What a month and what an end of 2020 is Ubisoft. As of this writing, it’s not been 30 days since the mighty Watch Dogs: Legion launched, a few weeks after the groundbreaking Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. Both games were very strong releases through franchise companies that were well established in the industry and they got huge hits in the first few weeks of sales.
But the French company still had a letter to put on the table. A bolder idea, his project formerly known as Gods & monsters, now and officially renamed Immortals: Fenyx Rising. A proposal for action and adventure that approaches Greek mythology with new perspectives. But what are these immortals really?
typhoon, Gea’s Titan son, is freed from his prison with one goal: to destroy Zeus and claim the throne of Olympus in order to reshape the world in his opinion by destroying the barrier that separates the tartare (or underworld) from us. During the battle, the Olympian gods seem on the verge of defeat, so Zeus seeks the help of the titan Prometheus, who is chained to a mountain, to fight the monster together.
Prometheus agrees to only help if Zeus wins a bet: he predicts that a mortal hero will defeat Typhon. If the mortal doesn’t, Prometheus will help Zeus defeat Typhon. But when the mortal finally succeeds, Zeus must free Prometheus. Since Zeus believes that humans are useless, he proudly accepts the challenge. This is where the narrative / dialogue between Zeus and Prometheus begins, which remains constant throughout the game and in which the Titan tells the story Fenyx, a young storyteller and second-class squire traveling with her brother, a hero of the Trojan War. For reasons unknown, she ends up on a deserted beach where all of her companions and her brother appear transformed into stone statues, and Fenyx vows to return them to their natural state. Under this premise, the adventure through the Golden Island, home of the gods of Olympus, begins.
We stop here to review one of the things that caught our eye the most about Immortals: Fenyx Rising and one of its trademarks: its satirical and comedic tone. Despite its epic conception, the game has a deep comical and humorous component, precisely characterized by the conversation between Zeus and Prometheus, and in keeping with the light-hearted “cartoon” style of its visual design. Zeus is a filthy old man who constantly alludes to his lust and passion for wine, while Prometheus tells the story with patience and reproaches against the former.
Against this tone contrasts the naivety with which Fenyx faces every challenge. She is a heroine (can you? Choose the gender At first, however, it appears to be feminine, and this is how we will use it during the analysis.) He discovers his way of the hero who helps the gods of Olympus to regain their power, to unite them and Defeat the typhoon. To do this, you must first equip yourself with your equipment: the different types of swords, axes and bows each have different aspects and passive abilities, so we can combine different items of equipment according to our fighting style or promote the same set. And then there are the wings.
Why the golden islandThe vast expanse of forests, meadows, mountains and temples where the gods rule is very difficult to traverse on foot or even on a mountain. We will go through dozens of places such as cities, temples and caves thanks to the mobility Daedalus wings, the counterpart to parasailing from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. In order to discover all his secrets and defeat all the monsters that escaped Tartarus, Fenyx must climb, swim, jump … The options for exploring and confronting the environment follow the same dynamic as in Hyrule. There will be dozen of secondary activities around the world where equipment can be obtained or materials upgraded for it. They are the divine challenges that Daedalus created across the island to test the worth of the heroes who roamed them. There are different types: playing melodies on giant lyres, constellations, archery …
Y. It is nice to spend hours and hours exploring the island and in search of those puzzles and riddles with a very successful design that seldom make you feel stuck. This is where the game was most worthwhile, as there are a variety of puzzles and very creative mechanisms to tackle them. Some sound like Zelda to us, others are new and very original. Furthermore (at least in the PC version that we tested in the analysis) we did not notice any delays or graphical errors at any point, which is surprising for an open world title with these characteristics.
To be a hero we have to find a suitable enemy. Some of the creatures and ghosts of the classic heroes best known to the popular imagination have escaped Tartarus, such as: the Nemean lion, Medusa or Cerberus, the three-headed guardian of the door to the underworld. And we can deal with an agile combat system based on three elements: sword for light attacks, ax for heavy attacks and bows for ranged attacks. Maybe it was luck, or maybe it has been oversimplified a bit in that regard because the fights are usually pretty straightforward once you master the mechanics of perfect dodge and counterattack where you become invulnerable not only for a split second, but also slow down time (We saw it in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla too. The next hit gives you a strength bonus. As if that wasn’t enough, there are some special techniques like the wrath of Ares or the onslaught of Athenathat we can resist to make a powerful attack. This way we can defeat even colossal enemies like the hydra or the giants, and the feeling of triumph permeates us when we see them fall. There are some bosses whose movements don’t follow any previous pattern and whose strength can defeat us with a few blows, and there they will make us sweat a lot, but they are less seen than we would have liked.
We have several indicators on the screen (maybe too many, although there is an option to partially hide them) of health, potions we can make with natural ingredients, and special exploration and combat skills. We have an ohmmeter that we have to monitor with the wings while climbing or gliding and that we can improve with the rays of Zeus. These shards of power can be found in the chambers of Tartarus, a kind of mini-dungeon where we have to use our skills to solve puzzles and platforms until we reach the object we want. Does that sound familiar to you? It’s hard not to remember the shrines in Hyrule.
Much of the adventure hours will be devoted to opening chests of equipment and materials or looking for items that will help us improve our strength. ambrosia It is distributed on the map as a collector’s item and increases health. The Adamantine Fragments increase the power and passivity of weapons and armor, and we will improve the divine abilities with the Coins of Charon obtained by solving environmental puzzles and challenges like bow, lyre or speed. There are other unique passive type skills that are mentioned blessinggranted to us by the gods when we help them regain their strength during the adventure. Use the Hall of Gods as the central point and base for operations where we have the elements to improve the statistics by spending the points and materials we have harvested. The wonderful musical note is from the classical Greek instrument soundtrack composed by Gareth Coker, Famous for composing the scores for Halo Infinite, Ori and the Blind Forest and its sequel Ori and the Will of the Wisps.
Let’s go bluntly and say it loud and clear: Breath of the Wild is one of the parents of this creature. The similarities with the Nintendo masterpiece will be evident and constant, and not hidden in the game itself. Is that really a problem? Not on its own, but it’s important to highlight the parallelism (for better and for worse) between both works. Since this is such a distinct “open air adventure” style that has been so successful and loving by the players, it’s the same that we’ll see more titles inspired by it in the next few years. And who doesn’t want more games like this? It is clear that it is commonplace in the industry to take inspiration from previous titles and mechanics. Perhaps we are even facing one of the first representatives of a new genre, the BreathoftheWildlike
