I got both of these, among others from a Humble Bundle. I had been meaning to play this for a while, but never got around to it, but finally I did. Thank you Humble Bundle and Steamdeck.
Axiom Verge
It starts out extremely NES Metroid nostalgic. I really liked that. The progression was sensicle, and the backtracking wasn't too bad. At least for a while. Later on in the game, especially so if you are trying to go back to that area you know you can now explore, is very tedious and time consuming. The bosses were a mix of shoot them before I die (success eventually), oooh I found a spot they can't reach, but it takes a while to kill them (slow but steady), or holy crap why won't they die before I do (this only happened a few times, but man it sucks when it happens).
The story was alright. I liked how they added a reason to keep progressing through the game. The weapons could be sparse or frequent, so the bosses/save rooms were the main indicator that progress was happening.
The map was functional enough, and was the main thing to use to figure out where I had to go when a new gun/move/ability was unlocked allowing further progress
The one very nice thing in the game is the few key places in the game where you cross a point of no return, and you can't backtrack until you get the ability required to backtrack.
I will limit my gripes on this, since they took most of what was in this game, applied it to the second, and changed some things around. But I have to mention a few key gripes
Key gripes:
- Backtrack is very tedious
- There are some areas between save points that are absolutely brutal to traverse through. You do what you can to blitz to the next save point before you die.
- Even with the gated areas, it can still be confusing on where to go next. It's typically the place on the map where you couldn't finish exploring.
- Guns are nice, but once you find the one you like, I rarely have a need for others. Like the first weapon I used until I got a second one, then never went back. Same until I found the 2-3 weapons that worked well for area damage or ranged damage (I did not find all of the weapons).
But, there was some good
- The traversal mechanics of the game went much deeper than I expected. I was expecting a few moves like NES Metroid plus a few move, but they did a lot more. And then more than that. And not in the way you expect.
- When you die it throws you back to your last save point and SAVES the game. So you don't need to re-explore, re-acquire anything you got right before you died. Assuming the save point is not too far off, that's a really nice touch.
- Having a gun that worked well in specific areas was a fun way to explore the other guns and try them out.
- The movement
Axiom Verge 2
To be honest, after the grind of beating the first game I really didn't want to jump right into this, but I'm really glad that I did. They took everything they had in the first game and improved it in a few amazing ways.
There is an accessibility menu! If the game ever gets too hard, you can tune the enemy damage or your own damage until it feels better. That's absolutely amazing, and the only thing better is I didn't have to use it! I was able to beat any of the hard mobs eventually without feeling like I was being punished.
The map allows you to scroll around, and zoom. And you can actually see the features of the world in the minimap, to help you remember! You can also mark a dot where you need to come back to later. I found this extremely useful in a metroidvania because there are very obvious places to come back to after you have the required ability (ledge too high, pit too wide, locked door, etc.). That's so easy to manage and use!
For wepaons there are melee and ranged weapons, not just guns. I found myself using melee for most of the game, but the option for ranged was always there when the enemies would stay out of reach.
There are ability points! You get ability points by finding urns in the game and can level yourself up how you see fit. I went for hacking ability to unlock some special gates first, and health. No regrets.
The movement of your character at first felt a bit slidy, but after getting further and further into the very smooth platforming I absolutely loved it. I think because the first game needed double D-pad taps to move faster versus dedicated buttons in the second game, that was much smoother on my hands.
Most of the big bosses are optional, and give you extra ability points to kill them, otherwise you can skip. I killed every one I found and loved the challenge. Reward of killing bosses is a more powerful player. Yes please.
The story on the second one is a lot more, and found throughout talking to people and notes scattered through the game. The history was a bit much, so I started to glosss over the notes. I understood why I was moving forward, so that was enough for me. Outside of an achievement, I didn't get extra value from finding the notes. Sometimes they were helpful in filling in a knowledge gap, but usually not.
Without going too spoilery, I will say that they almost completely avoided the backtracking burder the first game had. I felt I had to backtrack a very limited number of times, and when I did it was for a well-understood reason.
Quick list of gripes for the second game. These are very minor, and overall the game was extremely enjoyable. There is no good list because all of the writing above is how good it was.
* Very late in the game, it can be a bit confusing on how to get to your objective. BUT, they put an indicator on the map, so keep trying things
* Later ability points in the game can lose impact. Once I maxed out hacking, and health, the rest could be put into anything really. I found myself using melee attacks a lot, so I boosted those
I ended up beating the second game in a single day. I was really good. I highly recommend it. There are some tie ins to the first game, so while you could play it without the first you might miss some things.
