Inspiration can be tough to come by. However, one glitch discovered during Assassin’s Creed development has led to Immortals Fenyx Rising’s foundation. Previously named Gods and Monsters, Immortals Fenyx Rising was born from a rouge glitch that turned an enemy into a giant cyclops. Most would consider such a thing to be irregular, but the team behind these games has used it to their advantage to make something marvelous.
Story
When Typhon escapes his imprisonment and takes his revenge on the Olympian gods, Zeus resorts to the confined Prometheus for his aid in defeating the monstrous beast. Instead of willingly helping Zeus, Prometheus makes a wager with him that if a mortal can defeat Typhon in battle, Zeus must release him from captivity. If the mortal happens to fail, then Prometheus will agree to help Zeus in taking Typhon down. As Zeus believes that humans are hopeless beings that can’t even protect themselves, he agrees to the wager before him.
The game revolves around Fenyx, a winged demigod who is on a quest to save the Olympian gods and defeat Typhon. Like with any story, there’s a narrative; Zeus and Prometheus will talk throughout the game while you’re busy trying to achieve your objectives. Zeus takes the role of an almighty comedian, where most of his lines live up to that title. The chatter between the two gods helps sustain interest and makes the game more entertaining while exploring the vast lands. Without it, traversing the lands might have burned out its flame after heavy hours of movement throughout the world.
Each troubled god has their own story for you to dive into and a reasonable amount of content to clear. Each tale is distinctive from the other because of the nature of the god. You can expect weird, shocking, and hilarious stories, all voiced in English with phenomenal Greek accents. The Greek accents are a nice touch because of the type of game Immortals Fenyx Rising is, and it never becomes a nuisance to listen to them. Unfortunately, the same is not true if the cutscenes are replayed for a second or third time. Although you will be able to skip some cutscenes, the option isn’t available for all of them.
Character Customization
When you begin the game, you’ll have to build your character. You can choose your hairstyle, hair color, body type, skin color, facial features, facial hair, eye color, and voice. The game doesn’t explicitly let you choose between a gender; however, the body type you’ll have to choose between can make it obvious. All of the options are accessible regardless of the body type you choose, including voice.
There’s a sufficient number of options to choose between when deciding your character’s appearance. The facial features will surely appeal to the players who would rather have a war-style theme to their character. The hairstyles available cater to people who want long or short hair. There’s even an option to rock a bald look if that’s your preference. For a Nintendo Switch game, the customization options available are a lot.
Gameplay
Immortals Fenyx Rising is a 3D open-world action-adventure game where stamina means everything. It’s an essential strength you’ll need to overcome the various trials the game throws at you. Whether it be using your godly powers in combat or burning your energy to get to an area you couldn’t before, you’ll eventually realize how crucial a large capacity of it will be beneficial to the gameplay.
Exploring the World
The world of Immortals Fenyx Rising is large, consisting of several regions. It’s an open-world environment where you’re free to explore, glide, and climb to your heart’s content. Each area has its own fast-travel point to make traveling between regions convenient. Traversing the lands feels great regardless of the method you choose to do so. A lot of detail has been put into the character’s motion. For example, getting exhausted due to the lack of stamina or making a landing after soaring through the sky.
The stamina bars and stamina potions you possess determine your character’s ability to sprint, climb, and glide. There will be areas inaccessible to you until you’ve acquired a suitable number of stamina bars or potions. Wide areas of open water will be tough to swim across, and high mountains will make it difficult to reach the top. As you clear more dungeons and obtain more of Zeus’s lightning bolts, you’ll be able to boost your max stamina and conquered these challenges that you couldn’t before. The game allows you to play at your own pace, and it does a splendid job at it. There will be a lot of objectives to tackle before you’re bothered with the more difficult tasks.
From time to time, Typhon will speak his mind and express his rage. It’s a nice touch, but the lines he utters becomes repetitive to the point where it becomes irritating. As he often talks throughout the game, it would have been better to give him more lines to help fix this. Zeus and Prometheus’ narrative can sometimes fall into the same category, but it’s a lot better to consume because they always have something new to say. Their short lines that can sometimes end faster than you’d like are to blame for this.
Farsight
A crucial part of the game will have you climbing to high places and using your Farsight ability. You do this to discover notable areas on the map. You can find these areas on your own while exploring the vast lands, but marking their location makes it much easier to find. Whether it be primary or side quests, story quests can only be tracked one at a time. It may seem like a hindrance at first as you can’t track everything in one sitting, but tracking another quest isn’t too complicated to make it one. Additionally, you’re given the freedom to place several colored pin locators to mark custom areas. This is helpful if you found an area you’ll like to revisit at a later time.
The Farsight ability takes the ‘hot and cold’ approach to discover areas on the map. You’ll have to position a cursor while your controller will vibrate the closer you get to a location to uncover. The ZR button appears as soon as you’re close enough and must be used to mark the area on the map. It gives off an excellent first impression but can get tedious having to use this ability repeatedly afterward, as there’s a fair share of areas to discover if you properly scan your surroundings.
