Immortal: Unchained, our review

Good idea minus the execution!

The arrival of a new title in Souls Like sauce no longer surprises anyone. Immortal: Unchained, developed by the Swedish studio Toadman Interactive, is the latest exponent of the genre to try to offer, in a different light, his own interpretation of what made Dark Souls so special in 2011. An action RPG set in a sci-fi universe with a focus on ranged combat. While the concept itself sounds really interesting, sadly the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Immortal: Unchained isn't a terrible game, but it's not great either.

Screen

To say that Immortal: Unchained's plot is convoluted would be an understatement. The universe is on the verge of collapse, a catastrophic event threatens to end life as we know it, and it is up to us, a "living weapon", to prevent this from happening. This is just the tip of the iceberg, however.

“The Cosmos is collapsing and your job is to try to save it. No pressure then. "

The introduction of the game transports an enormous amount of information, to the point that we are still trying to understand what was said a few moments ago, while the video constantly continues to provide us with new details and background. Some may think that all of this is extremely informative and interesting, but it is quite the opposite of what made the mystery of the Souls universe so fascinating. In Immortal: Unchained, there are narrative situations that wouldn't look out of place in the Destiny universe. This isn't the kind of thing that fits a Souls Like title as we felt lost before we even pressed a button on the Dualshock 4.

gameplay

At the beginning of the game we can choose between 6 different Discipline classes: Hound, Vandal, Marauder, Wanderer, Marksman and Mercenary. Despite the fact that each game class offers a different approach, the appearance of the characters and the too summary explanations do everything to confuse us making it difficult to understand their differences and peculiarities. Dispassionate advice, before starting the main campaign, select the character and its class, do a short game test in order to understand if that character can actually be for you or not. Once our virtual alter ego has been chosen, we will be able to customize it by selecting the skin tone, hair style, gender, tattoos etc. Customization is pretty simple and basic.

A Souls Like Shooter

Immortal, to stand out from the crowd, focuses heavily on ranged combat. Everything takes place in the third person, not unlike a real shooter. Down-facing scope, flip to dodge attacks and a single basic melee attack button. Pressing down on the right analog stick allows you to cling to an enemy, making precise shots much easier to land. However, when we aim towards the viewpoints, we have better control and will therefore be able to hit the weak spots of an enemy.

Most of the fights basically involve dodging the attacks of one or more enemies (there is no defense shield), and then attempting to hit them from behind to cause greater damage; this includes many of the boss encounters in the game. By holding down the attack button, it is also possible to make a charged shot which, however, consumes the relative energy bar. These attacks are different depending on the weapon we are using, such as a stronger flurry of blows, or an ice blast that helps stun enemies temporarily.

The combat is all in all fun and when the game mechanics work, it is also very satisfying. Unfortunately, there are too many frustrating design choices that negatively impact the overall gaming experience. Fast Travel, for example, takes too long to unlock, and the player is forced to go back an entire level once completed. Also, the hand-to-hand combat is imprecise and slow, with only one button usable for melee weapons - so we don't feel like recommending a game played exclusively with hand-to-hand attacks, as it is by no means Immortal's strong point.

What makes it a Souls Like is the difficulty

As in all Souls Like, our character is able to die in the blink of an eye. Enemies can deal massive damage before we know it. Combat is practically limited to avoiding enemy attacks and then riddling them with bullets. There are far too many ways to be epic yet frustratingly stunned. Bosses and even basic enemies are often able to stun us in such a way that we can't help but watch as we receive one more hit and another, often causing our death.

Immortal: Unchained is a difficult game with no difficulty options to adjust the experience. Unfortunately, this difficulty often comes in the form of an unfair experience. Enemies from a distance can attack us without limits of range, but our character's bullets seem to cause minimal damage beyond a certain distance, even when they visibly hit the enemy.

Immortal borrows other mechanics from the Souls. Rather than fields we have obelisks to save the game in progress - reaching one of these will save the game, reset all basic items and health, but reset all enemy spawns. Killing enemies provides our character with 'Bits' (anime), which are nothing more than the in-game currency. Upon death we will drop all Bits, but we will keep all found items. Reaching the place where we perished will allow us to collect any lost Bits, but if we die trying to recover them, those Bits will disappear forever. Fans of the genre know what to expect.

Obelisks allow the player to spend Bits to upgrade the character / equipment. The player has full freedom on the statistics to be updated, so we can create the character as we want. We tested multiple classes and found the play styles of each to be surprisingly different, which we certainly appreciated. While a force-based character might offer strong melee strikes and options for heavier weapons like shotguns, their reload speed could be very slow with a lower energy level to prevent the player from launching too many force attacks. . However, a Rifle-wielding Hound could inflict negligible melee damage, but reload times are much faster. Each character then forces the player to adapt to their strengths and weaknesses.

Graphically not great

Level design is not something unforgettable. Immortal's levels are lackluster and sometimes flat. The game zones simply lack distinctive points of interest, leading the player to easily get lost. The game images, both technically and artistically, do little to stand out from the crowd.

The interface is all too basic, the suggestions are simple pop-ups of text strings. Despite the solid dubbing work, the storyline is largely negligible. The background music is also appropriate but largely forgettable. From a performance point of view they are even worse. Crashes on PS4 Pro and a few bugs too many make Immortal sometimes unplayable. Sudden freezes of one to five full seconds make it impossible to take any action. This usually happens in areas that contain an obelisk, and since we often die in Immortal this problem is something we will have to address fairly regularly. It's totally unacceptable, to the point where we were surprised that the game was released in this state.