Immortals Fenyx Rising
Image Credit: Ubisoft
Not many games can capture the magic and child-like wonder that Breath of The Wild promises. Unfortunately for Ubisoft’s Immortals Fenyx Rising, beyond the first few hours the magic fades. Quickly. It’s a big dream to go after such a staple of modern gaming, and Immortals did their best. They tried to improve upon some aspects that were considered silly or unnecessary, sometimes successfully. But by and large, the game just hit different, and not in a good way. We don’t always review games in contrast with another title, but if Ubisoft didn’t want to be compared to Nintendo, they shouldn’t have made their game such an obvious bootleg.
Gameplay
One of the magical qualities of BOTW is the creativity in not only conflict resolution (blowing up bokoblin) but the countless puzzles, side quests, and hidden gems throughout the world. In fact, as I type this I’m tempted to turn on my switch and relive it. Immortals Fenyx Rising tried to incorporate a lot of the same things but it never quite challenged the player in the same ways. From re-organizing four tile paintings, to shooting an arrow through hoops, there seemed at first to be a lot of challenges. Only, if you’ve done one type of challenge, you’ve done them all. The gameplay first appeared to be deep, but quickly dissolved into a shallow ocean of waypoints. Their version of BOTW shrines, called “vaults”, similarly brought the player to a mythical realm where puzzles and obstacles must be overcome to receive an integral reward. In some cases, these actually felt rewarding, but those experiences were too few and far between.
World
At first glance, the map felt massive, with four sprawling “biomes”. I use biomes loosely. I was excited to experience what Ubisoft had up their sleeve in each region but, as it turns out, they only altered the color of the grass. That’s it. Aside from some tweaks to the architecture, the only thing they changed in each area was the color pallet. Not even the enemies. After two regions I was already sure I didn’t need to see anymore of the world, but I had to finish the story.
Story
The story was perhaps the greatest aspect to this game. And not because of compelling character development or especially interesting twists. No, the real strength to this game was the dialogue while you progress through the game. Your experience is being told as a story by the Greek God Prometheus to Zeus. As your story is told Zeus constantly interjects with wildly inappropriate and off-color comments. We loved it. Many of the most menial tasks were elevated by a hilarious conversation between two Gods of the old world. The story itself is okay, and not entirely unique. Instead of collecting BOTW Champions you’re collecting Greek Gods and Goddesses, and instead of destroying the Demon-King Ganon, you’re destroying the Titan, Typhon. In fact, nothing seems to stand out as unique in the actual narrative itself.
Conclusions
Believe me when I tell you, the first 3 hours of this game are great. But once you experience what the first region has to offer, don’t feel bad about putting the game down. It won’t improve your experience to continue. If you have never played BOTW and will not have access to a Switch anytime soon, you might love this game. If you have played BOTW you might as well go back and play it again. If you haven’t played BOTW but you are able to, what are you doing!? Go play it!! We at Busch League Gaming gave Immortals Fenyx Rising a 5.5 out of 10.
