This is one of the first games that I played when I got my PS4 system. It is a game that most likely could have run on the first Playstation system (I would say SNES, but I feel the music and some of the bosses would have been to much for it). This game was a lot of fun, despite it did not boast super enhanced graphics and ultra realistic environments. No, it was fun because the game play was great. To me, as long as you can tell what things are, the graphics are good enough. I also feel that graphics pretty much peaked at the PS2 and now it is less about how realistic they look but how many details are on the characters in a game, because you know how great it is to see every pore and such. This game mirrors a lot of the earlier games of the NES and SNES era, but I would be foolish to neglect to say the game it mirrors the most is Metroid. From waking up in the middle of a strange labyrinth where you have to get your first upgrade by heading to the left to the use of upgrades to proceed further into the game this game feels more like Metroid than the last Metroid I played which was on the Gamecube and was a first person shooter for the most part. So it was wonderful playing a game that was a 2D platform game where one must navigate an insane world where I am still not sure what the heck was going on.
The story has your character waking up and finding himself in this strange realm where a voice guides him. The last thing he remembers is a lab accident and at first he thinks that killed him, but the truth is more bizarre as he begins to question everything in the insane world he finds himself in. Constantly having to go places and battling monsters and being offered help from huge creatures whose intentions are never really clear. Very hard to explain what is going on, best just to say it is insanity!
The game play as I said is like Metroid. With a lot more weapons...I got so many weapons by the end and I did not even get them all. It is fun using all the different weapons and trying them out on various enemies. The boss fights are very fun as the music is totally cool throughout the game, even more so during the insane battles against strange monsters that seem to think you are the evil one. Which you may very well be, as I said it just is not clear. With all the weapons I collected, I didn't even find them all! The place is fun to explore, but at times I just had no idea where to go and there were still a few places I could not figure out what to do to progress further. It also becomes very difficult near the end too, as I had it on easy and still had trouble.
So all in all a very fun game. Sure it most resembles Metroid, but there are other games that it kind of is similar too. That grappling hook you get reminded me of the one used by the dude in Bionic Commando and at one point the background was very reminiscent of Rygar. I wish more games like this were released these days rather than the same stuff being recycled every year to the delight of people who think graphics are all that matters and playing with friends and going pew pew makes for the best games. This one took some time and some struggles and was fun as all get out. A game I played on a next generation console, but was clearly retro to the extreme!
