I have no small amount of admiration for Tom Happ, developer of Axiom Verge. I must have heard nonstop from both my programming friends and read all about how difficult it is to pull off a Metroidvania, especially as a first title. A lot like a mystery novel there’s a ton of moving parts, you have to start at the end and work backwards, make sure every piece of the puzzle comes together in a coherent way and make it a fun ride for your audience. Axiom Verge deserves some hefty praise for pulling all of these things off.
Axiom Verge clearly takes its queues from the era of 8 bit. Not only does it strongly recall Metroid and Castlevania, it’s got a few of the shooting elements of Metal Slug and Contra. I certainly wouldn’t call it as difficult as that latter set of games, but it does aspire to be a little controller breaking at times. There is a strong emphasis on combat, with a ton of unique guns and tools that will mess enemies up just as much as they’ll help you solve puzzles. This sets the game apart from some of its contemporaries where you’ll often find yourself with a mix of goodies that provide either utility or new arsenal. Axiom is more concerned with loading you up with newer and cooler guns.
The graphics instantly remind one of Metroid, and an untrained eye may call it a rip off, but while the aesthetic is strongly reminiscent of its forebear, Axiom is undoubtedly its own world. The maps often reminded me of artist renditions of Lovecraftian cities such as R’lyeh and fantasy takes of a Necropolis, with a ton of archaic technology and vaguely oceanic formations that give the game its own vibe. For that matter the exploration in the game truly is nostalgic. It’s not immediately clear where you’re meant to go or what you’re meant to do next (despite the game giving you a “guide”), but that’s part of what I originally loved about Metroidvania titles in the first place. That sense of wonder, asking myself “what’s beyond this pulsating wall?” or “I wonder what’s up there.” Axiom definitely rewards the player for wanting to try out a weapon or tool in an undefined place by giving them power ups and even whole new areas to explore.
There’s also a couple of modern sensibilities that come with Axiom Verge. While enemies can be difficult and traps troublesome, you never have to worry about losing a ton of progress. Save points are spaced just well enough that you’ll almost always find a new one just before the pressure really gets to you. You’ll also never lose “all” your progress, while death means quite a bit of backtracking, the game at least saves all the items you collected. Enemies will also wait after you progressed a couple of screens before you respawn, while the game saves automatically either upon death or needing to quit. It allowed for the fun stress of a Metroid title without the actual fear of losing everything by not reaching a save in time.
The guns are a blast to play with, from timed explosives to electrical discharges. You get power drills and the ability to hack enemies and the environment, yes, hack them, making them act bizarre or easier to contend with (or sometimes harder). The soundtrack is composed of pretty harsh chiptunes that both nicely recall the haunting themes of Metroid and Castlevania while fitting in with the hard world Axiom sets up. It all comes together very nicely to create the retro feel of the game.
Alas it’s not perfect. While it was hard for me to call foul on the game’s difficulty, there were several spots where enemy or trap hitboxes were a bit off and drove me to a premature death. It wasn’t always immediately clear how to defeat certain enemies, cycling through a ton of effects until I found what seemed to do an appropriate amount of damage. The story was frankly confusing, and while I understand it’s intentionally cryptic, I couldn’t even get a grip on the basic set up of the game. Our hero is some kind of scientist working on a dangerous experiment in New Mexico, something goes wrong, Axiom Verge happens, but it was hard for me to fully grasp even the basics of the story.
The bosses also could have used a bit more thoughtfulness. It never felt I had to do much more than watch a shooting pattern, dodge, and shoot back, which is about how you deal with every enemy in the game. The boss designs also didn’t feel as well put together as the rest of the world, while the stages gave me this haunting sea like world, I would find myself up against a boss that looked like a, well, cybernetic human colon. They felt a little silly and out of place against everything else that was so well crafted.
Even so it’s hard to knock down points from this game, especially when you consider it’s all the efforts of one man. I would certainly congratulate them if they tackled a Metroidvania and it turned out to be an only mediocre, or even a poor game, but the fact he also turned around something that is of strong quality naturally adds to the impressiveness of his feat. If you’re feeling sad we might never, ever, EVER get another proper Metroid or Castlevania (and I hate to be a downer but it’s entirely possible) then I would look to Axiom Verge to satisfyingly fill that hole.
