Immortals: Fenyx Rising is the rare game that delights in
almost every sense of the word. As a charming, funny, and whimsical adventure
in a fully explorable open world, Immortals is a breath of fresh air not only
when compared to other AAA Western games, but compared to its open world peers
as well.
After being sidelined for much of the 7th console
generation in favor of far more linear and faster-paced styles of gameplay, we
saw with the 8th generation a promising return to more open game
design; where video games were more explorable, more interactive, and less
constrained by shooter-influenced pacing. There’s still a difference between
this, however, and the type of open world game pioneered with 2017’s Legend of
Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a game referred to by Nintendo as an “open air” style
of game, whereas not only is the world large and explorable within its paths,
but where everything off the beaten path can be climbed up, flown over, and
chopped down too. In this type of game, there isn’t a single mountain peak off
in the distance that can’t be flown to and climbed up, not a single lake that can’t
be swum through, and the main story quests can be taken in any order. No
surface is off limits to exploration or interaction.
Immortals: Fenyx Rising is the first “open air” styled game
I’ve played since Breath of the Wild, and much of what made that game such a
compelling adventure and its world such a blast to explore is recaptured here.
Nintendo’s 2017 epic still remains ahead of the curve in several ways, which
shows what a once-in-a-lifetime experience a game can be, but Ubisoft does a
great job with this formula and has created an incredibly memorable adventure in its
own right.
The story begins with two gods, Zeus and Prometheus,
discussing their dire situation at the top of a snowy mountain; the evil god
Typhon is raging throughout the Golden Isle, and Prometheus makes a bet with
Zeus (who’s imprisoned) that Typhon will be beaten by a mortal. Though
skeptical, Zeus begrudgingly listens to Prometheus tell the story of Fenyx, the
mortal who he claims will save the Golden Isle from Typhon.
The two gods banter with each other fairly frequently
throughout the game, taking on the form of narrators as the two of them comment
on what’s happening, argue with each other, and provide context to some of the
events taking place. Aside from being genuinely funny, the addition of Zeus’
and Prometheus’ dialogue keeps the two gods in the mind’s eye, even though they
spend much of the story off-screen, and the constant reminder that Fenyx’s
journey is a tale being told from one god to another adds a level of uniqueness
to the story that helps make it a lot of fun. Fenyx begins her or his journey
washed up on the Golden Isle, Immortals’ colorful open world, and you’re
quickly set free into this "open-air" playground.
You’re given the ability to customize Fenyx’s gender and
appearance; given that the game was primarily marketed with the female version
of Fenyx, that was the one I chose, so I can’t comment much on how different
things might be with the male version of the character. But I found Fenyx as
she existed in my game to be incredibly likable; the way she interacts with the
other characters, her facial expressions, and her general outlook on her
situation is nothing short of endearing. The dialogue throughout comes off as
so effortlessly funny that it’s really nothing short of an achievement. Though
armor you equip to Fenyx changes her appearance in-game, there’s a cool little
touch where helmets, etc disappear during cutscenes; something allowed by Immortals' cartoony visuals, which lets Fenyx remain expressive during the game's events, which is a very good thing. The accents that the characters
all speak in initially took me a little while to get used to, but ultimately they
grew on me and I couldn’t imagine the game without them. The other characters
on the journey are equally funny and likable; from Zeus and Prometheus to
Hermes, to the various gods who you free who then take their positions atop the
tower as you progress through the game. The warm and funny storytelling along
with the vast, colorful world makes Immortals: Fenyx Rising always a delight to
turn back on and play.
Somewhat similar to other open world games, The Golden Isle is divided into regions, which can be seamlessly traveled to either on foot, horseback, or (similarly to Breath of the Wild) through flight by gliding down from above. Each region is clouded on your map however until you scale the region’s goddess statue, which not only unlocks the various Main Quest events that take place there, but which fills in your map and allows you to pinpoint points of interest on it. Immortals is a slight step back from Breath of the Wild in that this is no longer done purely by sight; in Immortals, the camera zooms in on the world from high up, and you use the right analog stick to guide an icon across the vista, the controller rumbling when you happen upon a point of interest. Once you highlight it, the object (whether it’s one of the game’s many Vaults, crystals called Ambrosia which increase your max HP, puzzles which can lead to treasures or items to teach Fenyx new abilities, etc) appears on your map and on your compass at the top of the screen. Despite feeling a little more video game-y and less natural, it’s a bit of game design that still offers much of the same satisfaction here as it did in Breath of the Wild, where the idea of increasing the stats of your character, whether that be HP, stamina, or earning new abilities, offers almost constant encouragement to venture off the beaten path and explore each region as much as possible in between story missions. Even with the greater focus on places of interest being waypointed from above, the sense of exploration and the joy in venturing through the world on foot or by flight remains much the same, making the fast travel system something that just feels completely unsatisfying to use compared to purely exploring the world instead when venturing from point A to point B. Immortals gives you the option to travel by horseback as well, though given how wildly uneven and cliff-filled the Golden Isle’s terrain is, it’s a feature that really doesn’t make much sense here and doesn’t feel at all intuitive, so I forgot about it almost immediately.
