Axiom Verge

Axiom Verge is a game that wants you to know that it carries Metroid in its heart and wears that heart on its sleeve. From the faux 8-bit graphical style, to the midi-eque sci-fi score, and even to the shape of the doors, Axiom Verge spares no effort in reminding you where it came from. The plus side of this nostalgia is that the game is incredibly successful in evoking fond memories of the older Metroid games. The downside comes when you realize Axiom Verge compares pretty unfavorably to both its more prestigious forebears, as well as to other, more modern, Metroidvanias.

Axiom Verge has the player in the role of Trace - part scientist, part hipster - who, after a catastrophic lab accident, finds himself waking up on a Strange Alien World. From there, it's a quest to find out who brought him there, why, and how he can eventually make his way back home again, etc., etc. Honestly, if you play games like this for the story, you're probably coming to the wrong place, but the game at least attempts to do some interesting things with the narrative, if not always so successfully. Still, the fact that the story is relatively innocuous and actually has a beginning, middle, and end probably ends up being a positive in this day and age where devs treat stories as an afterthought or lock story bits behind paid DLC.

Like many other things in Axiom Verge, the central gameplay loop is ripped directly from Metroid - you scrabble about the environments searching for new power-ups that you can use to access previously inaccessible areas. Of course, the problem comes when you need to remember exactly where those inaccessible areas were, or how you can use your newfound powers to reach them. This dilemma of "wait, where was I supposed to go next?" will be immediately familiar to anyone with experience with Metroid, and it's one of the few truly obnoxious elements of those games. If anything, this problem is much, much worse in Axiom Verge.

Partly, this is because of the way the map is designed. Often times, the place you need to use a new ability is on the far corner of the (relatively large) map from where you acquire it, forcing a lengthy backtrack across areas you've probably trodden over a dozen times or more already. Like Metroid, substantial chunks of this backtracking can involve large vertical spaces requiring a climb - the kind of climb where getting hit tends to send you plunging down to the bottom to try again. Metroid mitigated this annoyance by giving you fast and fun ways of moving about, such as the super-speed run or the classic Screw Attack. No such conveniences exist in Axiom Verge. About the closest you get is a late-game teleport that damages enemies - but it's hard to pull off and doesn't allow you to fly through areas in the same way Metroid did. Instead, you'll find yourself slowly moving up the corridor, shooting enemies as you go. It's tedious, and while there is a warp-zone of a sort located in the middle of the map, that can be almost as much of a pain to get to as the place you're trying to go. All of this is to say that traversal in Axiom Verge can be a colossal pain, not a good thing in a game so heavily based on exploration and discovery.

The good news is that if exploration is your thing, there's plenty to discover. Health upgrades, weapon power ups, range upgrades, and story notes are all scattered about the environment. Some are obvious, while other are cleverly hidden and require quite a bit of digging to find. There are also a ton of weapons, ranging from your standard blaster to a short-range lightning gun to a wall-reflecting flame-thrower. Based on the menu screen and the fact that the game tells me I discovered only a paltry 67% of the items, I didn't come close to discovering them all. Unfortunately, outside of a short range lighting blast, most of these weapons offer little more than situational or novelty value. While I'd play around with a new weapon for a few minutes after discovering it, I'd generally find myself reverting to the standard blaster or lightning gun.

Aside from the weapon selection, many of the power-ups function as twists on traditional Metroid tropes. For example, instead of the morph ball, you get a deployable drone that fits through tight areas. Instead of bombs, you get a laser drill to break loose blocks. The one truly unique item is the "Address Disruptor," which allows you hack the environment revealing or removing hidden tiles. You can use it on enemies too, which changes their behavior in a variety of ways. For example, and enemy that spits out poison clouds might spit out health instead, or you might hack a very fast enemy to slow it down. It's a cool concept, and its fun to discover the various effects the items' use might have on your foes.

Probably the most successful part of Axiom Verge is its look, which really does a good job of emulating the 8-bit era. This isn't to say there aren't modern touches - bosses explode into a shower of voxels, and explosions and weapons can create distortion effects in the background. The game also has a sort of Geiger-esque aesthetic to it, which manages to evoke the old Metroid games while still feeling like its own thing. There are a few small problems with the graphics; the color scheme occasionally makes it difficult to pick out enemies or projectiles, and the use of graphical cues to tell you when a block can be destroyed or hacked isn't always consistent. These are minor gripes, however, and overall the the game is very successful stylistically.

Unfortunately, the sound design is somewhat less successful than the graphics. On the plus side, the music definitely nails that particular 8-bit midi sound, and the soundtrack feels like something that could have come directly from a Metroid game. The sound effects, however . . . well, let's just say that sound design has advanced a lot from the days of the old NES. It isn't just that the sounds are too repetitive without enough variance between weapons types and enemies. It's also that the weapon and enemy sound effects trend strongly into the sharp, tinny end of the spectrum, which, depending on your tolerance for high-pitched noises, quickly gets tiresome. One type of enemy in particular marks its presence with a headache-inducing shriek. So common and so obnoxious was the appearance of this enemy that I found myself muting the game volume more than once.

It's clear that Axiom Verge is labor of love, and generally speaking, I'm glad that it exists. That said, I find it difficult to wholeheartedly recommend, given that there are several - better - Metroidvanias currently in the marketplace. Both Dust: An Elysian Tail and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night look better and play better than Axiom Verge. If furries or vampires aren't your thing and you're absolutely desperate for the authentic, sci-fi Metroidvania experience, then you have . . . well . . . Metroid. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go plug in my old NES. Mother Brain isn't going to kill itself.

Score: 6/10

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