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Immortals Fenyx Rising - The Battle of Olympus for a new age

4-So

Spicy
I've been following this since it was announced as Gods & Monsters and I am here for it.

 

Becksworth

Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
I'm told this is just BOTW with the serial number filed off.

Between this, Age of Calamity, Windbound, Genshin Impact, and Oceanhorn 2 releasing outside of Apple Arcade, it’s going to be a very not BOTW holiday it seems. Did I miss anything?
 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
It looks Extremely BotW but it also looks pretty rad. Colorful art style, exploration, hopefully pretty good action. I am interested.

Between this, Age of Calamity, Windbound, Genshin Impact, and Oceanhorn 2 releasing outside of Apple Arcade, it’s going to be a very not BOTW holiday it seems. Did I miss anything?
Are any of these out yet, or all just on the horizon?

If any are indeed out by now...are they any good?
 

Becksworth

Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
Windbound is out. It got mixed opinions it seems, but some of that sounds like people expecting a full on Zelda experience, and getting a Zelda like survival game instead. Here is a positive review on it I found:


Genshin Impact isn’t out until the end of the month, but I’ve heard positive things from Beta testers. Bear in mind that 1) it’s a free to play gacha, and 2) It’s extremely blatant in its cribbing of BOTW, like teleport to a shrine you completed, shoot a flaming arrow into the grass to create an updraft you can the use to glide to the side of a cliff, climb the rest of the way to the top, and complete a nut boy challenge for some treasure blatant.

And unless they made some major fixes to Oceanhorn 2 since it launched on Apple Arcade, I’d stay pretty clear from that one...
 

YangusKhan

does the Underpants Dance
(He/Him/His)
I like how the OP trailer doesn't indicate at all what kind of game this is beyond "has action" and "has big boss fights, probably." If no one told me it was a BOTW-like I would never give this a second glance based on that trailer.
 

4-So

Spicy
See, I'm hoping it's much less of of BOTW-like than what it seems to be. I'm in the minority opinion but BOTW is not that great.

The Greek Mythology angle also goes a long way for me.
 

YangusKhan

does the Underpants Dance
(He/Him/His)
See, I'm hoping it's much less of of BOTW-like than what it seems to be. I'm in the minority opinion but BOTW is not that great.

The Greek Mythology angle also goes a long way for me.
It doesn't matter what the game is actually like, I was just pointing out that nothing about that trailer made me interested because it didn't show what the actual game was.
 
There are many first impression gameplay videos that give a better (or at least longer) picture of the game than the trailer/reveal presentation. The combat and other action mechanics are more interesting than first appearances suggest, although so far it all just seems to be wrapping for a game about upgrading your gear and skill trees in a very open world-y fashion. If the BOTW comparison from the visuals aren't suggestive enough, there are also mini-dungeon shrines and a good dose of familiar puzzle and climbing gameplay. A lot of previews are focusing on the combat abilities that make combo-based combat more interesting. There's a fly-by-wire bow and arrow for puzzles, and what seems like a generous roll dodge and flying abilities.

The real question for me is what the story and setting are supposed to be.

Like, hey: what's really going on here? Is Fenyx the only "person" in this world? Zeus and Prometheus are the "narrators" in your fantasy earpiece, but are there, say, any regular citizens running around in this world? Perhaps our relationship to them is that of divine helper agent (Soul Blazer-style?) Or is this lush world just a giant killbox for us to hunt down cell shaded Magic the Gathering monsters? Does Fenyx have any true peers (friends, allies, team members, etc..) to commiserate with or trade jokes and information? It's important for me to know how much of a dork my character will (or won't) be.
 

Becksworth

Aging Hipster Dragon Dad

So, apparently the game was renamed from God & Monster because Ubisoft was overzealous in its trademarking and got into a legal run in with Monster Energy Drink.
 

YangusKhan

does the Underpants Dance
(He/Him/His)
There are many first impression gameplay videos that give a better (or at least longer) picture of the game than the trailer/reveal presentation.
I realize I'm being incredibly pithy about this, but I ain't sitting around for a 20 minute video of people I don't know playing this game.

Anyway I Googled "gameplay trailer" for this game and found a Ubisoft video that's basically what I wanted despite its heavy marketing fluff. Really I just despise the trend of AAA game trailers treating actual gameplay like something to avoid showing as much as possible.
 

Becksworth

Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
So my impressions from the Stadia demo:
  • Controls are weird and counter intuitive when compared to BotW or Genshin Impact. Like melee attacks on the shoulder buttons and jump and glide are separate buttons weird. Perhaps this put the controls more in line with the recent Assassin’s Creed games? I never played those, so I’m not sure. When comparing it to BotW-likes though it makes Genshin Impact’s UI quirks seem trivial in comparison.
  • Objectives seemed more spread out than I’d like, though that may just be the nature of the demo and the devs wanting to showcase the gliding elements.
  • The world design is more vertical too, which sounds good on paper, but in practice leads to more time spent climbing and managing stamina.
  • Direct melee combat seemed to have more options than BotW, but less so than Genshin Impact. Outside of yeeting rocks at enemies though the environmental elements seem scaled back.
  • Weapons don’t break though if that bothered you. Looks like you just get them from treasure chests instead of dropping off of enemies.
  • “Cooking” seems extremely paired down. You can gather ingredients for four specific potion options.
  • Graphically pretty, but this was the Stadia version, so that is like XBox One X/PS4 Pro level horsepower. Not sure how it will look on baseline XBone/PS4 and Switch.
  • No shrine analogue’s in the demo, unless I missed something.
  • To be honest, Zeus and Prometheus were less funny and more obnoxious.
In summary, putting Ubisoft’s recent scandals aside and looking at this game purely in a vacuum, I’m not sure this demo really sold me on the game.
 

