So I finished Axiom Verge. I didn't like it.
Axiom Verge's I Can't Believe It's Not Metroid nature invites unflattering comparisons. When put next to the real thing, it comes off looking completely amateurish.
-The art sucks. Tacky, over-designed neon enemies punctuate the world's dull color palette. The player character looks like a jackass. Larger background elements appear to be stolen from infamously terrible 90s adventure game series Dark Seed. Bosses, however, look great, but there aren't very many of them.
-The story sucks. Pseudo-philosophical garbage fails to motivate. The player character acts like a jackass and has some sort of crisis of conscience about something that wastes the player's time with terrible dialogue. The developer didn't need to steal that nonsense from Other M, but he inexplicably did. Obligatory sequence that blurs screen in an attempt to shake-up gameplay is just annoying.
-Game plays fine in the moment but fails at all of the big picture stuff. Too many weapons, many of which quickly become redundant; a handful that the player upgrades, like in Metroid, would have been better. The map fails to indicate whether any given space contains a power-up, necessitating combing the map to find everything, which is a waste of the player's time. The game fails to direct the player in any meaningful way after beating a boss or getting a new ability, necessitating combing the map, which further wastes the player's time. The much-lauded glitch gun functions as a glorified key and fails to offer any exciting changes to the Metroid formula.
To sum it up, the developer copied Metroid, but made it worse in every single way. Save your money and replay Zero Mission or Super Metroid.
