Maximum Axiom Verge Urge

[thefncrow]

Can you post a screenshot of where you're at?

[N1njaSquirrel]

Well I fell down a ravine and can't get up. There are a couple of out-of-reach platforms, and nothing else dow here. Since it's 2015, I felt confident a game wouldn't put me in a hole without any way out, so I spent a good while trying everything I can, namely jumping around, shooting, drilling and disrupting, but nothing happened, and I'm wondering which of these are true:

• This shitty game puts the player in a hole with no way out other than to restart the game,
• This shitty guy is missing some obvious trick or technique, or is constantly ignoring some obvious visual hint in the environment.

 

If you are where you think you are, jump  to the right and use the drone. That should give you enough altitude to land the drone on a platform on the right, which gives you an item, which gets you out of the hole.

[Korax]

Quitting the game will save your progress and also puts you back at the last save point you used, so if nothing else works, there's that.

[toblix]

Damn it, I forgot to come back here and say thanks! The solution was, of course, to jump and use the drone. I had never even thought of deploying the drone mid-jump before – I guess it's my fault for not trusting the game enough.

[Korax]

Oh, and to hopefully prevent the stumbling block I ran into:

 

I initially thought that the drone could only deploy when the capsule that you shoot hit a surface, but if you press the deploy button again at any time in its flight, the drone will pop out, and you have normal control of it.

[toblix]

Yup, and also also, you can deploy the drone through a wall one tile thick! The things they don't tell you in this game.

[SecretAsianMan]

The PC release date is May 14.  It'll be $20 on either Steam or the Humble Store.  The Steam version comes with cloud saves and trading cards.  The Vita date still hasn't been announced yet, but it is cross-buy with the PS4.

 

I can't wait to satisfy my Verge Urge.

[Tanukitsune]

Aw, why do I have to wait so long for the Vita version? It's like Shovel Knight all over again. :^/

[SecretAsianMan]

PC version is out now.  Guess I figured out what I'm doing tonight.

[SecretAsianMan]

I played this for a few hours now.  It's really scratching an itch I've had for a long time, namely a new 2D Metroid game.  The visual design is strange and bizarre in ways that work both for and against it.  It's sufficiently alien and unique that things are interesting but there's also a ton of visual clutter that sometimes makes it hard for me to tell what's going on.  For example, on one of the bosses I still don't know exactly where his weak spot was.  All I know is that if I kept shooting him with this weapon it was damaging him on occasion so I kept doing it until he died.  I'm not saying I want a big glowing spot telling me to shoot here but it would have been nice if it was a little clearer.  And there are a lot of things I think are in the background but they're really in the foreground and vice versa.  Everything is really impressive to look at though.

 

For the most part, the gameplay is pretty good.  I really wish the Xbox 360 controller had a decent d-pad because double tapping with a stick is a pain.  Also there are too many weapons.  That wouldn't bother me if most of them didn't feel redundant.  I do like the use of the second stick as a weapon selector.  Having gameplay slowed down because of menuing is annoying so any attempt to minimize that earns points with me.

 

Despite most of that being complaints, it's a really fun game.  It's got pretty much everything I love about Metroid but it also mixes stuff up enough to keep it from being a complete carbon copy.  I can't wait to see this at a future Games Done Quick.

[Merus]

It seems awfully linear in a way that's kind of annoying. My housemate's already abandoned it because to him, it's just a linear platformer and one with really annoying sound effects. I'm still giving it a chance.

[SecretAsianMan]

It seems awfully linear in a way that's kind of annoying. My housemate's already abandoned it because to him, it's just a linear platformer and one with really annoying sound effects. I'm still giving it a chance.

 

I dunno, it seems about as linear as any other Metroid game I've played (except maybe Fusion).  Maybe it's because every time I get a new traversal mechanism, I circle the map for areas to use it in so I'm always everywhere except where I'm supposed to be.

[Merus]

No, it's definitely on the linear end - there's generally only two or three places where the new traversal mechanic is useful, it's not hard to anticipate which way is 'forward', and once you're heading in the right direction, the path doesn't deviate very much except to introduce a few passages blocked by an obstacle.

 

I'm mentally comparing it to the map design to Ori and the Blind Forest. In that game, if it didn't insist on hinting where to go, you'd have a devil of a time working out which direction is the way forward.