4-So

Spicy
Can't tell if madhair is being facetious or not, but as someone who genuinely thought BotW was about as ho-hum as Zelda gets, non-breakable weapons, less inventory management BS re: cooking, and lack of shrine-like areas are all fairly exciting to me. The Greek mythology angle seals the deal - which it already did when the game was announced, really - so I'm looking forward to picking it up once I've digested AC: Valhalla and Demon's Souls.
 

Becksworth

Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
Can't tell if madhair is being facetious or not, but as someone who genuinely thought BotW was about as ho-hum as Zelda gets, non-breakable weapons, less inventory management BS re: cooking, and lack of shrine-like areas are all fairly exciting to me. The Greek mythology angle seals the deal - which it already did when the game was announced, really - so I'm looking forward to picking it up once I've digested AC: Valhalla and Demon's Souls.

I’m pretty sure there are shrines like areas in the game based on preview videos. There just weren’t any in the demo as far as I could find.
 

4-So

Spicy
I’m pretty sure there are shrines like areas in the game based on preview videos. There just weren’t any in the demo as far as I could find.

Yeah, I looked at a video to check it out. Vaults of Tartarus. Hopefully there will be more variety than the shrines. Also, there's only about 60, which is nice.
 

4-So

Spicy
Started playing this last night; about two hours in. The comparisons to Dreamworks in terms of the humor is apt, so YMMV there. It definitely has some Breath of the Wild DNA but perhaps not as much as some people would like. The moment to moment feels more like a Assassin's Creed game, which makes sense considering it was developed by the AC: Odyssey group, and it's more painterly and cartoony than Breath. Tonally, fairly different, not as desolate or subdued. Having said that, Gates of Tartarus are essentially shrines, some of the abilities remind me of the Sheikah slate, and there's component gathering so you can make potions. Definitely some nods to Breath but the AC-ish "open world" badge is worn on its sleeve. Just like most other games in this genre, large world with a ton of shit to collect, so YMMV there as well. It's well animated, as are most things in the game that I've found thus far. Feels like this could have been a movie or Netflix series just as much as a game.

The ability to tame and "equip" various mounts and just magically mount with a button press is a quality of life improvement I didn't know I wanted.

Insta-edit: The game really feels like WoW, in terms of how the world is presented. Or maybe that's just the cartoony aspect. It also looks to me like Genshin Impact, at least in terms of the way the world is explored, but I haven't actually played that one so no clue on the moment-to-moment.
 

4-So

Spicy
I imagine the normal concessions would have been made but I don't know. I'm playing on PS5.

Seems pretty typical for the Switch.

 

Vaeran

(GRUNTING)
(he/him)
I also started this last night and spent about as much time as you did with it, 4-So. So far it seems alright, although I can already tell that Zeus and Prometheus are going to get on my last nerve; some of their bits go on way too long. I don't need them gone completely, but if the options menu had a slider bar for Snarky Narrators I'd drop it down by about six notches. And this is probably due to me not playing a lot of Ubisoft games, but having light/heavy attack on R1/R2 feels awful; I keep dodging when I mean to attack. I'd swap them to Square/Triangle in a heartbeat if it weren't for the fact that every button does like eight different things and I didn't have the mental bandwidth last night to figure out all the button conflicts.

I'm also not super clear on the timeline of the framing device in relation to the actual story of the game? It seems like Prometheus is telling Zeus a story he's never heard, that he's in, about what's happening right now from their perspective. I guess it'll become clearer as I play, or maybe it won't and it'll be fine anyway.

One question: when climbing, you're given two onscreen prompts: X to Eject and Circle to drop. But pressing X doesn't seem to do anything. Eject... eject what? am I secretly playing as Soundwave
 

4-So

Spicy
Eject means you throw yourself off the side or let go. It's not quite like dropping down; it's pushing away, so you can potentially double-jump. So stop climbing, eject, jump. (Eject seems to function as a jump for the purpose of double jump.) I imagine eject is more useful for when you gain the ability to glide, so you can climb, eject, glide down to wherever. I just got to the Hall of the Gods so I'm going to play around with the controls a bit more tonight.

The narration stuff doesn't fit quite as snug as I'd like and I hope the frequency of Prom and Zeus chiming in is diminished as the game goes on. At least they made Zeus out to be a bit of an ass, which tracks.
 

4-So

Spicy
You can play as a girl here and I believe the game defaults to that. As far as scary, I haven't found anything yet I'd be alarmed to let a kid see, although the cinematics with Typhon tend to be a loud and dark. Think big, bad scary from a Disney movie and you have the right of it. Speaking of kids, a lot of the banter in the game is sly references Greek mythology (because of course), including some not-so-pleasant aspects of those stories. It's likely to whoosh right over a kid's head but it's something to be aware of.
 
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