Discussion nobody is talking about Immortals Fenyx Rising

[gorcorps]

And that's an absolute shame. I didn't play a lot of games this year, but of what I did play it's one of the few I finished and it's personally my GOTY. It wasn't even on my list of things to check out, but it was included in my Uplay subscription so I gave it a shot. Thank god I did

It draws a lot of comparison to Zelda BOTW, and for good reason... but IMO it's better in every way. I wasn't amazed by BOTW and didn't finish it, but I adore this game.

The combat is excellent, the open world is typical of Ubisoft games but really well crafted, and the Greek mythology based story is fun and well done. The environmental puzzles are varied and really well done. Everything about the game just seems quite refined, tight and focused. Well worth getting IMO

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Honestly, I've totally given up on Ubi games entirely.

Having never heard of this game, let me guess:

- Its open world
- Tons of grind
- Climb things to unlock areas

And of course it requires UPlay or whatever. I've been interested in playing Farcry: Blood Dragon but trying to recover my Uplay account has turned into a miserable mini-game in its own right.

 

[gorcorps]

Honestly, I've totally given up on Ubi games entirely.

Having never heard of this game, let me guess:

- Its open world
- Tons of grind
- Climb things to unlock areas

And of course it requires UPlay or whatever. I've been interested in playing Farcry: Blood Dragon but trying to recover my Uplay account has turned into a miserable mini-game in its own right.

There's no grinding that I noticed. It's a lot tighter and more focused than recent Ubisoft games. It's still open world, but it doesn't seem filled with fluff like a lot of the recent AC games. The map is much smaller.

I pretty much went through the story at my own pace without tracking down a lot of side things, and finished in 30 hours. Usually by that time in an Assassins Creed game, I'm only 1/3 through and am already starting to get bored.

Anyway, you can research yourself and decide if it's worth it or not... I'm not here to convince you. I think there's a demo available for those who want to try it. I'm just here to point out that it's a great game that will probably be missed by many because it's a new IP that isn't getting advertised much.

 

[Fenixgoon]

A friend recommended this game to me. Haven't taken a look but sounds encouraging! Just need to knock off a few games in my backlog before I take the plunge

 

[nakedfrog]

Gotta say, "better than BotW in every way" is a very tall order, and doesn't strike me as terribly likely. Of course, I did put 130 hours into BotW, so obviously I felt it was quite good.

 

[gorcorps]

Gotta say, "better than BotW in every way" is a very tall order, and doesn't strike me as terribly likely. Of course, I did put 130 hours into BotW, so obviously I felt it was quite good.

I'll admit I wasn't in love with BOTW like a lot of others, but I did enjoy it. I personally think it's better, but for somebody that loves BOTW a ton it'll probably be a harder comparison.

Either way, at the very least I think you'll really like it

 

[EXCellR8]

When I looked at some of the media a month or so ago the art style immediately reminded me of Fortnite... so I never developed much of an interest in it.

Now, that may be totally unfair but you also gotta realize that this was right before CP2077 lied to us; I was too certain that most of my free time was going to be used up last month.

Kind of forgot about it since...

 

[nakedfrog]

I'll admit I wasn't in love with BOTW like a lot of others, but I did enjoy it. I personally think it's better, but for somebody that loves BOTW a ton it'll probably be a harder comparison.

Either way, at the very least I think you'll really like it

I'll try to report back in 3-5 years whenever I get around to playing it
Been doing pretty well at working through my backlog before adding new stuff.

 

[gorcorps]

I'll try to report back in 3-5 years whenever I get around to playing it
Been doing pretty well at working through my backlog before adding new stuff.

It'll probably get pretty cheap quickly since it's not a big name game, so no real hurry

 

[Aikouka]

I've been talking about it a bit in the Xbox Series S/X thread in the console section. I probably would've preferred to play it on the PC, but since it's stuck on Epic Games, I'd rather not. (I don't really mind Epic Games Store, but I just prefer having all of my stuff on Steam.)