[SecretAsianMan]

I suppose I can see how it would be linear if you immediately progress toward the next area, but the same could be said of Metroid.  I'll admit the level design isn't quite on par with Metroid's design.  Something about Metroid made you want to explore branches more while Axiom Verge does kind of push you in a direction, but I feel like it's an easy flaw to overcome just by taking some initiative and exploring on your own, which is where the real satisfaction of these games comes in.  At least that's how it is for me.

[Badfinger]

Bought the PC version, played 90 minutes or so. I had my friend's PS4 copy to borrow, and I've already gone a completely different direction than I did the first time with the consequences of not being able to get back to that area yet. I'm not entirely sure where I SHOULD go at this point. I know I'm not stuck but I am also not seeing where I should be. It's not THAT linear.

[Griddlelol]

I only played for about 2 hours and I didn't really notice any serious linearity. I always felt like I was exploring, and if I discovered a way to go, I'd progress down it. It usually meant there were multiple areas I left completely unexplored. Those areas might be dead ends or rooms with power ups, I don't know. 

I guess at least I have the illusion of non-linearity because of how I play the game. Compared to Metroid Fusion where it never felt anything other than linear because I was given the map, with a marker and told "go there, come back." Axiom Verge doesn't do that, it just expects the player to discover where to go next, akin to Super Metroid.

 

Man I really want to play this, but I can't stand looking at blown up low res pixel art on my TV. I'll destroy the Vita version though. I plan to 100% that if I like it enough. 

[SuperBiasedMan]

If only you could set your TV to display the game at its native small resolution and just tile it over the whole screen.

[Griddlelol]

If only you could set your TV to display the game at its native small resolution and just tile it over the whole screen.

 

That sounds nauseating.

[Merus]

It's starting to open up a bit more now, and I think I've worked out why neither of us have been enjoying it: it's the bass. My housemate is an audiophile, so he has an excellent sound system, and the bass in the game is absolutely overwhelming when you've got a soundsystem that reproduces bass flawlessly.

[RubixsQube]

I'm six or seven hours into the game, and I have a great deal of weapons and maneuvering updates. The game is fun, obviously, or I wouldn't have kept playing, but it's sloppy. I guess, in case people are worried about spoilers, I'll try to talk about things in a vague and general sense. 

 

- I think the bosses, while interesting visually, have all just been tedious bullet sponges. Like, you show up, you see what they do, and then you just repeat the same stuff over and over hoping that you don't get hit too much before they finally die. I mean, going back to the Metroid games, I think that the patterns just seemed more random for those bosses, and they were able to die a lot quicker than the tedious boss slog in Axiom Verge. The most recent boss I managed to beat on like, my tenth attempt, and it was slightly more random, but it was still just annoying, where I kept thinking: "I am doing the thing you want me to do, video game, I am doing it over and over, you should just reward me and respect my time here." 

 

- I started playing the game in my ideal form, where I just remapped the keyboard to an SNES controller and played that way, but it quickly became too ungainly in terms of the sheer number of different inputs that I had to learn. I switched to an Xbox 360 controller, but playing 2D platformers with a stick removes a lot of important timing, and the 360 controller has the World's Worst D-Pad, so I just keep the SNES controller handy for when I have to make a series of tight jumps. Even worse, later in the game you receive an item that requires you to double tap the control pad, which is my least favorite method of input, since it's so finicky. It's been insanely tedious to have to use that quickly to maneuver, and it also means that it triggers sometimes when I don't want it to, leaving me running into enemies. Oh! Also, the 360 controller uses L3 and R3 to quick swap weapons, and I am always accidentally triggering that in the heat of battle, which is a pain. 

 

This is sloppy, video game. 

 

- The game has some interesting enemy types, and being able to glitch them out is a fun idea. I also think it does a great job of letting you come back through the game with better weapons and just annihilate the enemies that were tedious earlier. 

 

- You know what's disappointing? Discovering a secret, making your way through a series of enemies, excitedly finding a new item, and then realizing it's just fucking lore, and even WORSE, it's in some dumb alien language. I think that I got something that would allow me to translate it, but why? The storyline of the game is the thing I'm least interested in. 

 

- You get so many weapons in this game, and I only ended up using most of them for a little bit after I got it, and then never again. There was one weapon that was mega weak but spread out with this lightning effect that I actually ended up using exclusively on a later boss, but otherwise, back to the old standby guns. Am I the only person who felt this way?

