Axiom Verge Reviews
Axiom Verge delivers one of the better experiences in the oversaturated Metroidvania genre, but if you've played a NES/SNES Metroid title, then you've played Axiom Verge. The game's plenty fun, but it fails to carve out a distinct
Axiom Verge plays so closely to the original Metroid game that I'm wondering if it was meant to be a tribute or an imitation.
an accomplishment, but it often feels too safe
Verge is too smart to be a nostalgia trip, but it also, ultimately, sticks to executing the familiar with style. If it didn't look so damn good, it'd be easy to say we've seen it all before.
All in all, Axiom Verge has its moments. Exploration is fun to an extent, and the cavalcade of powerups and weaponry to acquire allows for an ever evolving way to interact with the environment and its hostiles.
Do you like hunting for a thing to unlock a door so you can find another thing to unlock another door? Then this is your game.
Put another way, it's a game that needs to be left unattended, so that you can return to it with fresh eyes and discover the surprises that seem to sprout while you're away.
It's just a shame that given the obvious talent and passion involved, it doesn't really have much of its own to add to the Metroidvania template. As charmed and delighted as I often was with its smartly paced escalation, its perpetually teasing construction, I kept waiting for some new element to appear, a eureka moment that either hadn't been thought of in 1986, or that could only be done today. It never quite happens. Axiom Verge seems content to be a homage, rather than a revival or reinvention. That's fine, since there's already plenty to justify your interest, but it feels like Happ has more to contribute than he's showing here.
Axiom Verge comes loaded with this feeling. It might have been a revelation if Happ released it within a year of when he started development, when the indie market was still fresh. Nowadays, it's just a solid game. Nothing extraordinary, making me wonder if the extraordinary $20 price, a few dollars on top of typical PSN indie releases, is worth it.