Anyway, I've sunk about 55 hours into Immortals: Fenyx Rising so far, and that includes completing everything with the exception of the final quest, which is a "point of no return" style quest. (In other words, complete everything you want to complete before doing it.) Honestly, I think the game is fine overall. I actually tried to play Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, but I just couldn't get into it, and obviously with the aforementioned play time, that wasn't really an issue here.

Here are some thoughts on the game:

• Too much reliance upon physics for puzzles. This is something that lead to a bit of frustration for me. While the puzzles worked the vast majority of the time, there were times where the physics just didn't work in my favor, and it caused problems. For example, the game has pressure pads that require a specific amount of weight to unlock them. In one puzzle, the pad was inaccessible through iron grates, but I could cause a block to fall onto it. I did that, but the block fell at a bad angle, causing it to not land on the pad properly, which meant the pad did not activate. It took a bunch of fiddling with Herakles's Strength to get the pad to work. There's also this downright AWFUL puzzle in one vault involving a wooden ball that gets pushed around by vents, and you have to hit a lever to cause a pillar to rise up and launch the ball up onto a ramp and into another area. Although, as mentioned below, if you have the ability to charge Hephaestus's Hammer, you can launch wooden balls like that yourself.
• Very little gating. One important thing to know about Immortals is that it almost has a bit of Metroidvania in it. You gain Godly Powers throughout the game, and these powers also have upgrades. (These are mostly achieved through upgrades via Coins of Charon, which come from Mythic challenges.) While these abilities appear to simply be attacks on paper, they actually allow for various other interactions and traversal. For example, Ares Wrath serves as a vertical boost since it launches you up in the air (and can be used while already in the air). Also, Hephaestus's Hammer can knock around any non-stone boulders. (The game has wooden balls/boulders that are used for puzzles.) Athena's Charge can be used to pass through lasers. Most of these are not explained to you (with the exception of the laser traversal, which is a specific upgrade), and they are sometimes required to attain a chest in a Vault of Tartaros. The game will tell you that you lack a Godly Power when you enter the vault, but that's it. Awkwardly enough, you can sometimes cheese vaults due to having an ability. I was doing a vault on the last island, and I circumvented and entire portion by using the hammer to knock the ball back one platform.
• Awkward control scheme. This is an issue that I've had for a while with Ubisoft's open-world games. My biggest complaint is how they use RB and RT for attacks, which eventually becomes so uncomfortable. Google (mobile) actually suggested an article to me the other day where the author also got tired of the controls and spent a while trying to figure out the best way to remap them as the game has a good amount of button reuse.
• Male Fenyx is too whiny. Honestly, I changed to a female because I couldn't stand the male character anymore. Although, there are no limits to customization, which means you could have the male body build with the female voice, or a female with a big, bushy beard. But while it sounds like an odd complaint to have, it makes it harder to relate to the hero when he just complains all the time about his situation. It reminds me of the problem that the Green Lantern movie had where Hal Jordan had awesome powers, but kept complaining about them until the climax of the movie.
• Lacks good RPG-like customization. The problem is that the weapons and armor in the game aren't that interesting. Each item provides the exact same amount of damage/defense, and the only differentiation is in the perk that's provided. Also, you'll find that a vast majority of the chests that you get in the game are simply skins for an armor or weapon that you already have. I don't think the game needs to be like Skyrim, but it would be nice to have some more depth.
• Lacks some helpful features. The game has a fairly basic gearing system. Everything provides a defense or attack amount, and then some sort of perk. The problem is that these perks are sometimes great but situational. For example, one perk allows you to deal +damage to an undamaged foe, which is great for stealth attacks; however, it does nothing after that point. It would be great if the game allowed for user-defined armor sets that can be saved and swapped, and somewhat importantly, it should also save customization options. (Some of those helms are quite ugly.)
• King's Peak is really annoying. I think this kind of speaks for itself. The whole freezing mechanic, which drains your stamina, is not fun. It also includes one of the most unintuitive open-world puzzles in the game.