 

- Drone / Drone Throw / Drone Teleport? Pretty great. 

 

- I have found so many areas that I know are gated off for some future item for maneuvering, and at that point, I'll probably just look up some giant map online and clear out all of the items. I don't have time to explore and mark up the map, sorry, game.

 

Again, I'm liking it, overall. The music, while a little repetitive (the loops are just a little too short), is appropriately pumping, the running and jumping feels good, and I think it's got an ok difficulty. I just wish that it had that type of Nintendo polish that would have really made it great. 

[tberton]

Well, it was made entirely by one person, so it makes sense that it wouldn't have the polish that comes from one of the biggest companies in the industry.

[RubixsQube]

I know this! But if he's going to make such a direct homage to the Metroid games, he's inviting the comparison himself. 

[SecretAsianMan]

I'm six or seven hours into the game, and I have a great deal of weapons and maneuvering updates. The game is fun, obviously, or I wouldn't have kept playing, but it's sloppy. I guess, in case people are worried about spoilers, I'll try to talk about things in a vague and general sense. 

 

- I think the bosses, while interesting visually, have all just been tedious bullet sponges. Like, you show up, you see what they do, and then you just repeat the same stuff over and over hoping that you don't get hit too much before they finally die. I mean, going back to the Metroid games, I think that the patterns just seemed more random for those bosses, and they were able to die a lot quicker than the tedious boss slog in Axiom Verge. The most recent boss I managed to beat on like, my tenth attempt, and it was slightly more random, but it was still just annoying, where I kept thinking: "I am doing the thing you want me to do, video game, I am doing it over and over, you should just reward me and respect my time here." 

 

- I started playing the game in my ideal form, where I just remapped the keyboard to an SNES controller and played that way, but it quickly became too ungainly in terms of the sheer number of different inputs that I had to learn. I switched to an Xbox 360 controller, but playing 2D platformers with a stick removes a lot of important timing, and the 360 controller has the World's Worst D-Pad, so I just keep the SNES controller handy for when I have to make a series of tight jumps. Even worse, later in the game you receive an item that requires you to double tap the control pad, which is my least favorite method of input, since it's so finicky. It's been insanely tedious to have to use that quickly to maneuver, and it also means that it triggers sometimes when I don't want it to, leaving me running into enemies. Oh! Also, the 360 controller uses L3 and R3 to quick swap weapons, and I am always accidentally triggering that in the heat of battle, which is a pain. 

 

This is sloppy, video game. 

 

- The game has some interesting enemy types, and being able to glitch them out is a fun idea. I also think it does a great job of letting you come back through the game with better weapons and just annihilate the enemies that were tedious earlier. 

 

- You know what's disappointing? Discovering a secret, making your way through a series of enemies, excitedly finding a new item, and then realizing it's just fucking lore, and even WORSE, it's in some dumb alien language. I think that I got something that would allow me to translate it, but why? The storyline of the game is the thing I'm least interested in. 

 

- You get so many weapons in this game, and I only ended up using most of them for a little bit after I got it, and then never again. There was one weapon that was mega weak but spread out with this lightning effect that I actually ended up using exclusively on a later boss, but otherwise, back to the old standby guns. Am I the only person who felt this way?

 

- Drone / Drone Throw / Drone Teleport? Pretty great. 

 

- I have found so many areas that I know are gated off for some future item for maneuvering, and at that point, I'll probably just look up some giant map online and clear out all of the items. I don't have time to explore and mark up the map, sorry, game.

 

Again, I'm liking it, overall. The music, while a little repetitive (the loops are just a little too short), is appropriately pumping, the running and jumping feels good, and I think it's got an ok difficulty. I just wish that it had that type of Nintendo polish that would have really made it great. 

 

That's mostly how I feel too.  I found the bosses to be really easy though.  They're incredibly predictable and not very aggressive.  Regular enemies pose more of a threat to me.  I try to use as many of the weapons as I can because I'm the kind of person who hates to not use things when I have them, but yeah there are way too many and most are not really unique or effective enough to warrant using the majority of the time.

[Gottfrid]

I've beaten three bosses and now I'm very stuck.

[Merus]

I've beaten three bosses and now I'm very stuck.

You should have a new traversal mechanic with some obvious places to use it back in Kur. You should find some help there.