Review for Immortals Fenyx Rising. Game for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series X, the video game was released on 03/12/2020
Immortals Fenyx Rising is the kind of game that intrigues everyone: lovers of the open world, those who appreciate RPG elements, those who play action games, those players who are fascinated by mythology and those who like a graphic style that does not aim to photorealism. Unfortunately, however, these titles are not always trusted, and for this reason they fail to break through, neither at launch nor after several months of release.
Will Immortals Fenyx Rising be able to convince, perhaps also thanks to the name of Ubisoft? Find out in our review.
Hunting for Some
The deities who once populated Olympus and looked at the world from above have disappeared, captured by the evil Typhon, son of Gaea. Typhon, after having freed himself from the imprisonment to which he was forced by Zeus and his companions, swears revenge against the Hellenic Pantheon. From this premise the usual story of the "predestined" who will have to save the situation develops in a way that is anything but original except for a few small twists towards the end. Immortals Fenyx Rising puts us in the shoes of Fenyx, a character who will find himself in the role of hero, destined to save all the Gods. Our story will be narrated by Prometheus and Zeus, voiceovers that will accompany us during the adventure explaining the elements of lore, mythology and game mechanics, while making jokes that will often make us smile.
The first thing to do will be customize our protagonist through a minimal and very simple editor, but still able to create great characters. The first hour and a half or so serves as a prologue to the adventure, and here we will find ourselves collecting all the objects and weapons given to us directly by the Gods to face the threat of Typhon and free the trapped Gods. We will also get to know Hermes, who will help us empower ourselves and introduce us to our mission. The plot, as already mentioned, does not aim either at originality or at twists. The narration runs for about 25 hours (with only a few secondary events) without major surprises, and it is certainly not the story that pushes us to continue, but the desire to explore and have fun in the game world. Armed with sword, ax, bow, armor and so on and so forth, we will be ready to accompany Fenyx towards her destiny, or it would be better to say Fate.
Password: fun
The first impact with Immortals Fenyx Rising cannot fail to remember other great titles, from the classic Ubisoft-style open world, to the recent The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It is above all the stylistic and gameplay similarities with the Nintendo title that get noticed from the first minutes of the game: Fenyx will be able, for example, to climb any wall losing stamina points; even the cartoon graphics, the colors, the style of the enemies and characters and some mechanics seem to refer to Breath of the Wild on several occasions. But be careful, this is not necessarily a flaw: the Ubisoft title could in fact be an excellent solution for all those players who are curious to try the gameplay of Zelda but who, not owning Nintendo Switch, cannot live the latest adventure of Link. If with the statues to climb to unlock pieces of the map Immortals seems to resume the classic Ubisoft open world mechanics, we immediately notice how the development team wanted to deviate from the usual gameplay solutions. In this way, Immortals Fenyx Rising is a title inspired by other superior productions, but with an excellent personality, able to not make it become just a "bad copy" of these.
In Immortals Fenyx Rising we find ourselves in an incredibly rich open world full of things to do, able to get us lost between events, puzzles and side missions, as we try to reach the next main mission. In addition to these tasks, the fantastic setting set up by Ubisoft, inspired by Greek mythology and filled with areas to visit, secrets to discover and views to admire, will push us to explore. Even the least used to exploration - those who usually go straight to the main missions - will inevitably get lost in the game world. This is divided into five different zones, each of which is dedicated to a deity and built according to its characteristics: for example, in the area dedicated to Hephaestus, God of the forge, there will be many metal constructions and robot enemies. In the one dedicated to Aphrodite, however, everything will be green and rich in vegetation, with beautiful spring views.
Immortals Fenyx Rising is a title that combines action elements with RPG elements, a bit like the last few chapters of the Assassin's Creed saga. We then move from different weapons with statistics to be enhanced, armor that increase strength, rather than stamina, to then arrive at the classic skill tree to be unlocked with the "Coins of Charon" that we will find in the game world. We will also have four "divine powers" to unlock, dedicated to different divinities, which will allow us, at the cost of a few points of stamina, to get by in the most complex situations.
