With razor sharp fights, Godfall is best when a boss enters the arena. These enemies have good fights and urge you to use everything in your arsenal. The back and forth against these titans is intense and tedious and requires speed, skill and strategy. If you ever deal one final blow, you’ll be rewarded with a feast of loot that rains in a dazzling shower of next-generation particle effects. The gear you get is almost always beneficial, giving you more powerful weapons and currencies that you will need to upgrade your existing gear. What comes next is a daunting amount of reps leading to the next exciting boss encounter.
The flesh on Godfall’s bones is little more than warriors with swords, but the visual stylization about that stance is beautiful and different. You will never see a humanoid face. Each character is equipped with garish armor, usually shaped after some type of animal. These steel suits are stunningly designed and convey the game’s unique blend of fantasy and science fiction. The story begins with an eye-catching film in which thousands of troops clash on the battlefield. Surprisingly intimate, she pitches your character, a fallen king named Orin, against his power-hungry brother Macros, who will destroy the world in order to become a god.
To achieve macros, you must first take out all of his lieutenants – each one comes out of the woodworks after completing a certain number of story missions. At this point, the narrative quickly loses its pulse and never recovers. It is dominated by boring conversations with an AI being and ends with one of the most anti-climactic cliffhangers I have ever seen.
The mission designs and small open world environments are equally lifeless and require tedious steps required to unlock the next boss encounter. The worlds are very detailed, but there isn’t much variety in the flora or architecture, and it all blends into one snapshot. You spend a lot of time following the same paths for different mission objectives, and eventually you find that you can bypass any encounter and just center them on the goal. After a couple of missions in the same area, I haven’t thought twice about hoofing it. I’ve gotten into the habit of getting to the heart of the matter quickly.
The only benefit of fighting against the same groups of enemies in these areas is gaining experience, which ultimately gives skill points. Again, Godfall does a good job with high-fiving players with statistical and functional bumps that instantly make a difference and make Orin a more powerful force on the battlefield. The common enemy strains perish quickly but are still fun, especially if you focus on weakening their guard to open them up to flashy finishers. You can also use Soulshatter, which allows you to redeem damage that allows you to decimate an opponent, causing them to explode in a formidable spray. No matter how you go about it, the game will force you to switch between two weapons as the damage one does amplifies the other. You have five weapon types in total, and they are all fun as you will feel different with different time slots and benefits.
A little variety is also associated with Valorplates, which are complete armor sets that convey slightly different combat skills, but are not enough to really change the way you play. The valorplates all look amazing but have their own loads of their own, which can be a bit of a pain as you have to take the gear off if you want to use it on another suit.
Each mission consists of three difficulties, with the highest limiting the number of attempts you get. On the lowest difficulty, if you die you will come back to life in an instant and the damage you did to the enemy will remain (although the game will sometimes fail and still reset). The higher level of difficulty is best played with two friends and is also the place where Godfall’s boss fights really shine. A lot of fun is coordinating strategies and trying to lure an enemy onto your path in preparation for an undisputed attack from a friend.
Regardless of whether you combine two similarly tiered characters or a strong one with a newbie, the fights are well balanced for everyone involved, which either increases the damage to the player or makes the fight more difficult. Prey is also individualized. I was impressed with how well the cooperative play worked, even though you can’t make matchmaking when your friends are not around. You need to team up with people you know. The campaign features plenty of immersion missions, a robust, co-op endgame, and an endless tower of trials that pumps out excellent loot (again, recycling an environment you’ve already explored).
As with most loot-based games, you’ll spend a lot of time in Godfalls menus, equipping new swords and upgrading items so enemies can really feel your anger. Just know that it is a game that lives in the moment of battle and dies if you try something else, whether it draws players into the worlds or makes them care about the characters and the story.
If you’re looking for a looter slasher that is all about the stat bumps and the joy of seeing enemies suffer the enchantments you’ve worked hard to unlock, Godfall has a ton of them and is backed by a damn good combat system . It hits that one note and holds it from start to finish.
