me understanding the glitch stuff and how to find things. Anyway the first Axiom Verge I found fun with some nuance.

So I am interested in the second Axiom Verge, though it can wait a little.

One thing I said in QL chat that drew some responses that surprised me I will expand on. I found the music track a bit too demanding, and yes I would turn it down. That doesn't mean turn it off. But rather so it doesn't compete, but accentuates the game. I just did that with another game I just finished, in one part where the music was pretty cool (techno) but was beginning to repeat itself out of it's welcome.

I swear the best 'music' accompanied a game was as I remember, the 2 or 3 note Metal Drone of Doom 3. It fit it so well, soundscape really, I kept that at volume.

This seems way more difficult than the first one, and at least with the early game stuff definitely not to its benefit.

I think it'll smooth out when I pick up the proper tools but it's definitely a little rough.

I watched Jeff play a bit of this and i don't know.. I'm whelmed? It doesn't seem like the concept of the series has really stepped it up a notch from the previous effort. It's still that metroidvania where you explore all the squares, gather the tools and uncover some glitchy shit. I guess i'm also sort of dissapointment that so much of the story seems to happen yet again by reading a bunch of tablets and terminals. A good story needs interesting characters and big moments to happen on screen.

I don't feel any excitement towards it, but i do know that i generally like every metroidvania enough that i end up completing them if i get my hands on it. So i would end up doing that here as well i guess. It's an interesting idea to make the drone have quite a large role next to your own character with it's own moves and such. Perhaps that will be the thing that makes this stand out from the crowd.

I don't like the shift to melee combat very much. It feels like all of the enemies were still designed as though I had a gun and at the last minute someone decided on the axe instead.

@humanity: I know this is sort of anecdotal, but I had the exact same thoughts/feelings as you and ended up really digging the Axiom Verge 1. I admittedly didn't beat it, but I got at least 6 or 7 hours in and really enjoyed what I had played up to that point.

You know what the funny thing is, though? Despite all of that, I am still approaching the sequel with the same tepid feeling. :P

@efesell: I felt the same way but just realized their bodies generally don't hurt you only their projectiles. So you can stand right on them.

I think this game might be good y'all. ~ about 3 hours in

The basic gameplay of the first one was fine, and I generally enjoy a good exploration platformer. Unfortunately I ended up disliking Axiom Verge because of the map. There were too many instances where I would reach a moment where I had NO idea where to go next, or where I might possibly be able to go at some point.

I've said this before, but the best of these sorts of games, to me, will have instances where I cannot traverse past a point, but I can be relatively sure that once I get a new ability that I will be able to pass this barrier or cross this gap. Breadcrumbs, if you will. With Axiom Verge I kept hitting points where I was just staring. I couldn't think of any points where I hadn't reached before, I couldn't think of anything that I hadn't done, and I was just wandering around that miserable world poking at corners of every room. It grew tiresome.

If they have improved that, then maybe I'll give it a shot; but that first one was so poorly designed (in my opinion, of course) that it would take an awful lot to move me toward it.

@efesell: Definitely feeling this right now. I hadn't read anything about this because I loved going in blind on the first one, so I was surprised that I started with a melee weapon, but was like "Oh cool." And then I reached my first relentlessly chasing and shooting enemy and something just felt off. I plan to stick with it, but I really hope I get more than the boomerang soon.

Even the melee attacks something just doesn't feel good about the amount of damage that I do vs. the amount I take. I dunno. Perhaps it's just a difficulty/getting use to thing but I definitely didn't fall in love with the gameplay from the jump like I did the first.

Any first hand accounts of how this runs on the Switch? I ideally want to get it there but if the performance is poor I'll just go with the PC version.

@jreyes: I've only played roughly 2 hours thus far so take this with a grain of salt but it has run totally fine.

Metroidvanias drain score for every hour until they unlock a fast travel and so far this game is Not Doing Well.

@efesell: this is a...troubling contribution. I am at like 5 hours and the lack of fast travel is driving me nuts and I assume you are farther along than I am.

I so want to love this game and I feel like the game is doing everything it can to ensure that I don't.

@sethmode: I'm still pretty early but the map is ever widening and Axiom Verge is more "What do I even do now" than a lot of other Vanias so I'm always running up against the dread of gallivanting across the map to find it was the wrong choice and I need to go back.