Especially in the early hours, the game will put us in quite a bit of difficulty with fights that, with the increase of the enemies to face at the same time, force the player to commit much more than one might initially think. The only small flaw of the fights is the waning difficulty as the player's abilities increase and Fenyx's many upgrades, with the exception of the bosses and mini-bosses which always remain challenging enough to beat. To help us in our battles we will think of Phosphorus, a bird that emerged directly from the underworld whose life we will save and which will reward us with its loyalty; he too, moreover, will be customizable with different skills and statistics. The fights, already after the first three hours, begin to get a little easier, but also surprisingly interesting and very fun, as they will require a good dose of skill, concentration and mastery of all skills, first of all the parry, useful for stunning enemies.
Traveling around the map, it often happens to run into areas that keep secrets or rewards such as, for example, chests. To get them we will first have to face some of Typhon's creatures, and then solving environmental puzzles, the most successful element of the whole production: their complexity will test the ingenuity of the player, who will have to think and make many attempts before finding the solution. We hardly happened to find two puzzles even remotely similar; the variety of the latter is amazing, and for this it will never be annoying or boring to stop to solve one. In addition to the resources or rewards to upgrade Fenyx, solving a particularly complex puzzle will give you great satisfaction, a more than valid reason to explore every corner of the map.
Then there are the "Crypts of Tartarus", or areas outside the map where we can go to earn the lightning of Zeus, useful for strengthening stamina. Again, to complete the crypts we will have to overcome several interesting challenges of logic and skill.
Speaking of upgrades: the Hall of the Gods, which will serve as the central hub, will be the place to go to improve our stats and active skills. The passive ones will instead be unlocked as the main quest progresses, with each deity that will give us three. In the Hall of the Gods we will find Hermes who will always be ready to help us (or almost) together with the Gods whom we will free from the clutches of Typhon. The divine messenger will also offer us various tasks and secondary missions in exchange for resources, and will act as a merchant (like the good God of commerce) for microtransactions.
As already mentioned, however, the Hall of the Gods will be used above all to improve our character: exploring the island we will find many resources that we can then use to enhance ourselves. With ambrosia we will increase the maximum health, with the lightning of Zeus the stamina, with the coins of Charon new abilities will be unlocked, and with the other resources Fenyx will be able to improve weapons, armor and potions. The latter are of four types: those to regenerate health, those for stamina, those to temporarily enhance the attack and those for defense.
Tastes of next gen
It certainly cannot be said that with Immortals Fenyx Rising we have fully entered the next gen. The graphics are cartoonish and the style certainly does not point to photorealism. Not to mention that it is a cross-gen title, so it cannot allow the new consoles to show their full power. Graphically, however, it is a very good game, which we recommend playing in the "performance" mode at 60fps. In the PlayStation 5 version, we were also able to try out the new fast loading, DualSense features and Tempest 3D audio: the game takes about 5 seconds to start or load a game, and the same goes for fast travel, finally quick for real. As for the audio, we played with simple headphones connected to the controller, without Sony's Pulse 3D, and it must be said that Tempest technology also works like this with excellent results, managing to involve the player and allowing to perceive the direction of origin of the sounds.
In Immortals Fenyx Rising the Dualsense is exploited, although not as in Astro's Playroom, in an effective way: during the climbs we will perceive the steps of Fenyx, in the water we will feel the vibrations of the waves and the blows delivered to the enemies will make the controller vibrate very lightly. Adaptive triggers, on the other hand, are called into question when you need to shoot an arrow with a bow or when carrying heavy objects such as rocks. In the first case the resistance will be very minimal, but sufficient to make us perceive the arc voltage. In the second case, however, we will feel, based on the heaviness of the transported object, a resistance of the trigger that will increase with the loss of stamina. Let's say that we are still far from seeing the potential of Dualsense exploited to the maximum, but surely this is the right way.
If at first glance it looks like a clone of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, as many painted it before its release, this Immortals Fenyx Rising is so much more. It entertains for hours and hours without even letting you realize it, it's the classic title from "I do the last mission and turn it off ..." and then two hours later you're still there repeating the same phrase. A game that prefers a simpler and lighter style, with humorous elements that are always hilarious, managing to be a title of great impact, instead of competing for the best graphics, the smallest details in animations, deep and heavy stories. Ubisoft has finally broken away from its usual open world mechanics to give life to a game that may not be perfect, but which in its simplicity manages to glue the player in front of the screen, making him relax and intelligently putting him to the test at the same time.
► Immortals Fenyx Rising is an Adventure type game developed and published by Ubisoft for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series X, the video game was released on 03/12/2020