While certainly smaller in size than the open worlds in many
of these types of games, the fact that it’s 100% explorable makes a huge
difference when compared to something like Ghost of Tsushima or Horizon Zero
Dawn, where you’re effectively traveling up and down on paths through what
essentially amounts to a giant corridor, with natural barriers on either side
preventing you from venturing more than a slight bit off the beaten path. As
with Breath of the Wild (though, it has to be said, not nearly as large and
lacking things like towns) Immortals allows you full 360-degree exploration
of the world at all times, and the ability to climb up, jump off, or fly to and
from pretty much every single thing you see makes a huge difference between
these “open air” games and their contemporary free-roaming peers.
One area where Immortals: Fenyx Rising handily outperforms
Breath of the Wild is in its combat system, which offers fun hack-and-slash
gameplay but without having to worry about your weapons breaking, and the tons
of new moves and techniques that can be learned over the course of the game
keep things evolving. Combat is fluid and satisfying, rarely feels like a drag,
and offers a nice amount of challenge as the game goes on. The framerate on the
Switch version holds up surprisingly well given the amount of action taking
place on screen, and taking into account that this was developed primarily for
machines more powerful than it, it feels like quite an accomplishment. The
visuals are gorgeous and colorful, and though of course the draw distance and
levels of detail and resolution aren’t what you get on next gen systems like
the PS5, or other current gen systems like the PS4, the Switch version manages
to capture the essence of this game’s graphical presentation incredibly well
and proves to be a perfectly valid way to experience it. Immortals is
also mostly bug-free, which is great, though it does unfortunately suffer from
occasional crashes; in my experience, probably once every 10 hours or so.
Thankfully, the game features a very frequent auto-save feature, so the amount
of progress I lost from one of these crashes was almost never more than a
couple minutes, but it’s still a problem that shouldn’t exist in any game, and
it’s something that I hope continues to be patched out as time goes on.
Aside from a late-game misstep (which I’ll get to next,) and
the occasional crash, really the only gameplay flaw I can really think of with
Immortals: Fenyx Rising is that the Vaults are by their nature just a little
too long. Equivalent to the Shrines in Breath of the Wild, you encounter them
while exploring and they lead you to mini-dungeons, where completing some sort
of puzzle or combat sequence offers you a reward; in this game’s case, Golden
Amber, which, when enough are collected, allow you to increase Fenyx’s stamina
gauge, along with whatever treasures are found inside the Vault. But while
Breath of the Wild made the very smart choice to keep its shrines short enough
where attempting them never felt like too much of an interruption, Immortals
makes these a little too long, which serves as a slight disincentive to enter
them, even if you want their rewards, because you know you’ll be in them for
just a little longer than you really want to be.
Where Immortals stumbles a bit is in the later portion of
the game, where Fenyx must ascend a snowy mountain. It’s a mountain where the
terrain is much too cold for you to explore without your energy being almost
immediately depleted, resulting in there being only one real path to the top of
the mountain, one which includes various puzzles and enemy encounters. It’s
here and only here that your complete freedom to explore works
against the game, as it’s so easy to get lost or lose the path, and so difficult
to find your way back to it, that I was constantly checking a guide during this
part of the game to make sure I was headed in the right direction, which I usually
was. But I was so afraid of venturing into the wrong area and not being able to
find my way back that I felt I had to constantly check to make sure I was
heading in the right direction, which took away almost all the fun of playing
through this segment. Had either this mountain ascent been more forgiving with your
pathways up, or had Ubisoft made just this one part of the game a little more linear,
then it would have fixed the problem, but sadly, it’s a frustrating
trek that goes on for much too long.
Immortals does recover from this issue however for some very
worthy final bosses, and things end on a high note, albeit one with no ending
credit sequence, something that takes away from the finality of the ending and
something that should always be included. (The credits can be viewed from the
main menu, which just isn’t the same.) At over 55 hours, including plenty in
the way of exploration and side content, Immortals: Fenyx Rising is the perfect
length, and similar to very few other games, it was a world and characters that
I was sad to leave behind.
As a new IP released at the end of a console generation,
Immortals: Fenyx Rising has an uphill battle as far as competing for attention
goes, but it’s a game that I hope more and more people discover. With a true
sense of fun and whimsy, endearing storytelling, great combat, and a vast world
to fully explore, I loved this game from beginning to (almost) end. A somewhat
frustrating snowy mountain ascent near the end does leave a bit of a mark
against it, and the Vault dungeons should have been just a little bit shorter.
But this is a beautiful game, and a nothing short of a blast to play. Whether on the
PS4/Xbox One/Nintendo Switch, or whether next gen on PS5 or Xbox Series X, I
can’t possibly recommend this game enough.
4.5/5
Note; This review is based on the Nintendo Switch version.
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