Ridable Mounts
Traveling by foot or gliding through the air aren’t the only methods of getting around in the game. There is a large number of ridable mouths you can tame in the game. They all have their cosmetic variations; however, it’s not the only noticeable difference between them. Their stamina bars also vary, and each has a natural habitat on the map. The number of their designs is large enough for most players to favor a handful, and they’re not only simple color variations thrown into the mix.
Taming mouths in Immortals Fenyx Rising has a bit of work to it. As soon as you encounter one, you’ll need to crouch, slowly approach it, and press the interact button before trigging an exclamation mark. The game makes it convenient to summon one of these helpful creatures after taming them. It’s also simple to swap between your favorites, and it’s always exhilarating riding one of these four-legged animals in this game. Unfortunately, you can’t summon them in every area of the world map, but this has been reasonably handled by the developers.
Foraging
As you’re able to craft potions in Immortals Fenyx Rising, you’ll need to collect ingredients in the world. Unlike other games that put a decent amount of focus on foraging, this game would have made it painful in the long-run if not for its mid-game mechanics. There’s no joy from harvesting these ingredients one by one. Thankfully, upgrades and mounts will make mass collecting attractive.
Combat
There are a variety of ways to attack in Immortals Fenyx Rising. You’re free to pick the poison that suits your playstyle or use them all as you see fit. Each weapon has strengths and weaknesses. Using sword attacks open up fast-paced combat. Axe attacks are more powerful; however, they are also much slower. Bow and arrow attacks have the range to strike from safe areas. You can increase these weapons’ power at the Hall of the Gods in return for earning gems that defeated monsters drop.
It can get a bit worrying when fighting your first set of enemies in the game, but this changes as you progress further. It’s not because the combat isn’t enjoyable, but it might seem limited and simplistic until you’ve acquired more weaponry, skills, and godly powers. It’s not uncommon to start with simplistic combat in games, but it’s good that it hasn’t stayed consistent throughout the game. Combat shines more when you’re fighting off a horde of enemies and utilizing the various number of skills at your disposal.
Both land and airborne enemies await you in Immortals Fenyx Rising. The game offers multiple methods of efficiently dealing with these flying monsters. If you’re discouraged from shooting them down with your bow and arrow, you’ll be able to turn to your aerial sword and axe attacks, or take advantage of your godly powers to finish them off. It will, of course, take practice to master aerial combat, but once you do, these winged foes will be no match for your intimidating skills.
The developers have been generous with the level of customization offered in Immortals Fenyx Rising. Both weapons and armor possess perks. Because of this, one primary concern stands, and that is an unfavored gear having the preferrable perks. The game’s solution to combat this is by giving players the ability to change the gear’s visuals to another piece of equipment in their possession. That means you’ll be able to slay enemies in style with your preferred set of perks.
Skills and Godly Powers
The number of skills and godly powers available in the game shows that it is genuinely an AAA title. You’ll be able to harness the power of the gods and flex your skills against numerous enemies in the game. It feels fantastic combining these skills and godly abilities to form combos in battle. Still, sometimes you may also find yourself reusing the simple attacks repeatedly to achieve the same result. It’s easy to forget the button combos to utilize newfound moves, but you’ll always be able to relearn them by simply going to your inventory.
As previously mentioned, starting the game feels bare with the low number of skills you’ll possess. As you progress, you’ll eventually discover the real charm in battle. You’ll need to clear challenges set for you throughout the world to earn Coins of Charon and later spend them at the Hall of the Gods. The new skills and godly powers you’ll be able to wield will make combat drastically more entertaining. Attempting to unlock them all will require farming for more Coins of Charon, which means seeking out bonus treasure chests in puzzle dungeons and clearing challenges.
Boss Battles
Throughout the world, legendary bosses are itching for a fight. They’re more formidable than the usual enemies you’ll encounter in the game, are optional to engage in combat, and have rewards for conquering them. Fighting against these stronger opponents will truly test your metal to see how far you’ve progressed.
The final boss fight in the story campaign deserves its place as the last boss battle. It’s been done in a way that isn’t typically seen in games and can get you motivated yet also afraid of death. It might become irritating experiencing the fight repeatedly, but the game does warn you to be prepared for what’s to come before entering the dungeon of no return.
Puzzles and Challenges
Gliding through the sky and slaying countless beasts isn’t all that Immortals Fenyx Rising is about. You can solve many puzzle dungeons and challenges scattered throughout the world. Attaining the solutions will reward you with items that you can use to power up your character. These puzzles aren’t always a walk in the park, though. Patience will be vital as some will test your wits while others will require careful observation of your surroundings. You can clear some as quickly as a couple of minutes, while others can take a much longer time.
Some puzzle dungeons demand specific godly powers to clear them. As you unlock these divine powers with Coins of Charon, you’re not always going to be able to clear all of the dungeons you come across. You’re never going to have to worry about attempting an impossible task, though, thanks to a notice that appears when entering the dungeon. If you lack the godly power to complete the dungeon, the game will inform you of it, saving you the time you might have lost struggling to figure out the solution.
