Animal Gods Review

Animal Gods

Release: April 6, 2017
Publisher: Still Games
Developer: Still Games
Genre: Action, Genres, Indie, Role-playing
PEGI: 10+
Comments:

 

Comment

Wii U indie games are starting to become a rare thing. Whenever a new Wii U game comes out, I find myself smiling and hoping that its a good game. Anmal Gods for Wii U came out last week. I have been playing it for review and I’m finally ready to share with what I thought of the game.

The story in Animal Gods is too mysterious. There are no cutscenes in Animal Gods. Instead, you’ll be discovering the game’s story through diary entries and some dialogue. Animal Gods certainly doesn’t have the worst story I’ve seen on an Indie game, however it plays its secrets way too close to its vest. I’m still not sure what this game is about! And Animal God’s gameplay doesn’t help matters.

Animal Gods have a very non-linear structure to its story/gameplay. As the main character, you can wander into any dungeon thats open to you. In each dungeon, the gameplay is different. For instance, one dungeon you’ll be using a sword to fight enemies, while in another, you’ll be using a ‘cape’ ability to avoid obstacles! However, the differences in the dungeons are not enough to keep the gameplay interesting.

The enemies in Animal Gods are all defeated by timing your attack right. You have to figure out where an enemy will be in order to attack it. If you are hit by the enemy, you will die. I am not a fan of one-hit kills at all. I think they are very cheap and frustrating. Thankfully, there are a lot of checkpoints in this game, though it does get frustrating having to repeat things over and over just because an enemy or obstacle keeps defeating you.

The gameplay differences in the game do add variety to each dungeon, but because of the one-hit kills things get frustrating and boring fast. Unfortunely, not everything is perfect about the game’s controls either.

Animal Gods weapon controls are good, but the game is hampered by very slow and sluggish walking controls. You can use the analog stick or the D-Pad and the walking is just as slow either way. This is especially apparent on the world map. I am happy to report that Animal Gods has Off-TV picture and sound though. And the game does look good on both the TV and the gamepad.

The graphics in Animal Gods are good. I like the look of the main character, the world map, and the dungeons that are explored. My only minor complaint is that I wish that the main character wasn’t so small on the world map. Other than that, the graphics are definitly the best thing about Animal Gods.

The music in Animal Gods is not terrible. In fact, its pretty good. However, the game doesn’t have enough sound effects and the sound effects it does have are overpowered by the soundtrack (or just cuts out at times). Animal Gods is not a bad game overall, but its not a great one either.

Animal Gods isn’t a terrible game, but it could have been so much better. The story definitly could have used some cutscenes, the gameplay needed to be more linear, and a heart system would have been purfered to the one-hit kill. Also, the slow walking in the game makes traveling the world map and the dungeons a real pain.

Animal Gods, however, has good graphics that might fool you into thinking its a good game. This is definitely a case of the packaging (graphics and sound) being prettier than the whole. There is just so much untapped potential with this game! Ah, what could’ve been.

Thanks to Still Games for providing a copy of this game for review. Animal Gods is currently available on the Wii U eshop!

Positives

• Nice graphics
• Off-TV Play
• Good soundtrack

Negatives

• Story
• Frustrating Gameplay
• Sluggish walking
• Lack of sound effects

Trailer