Vernal Edge

A lot of good ideas marred by subpar execution. Combat is fast and fluid, but doesn't really have enough weight behind it to feel visceral. The platforming is not bad until you require pixel-perfect accuracy to hit some of the lamps and rods once you get the situational double jump. The character design is also worthy of praise, where I actually got a laugh out of the protagonist a few times. However, ultimately, a lack of strong direction for the player at the start hurts this game a lot. I wandered around for an hour before anything interesting happened and I was about to drop the game by then. I stuck it out, but got tired of the damage spongey enemies and uninteresting platforming design. I think some of the game's platforming problems could be overcome by letting the right stick look beyond the screen. There were a few instances where I basically had to simply fall to my death a number of times to navigate a downward platforming segment. It's just tiresome when you're punished for something so simple and that has already been solved for platformers of this type. I give the game solid marks for creativity, but poor ones for the execution and overall presenation.

I hate giving this one such a low review. I would say this is a solid 2.5, but I ultimately can't recommend it which is why I'm rounding down instead of up. . This is not a "true" metroidvania, btw, because it's not a proper "action-adventure" game. This is a character action and a platform adventure game connected through the game's progression system. The character action part, frankly I think they nailed. It feels like Kingdom Hearts II but properly challenging, and this is ultimately what kept me engaged in the game until I just couldn't stand it, for the reasons I'll detail below. Combat is very responsive and works exactly they way you want it to, during which you need to think about your approach to enemies, not too dissimilar from a souls-like, but much faster. I actually liked how the combat was locked and not regenerative, I think it would have been tedious if were integrated into the world, in all honesty. The world is huge, and doesn't immediately come with a map. Each area you need to find the map, usually deep in the level, and some don't have any. The platforming is overly precise and it's way too easy to miss your jumps, leading to tedium where I've found myself attempting the same jump for minutes at a time; it becomes exhausting to find where you're going. The semi-open world nature of the game, without it providing you any sense of direction, also sucks. I found myself meandering and trying to figure out where to go for literally hours on end. The rewards for exploration are usually lame - all the chests you find are just in-game currency, and they're about 75%-ish or so of the hidden items you'll find, and with the horrible implementation of the map, exploration is just simply not rewarded enough for the game to be fun at all. The metroidvania format was no the right choice for the game. There is an amazing game somewhere here, but the implementation of the exploration is excruciating, and sucked out all the fun of the otherwise fine game.

I almost gave it 5 stars. Would probably be 4.5 if I could. The atmosphere of the game is great. The game has a solid story (not amazing, we've seen it before, but very competently executed), good level design, good characters (the protagonist annoyed me at first and then grew on me as the story progressed... she's a flawed but touching character), a pretty good soothing soundtrack (they should sell it, I'd buy it) and very nice retro graphics to complement it all. If you enjoyed the esthetics of the SNES fantasy classics, you'll be right at home here. Both the combat and platforming are solid and will require you to adapt and evolve your style (and you'll need to master both). Your character will gain various boosts as you progress, but equally importantly, you'll get better at managing your characters' abilities and read cues during combat to know which ability you should use when. I've seen games that go deeper into this, but overall, this games tends toward complexity in this regard. One grippe I had with combat and platforming is that it felt at times that controls could be bit crisper. Your characters has longish telegraphed motions that have follow through and at times you'll swear when you see a situation coming, you'll press the correct button to react, but your character won't react, because she's still following through her previous motion. Pacing is also a little uneven. Most platforming and combat situations are easy and fairly relaxing even, but some are fairly brutal. If you're either an adrenaline junkie or a very casual player, this game may not be a good fit. Also, this game has very open-ended exploration. You'll need to backtrack a lot and figure out where to go with very few cues. I finished the game in 24 hours (94% completion) and if I had known where to go, it would probably have been under 10. Overall though, I enjoyed the exploration. So, with the above caveats in mind, this is a solid game for the right audience that I recommend.

One of those games that has been gingerly described as "DMC inspired" instead of just calling it a character action. (How many games need to be inspired by DMC and go on to inspire other games themselves before we can acknowledge a legitimate new genre has emerged??) And I think I take some issue with. Merging of character action and metroidvania. Have you noticed what's wrong with this picture? Character action focuses on rich combat, metroidvania focuses on rich movement and exploration. How do you combine those two things? Generally combat means you stop and stay in one place for a while! What even could that combination be like, some sort of Sonic-esque game perhaps? And sure enough, Vernal Edge has some of the most rich and satisfying combat I have played in years. Some excellent and wonderful bosses also. But in order to get to that combat, you have to do a bunch of platforming and exploring! The only way to play this game with a focus on its combat and have that nice flow between combat encounters is to learn to speedrun it. I want to take my time looking around and poking at the little game world. But I also feel like every time I beat an enemy, they didn't live long enough and I just want to bring them back! I feel like some kind of combat focused post game would have really helped scratch my itch. Maybe something like DMC's own Bloody Palace. Vernal Edge remains firmly a metroidvania, and simply an excellent one at that.