Some of the challenges to expect in Immortals Fenyx Rising are races where you’ll have to determine the best route to take and abilities to use, simple picture puzzles where you move the puzzle piece blocks, and archery where you shoot an arrow through several circular objects. Although they seem simplistic, not one strays far from being enjoyable. They can also get complex to tax the mind. The challenges the dungeons provide aren’t usually difficult, either. Those who love searching for useful objects to use toward puzzle-solving will have joy with the game.
Difficulty Modes
The game has many difficulty modes to cater to both casual and hardcore players. There are the Story and Easy modes for players who want to enjoy the game without overcoming its struggles. Slaying enemies will be a piece of cake, as well as clearing the tougher challenges in the game. Then there are the Normal and Hard difficulty modes; they provide a more formidable challenge with stronger foes and no myth challenge assistance in the latter mode. Finally, there’s the Nightmare difficulty, which you can only access after clearing your first playthrough of the game. You’ll find no handholding feats in this difficulty mode, and enemies will be at their strongest.
You can swap between difficulty modes while playing. The only time it doesn’t become available is when you’re not in a safe area; that means you’ll have to get away from the enemies that notice your existence or wait for a challenge to end. You also need to reload your game to the previous save point if you choose to change the difficulty mode. It’s perfect for those who want to understand how easy or difficult the game can be to adjust to your liking.
Increasing your health, stamina, and skills can make the game easier, although there will still be powerful foes roaming around who can deplete a large chunk of your HP. Additionally, there will be challenges that may be too difficult to complete, and lowering the difficulty mode can help with reaping the rewards. For example, one of these challenges will require that you shoot an arrow through several hoops. Missing one will result in failure; however, lowering the difficulty will make it much easier to clear this challenge.
Button Mapping
If you’re not happy with Immortals Fenyx Rising’s button configuration, there are settings available to change it. The current configuration isn’t too difficult to use and might be the optimal settings, but if you find a personal configuration more suitable, you have full control of button mapping. A reset button helps in case the day comes that you change your mind and wish to revert to the default settings.
New Game+
After clearing your first playthrough, New Game+ and the notorious Nightmare difficulty will become available. New Game+ in Immortals: Fenyx Rising lets you begin your adventure anew but also enables you to keep the majority of your progression. You will carry over all of your equipment, abilities, mounts, health, and stamina to a new save file.
Paid DLC
Immortals: Fenyx Rising comes in the form of a Standard Edition and a Gold Edition. The Gold Edition of the game gives players access to its Season Pass and additional exclusive DLC packs. Its Season Pass expands the story with three new post-game stories filled with epic puzzles to explore. In addition, the Season Pass gives access to a new quest, When the Road Gets Rocky.
Season Pass DLC:
- A New God
- Myths of the Eastern Realms
- The Lost Gods
The DLC was not played for this review, therefore it will not go in-depth about its contents. It’s pricey, so there’s a good chance of the additional content adding many more hours to rival that of the core game.
Graphics and Performance
A significant concern of open-world 3D games on the Nintendo Switch is how well it runs on the console. You can rest easy knowing that Immortals Fenyx Rising runs flawlessly for the most part on the Nintendo Switch. Its graphics did decline from its PlayStation counterpart, but it’s still visually gorgeous to the eye. It’s full of color and runs at a solid 60 FPS for the majority of the game. There’s never any lag when fighting hordes of enemies, which is a huge plus for anyone seeking fluid gameplay. There is a noticeable framerate drop when moving through areas sometimes. However, it never gets severe enough for the average player to notice.
Loading Screens
You’ll typically only see loading screens when launching the game, entering a puzzle dungeon, and fast traveling. Launching the game is accompanied by helpful tips to distract your mind from the wait; however, more background images set into the rotation would have made it a more pleasant experience. Entering dungeons, on the other hand, lets you play a short mini-game that serves no real purpose, although it can be entertaining to glide and collect the stars if you’re still early in the game.
Soundtrack
Gareth Coker is responsible for pumping life into Immortals Fenyx Rising’s soundtrack. He is the composer behind Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps. The soundtrack is filled with calming melodies perfect for adventure games and isn’t afraid to switch to something more upbeat to course the fire through your veins and get you ready for the heat of battle. He’s done an excellent job once again and has maintained his reputation for delivering high-quality music to yet another popular game.
Conclusion
Immortals Fenyx Rising isn’t a godlike title. However, it’s still capable of striking anyone with a jolt of excitement because of its engaging storytelling, a massive world to explore, entertaining combat, and fun puzzles to solve. It’s a game you’ll be able to easily invest over 40 hours in. Being forced to log into a Ubisoft account when you establish an Internet connection can become annoying for those who wish to refrain from doing so. Still, it does have its benefits and can make the experience more enjoyable.
Immortals Fenyx Rising gets a 9/10.
