So I wrote about the awful lack of advertising for this game a couple weeks back. I noted how I never saw a single thing about this game until only a couple days before its release, which I thought was a real shame, especially for a new IP.
Now, onto the game itself. This game really intrigued me from the moment I heard about it. It brings platforming, hand-to-hand combat, remixing people's memories and the ability to even create your own combo moves. Who wouldn't be interested in this?
I'll start off with the story. It's not the most immersive and amazing story out there, but there's enough there to keep your interest throughout the entire game. The setting is pretty amazing, with it being in Neo-Paris about 70 years in the future. The idea behind memory altering is an interesting one, although pretty early in the game you realize that the execution of the memory altering isn't quite as advertised. Nilin is one of the more interesting characters I've played as in awhile. When you first come across her, she's had her memory wiped, so while she's trying to accomplish her tasks throughout the game, she's also trying to rediscover who she is, which was a lot of fun.
The gameplay has a lot of positives. The hand-to-hand combat is done pretty well and adding in the ability to unlock new moves and create your own combos was a refreshing take and quite fun. However I felt myself wanting a parry move quite a lot. It was tough to get used to instead of using the parry to block, or counter the incoming moves from enemies you weren't engaged with to having to just avoid them. That didn't quite feel right, especially coming off of fantastic combat games like the Batman Arkham series or Sleeping Dogs. The real disappointing part about this game is the platforming. It is very hand-holdy and just doesn't seem like it takes to much thought or skill to make jumps. Each time you need to make a jump, the game tells you exactly where to go, which is a little disappointing. The best part about this game are the memory remixes. You have the ability to go inside a person's memory and remix certain things that happen to alter it to your desired outcome. There are numerous things that you can change, but only the right combination will successfully alter the memory, which makes it a blast trying to figure out what you need to do. However, the game could have benefited from more than four of these.
I notice a lot of people complaining about the lack of exploring ability. While the setting of Neo-Paris in 2084 was fantastic, I didn't think the linearity hindered the game. It just seems that any linear game these days gets crapped on, just because.
Overall I enjoyed the game. There are quite a few things that could be worked on to make the experience more enjoyable, but the game certainly has a good foundation to build from. I hope that this IP doesn't just get thrown in the trash after this game, b/c there's a lot more I'd like to experience in this world.
My Score: 7.5/10