Another one down. Enslaved: Odyssey to the West - 8 hours.
I went in not knowing if I'd like this one or not. I didn't especially like Heavenly Sword, but this got pretty good review scores, so I waited until I got it at a bargain price before picking it up.
In the end, I ended up liking it a bit more than I expected. I really liked the game's "pretty apocalypse" aesthetic. It stood out from the typical brown apocalypse, and helped give weight to the notion that this was a world worth saving for humanity. While I didn't especially like Monkey as a character, I did find both Trip and Pigsy to be reasonably likable. The story, while being pretty cliche and kind of dumb at times, served as just enough motivation to keep going through the game.
Mechanically, I definitely didn't love the game, but didn't hate it either. The melee combat was OK, and there was just enough depth to the encounters to make them satisfying. The combination of shielded enemies, flawed enemies that can be used to your advantage with takedowns, and a handful of different enemy types kept the melee engaging, and the two different ranged attack types added a couple more useful tools to Monkey's arsenal. Seeing as you spent about a third of the game hitting stuff with a stick, it's good that the combat was at least somewhat entertaining.
The platforming and traversal area of the game, on the other hand, is less well-implemented. The platforms and handholds you move from are a little bit too sticky and "no-fail," except for a couple moments when scenery crumbles out from under you. These sections basically play like a broken/boring Prince of Persia game. The occasional segments where you ride your "Cloud" (aka Hoverboard) are a bit better, since you actually have to time your jumps to hit them. The Cloud chase sequences are a bit trial-and-error oriented, but I found that to be a welcome break from the game's normal platforming sequences.
There are a few other quirky things about the traversal that I found especially annoying. First - in several instances, I knew where I had to go, and I stood in the same place hitting the jump button 3 or 4 times before Monkey would stop doing a dodge roll and jump up (or down) to the next platform. Second - The camera is set up in such a way that it sort of guides you to the correct path forward. This is fine, but there are some spots, where the camera flips nearly 180 degrees, so if you're holding up to run forward, the camera will flip and now your up is interpreted as running back the way you came. There were a couple spots where I found I could hold one direction and it would keep flipping the scene back and forth indefinitely until I stopped and slowly walked through the switch point.
It's also not always obvious which direction the game wants you to press to get to the next handhold or platform in the traversal puzzles. The camera might be set at a diagonal angle to the wall you're on, and hitting up will work just fine for the first two moves along the wall, while the third one requires you to his left. It's not a big deal, since the wrong input won't kill you, but it's annoying having to sometimes figure out which input the game wants to move you forward to the next obvious platform.
There are a couple traversal puzzles that managed to be fun and clever in the middle of the game, so this mechanic wasn't a complete waste, but it could have been a much better part of the game if designed a little better.
I didn't love Enslaved, but I didn't hate it either. It makes me wonder if I should go back and give Heavenly Sword a second try. It's still sitting unfinished in my backlog.
Overall Score - 3/5
I'm at +3 for the year now - 11:8.