I've just been saving and quitting to title whenever it happens which works I guess but every game in this genre needs at least fixed point fast travel.

@efesell: This is actually the same problem I've been having. I get a new ability and kind of immediately get bummed out because I know there are places I've been to that I needed said ability and I have to now walk all the way back there to even look around.

It doesn't help that everything is insanely deadly.

I don't dislike the game at all, I just keep hoping it gets better, which is never a good sign several hours in.

I think I was getting lucky early in the game with always choosing where to go next correctly... But now I have the fast travel, but I have been close to lost for a couple hours. I have gone to many new areas, but none of them are getting me anything more than a skill point/heart piece. So I just keep bouncing around the map trying to figure out how to get to the marker. I'm not quite at the point of looking for help though.

I just took a break from it today to spend some time with the Back 4 Blood beta and I'll see if it'll click for me tomorrow. I was really loving everything up to this point though! Like REALLY loving it.

Yeah this game clicked for me at some point and I've been loving it. However, there are a couple of points that made me go "yep, this is a sequel to Axiom Verge alright." Like one instance where I think I spent around nearly 2 hours just banging my head against where to go next. As you get more stuff though, the quality of life is helps and traversal is much less frustrating (especially fast travel). It's not that the game is necessarily bad at telling you what to do (maybe just slightly obtuse?), and really when I was stumped it was my own fault for forgetting about using a really important mechanic, but I still just thought it was funny because literally the EXACT same thing happened to me in the original and it was right around the same play time.

Yeah i finally figured out where to go, but the problem was kind of my own. I figured out a way to climb up walls infinitely and thought that was intentional.... It allowed me to skip an upgrade I later needed without realizing it....

Back to really enjoying it!

This game's vibing for me. Feel like I'm nearing the end and I've never overly struggled where to go, it's always relatively in the direction of the colored dots they give you, and accessed by a clearly unexplored portion of the map. The fast travel helps a ton, and by the time you get there you have enough movement/combat options to make you feel speedy and powerful. Maybe I've just gotten lucky but man it's fun.

The drone is awesome once you get the hang of it, between that and fast travel the times I've gotten stuck have been far less annoying because I'm just zipping around all over the place.

I just got a little stuck trying to find first Siuna location (that was a long time for me before I had a head slapping moment that I could exit the breach with the drone any time I wanted -- made me feel REALLY stupid) and then again immediately after that trying to get the item that lets you pass through the grates. I got to what I think is the final boss (but if it's like the first game probably not), and it's been good fun. It's interesting too how at first I thought that the combat was super punishing before realizing a) you lose nothing when you die; b) "bosses" keep the damage already done to them; and c) you don't really have to fight anything. I now just blow right by most things that early in the game I thought were super difficult.

Hades PS5 came out and sort of obliterated this game from my schedule but I'll get back to it someday.. there's a lot I like about it interspersed with a lot of small annoyances.

@efesell: I swore to myself that I would finish this before I got sucked back into Hades for another who-knows-how-long with it coming to Gamepass.

It's the free PS+ game this month. I'm very very very early.. I'm probably doing something wrong, but even the very first enemies seem to get hits on me while I wham on them with the first weapon I have..

@mattack: The first weapon is pretty garbo, but I advise you just power through. As the game goes on, you get some more interesting tools, and you can eventually find melee weapons with more preferable reach/damage.

Oh hey, I made this thread. I also didn’t get around to trying this game until now with it being added to PS+ and I *also* felt like I was doing something wrong when I briefly tried it.

I liked Axiom Verge 2 a lot. I LOVED the music, and every part of the setting was precisely my jam. I didn't like how esoteric the exploration progression felt, even moreso than the first one. I also really, really don't like that ending. It is beyond an anti-climax, and barely even serves as a prequel.

It's interesting that many of you in this thread found the melee combat annoying. I, too, wasn't impressed by the sheer power of enemies versus myself, but it became pretty apparent that fighting and killing enemies isn't worth the time it takes in most cases. If this game had exp I might say otherwise, but it's meant to encourage you to explore and move around the enemies instead of go head-first in to them.

Switch version works fine, that's where I played it and didn't have any issues, but I'm less picky than most.