Immortals Fenyx Rising - Preview, an adventure between mythology and dungeons

Immortals Fenyx Rising - Preview, an adventure between mythology and dungeons

In a world that goes on with Remake and Remastered (not that there is evil behind it), the courage to propose new IPs - albeit sometimes with decidedly inspired and imported game mechanics - now seems to be a luxury of the few. Yet, with the arrival of the new generation and the continuous growth of the "gamer", the desire to tell new stories is making a comeback, as demonstrated by the dozens of IPs shown in the latest events, and Ubisoft is not far behind. During last year's E3, the French company showed Gods & Monsters, a game from the creators of Assassin's Creed Odyssey that placed us on an adventure between Greek mythology, fights with fantastic beasts and clashes between gods: the title, which has now been renamed to Immortals Fenyx Rising, is one of the IP that most intrigued us and we got to try it, for a couple of hours, a few days ago.



The introduction

Immortals Fenyx Rising will make us live an adventure as Fenyx, in fact, a mortal girl who will have to travel to a world full of dangers to reach Typhoon, a frightening creature from Greek mythology who wants to destroy everything, including the gods. In the test we did we were catapulted into the Forgelands, a part of the map now completely invaded by monsters of all kinds: using the skills donated by the various deities of the Greek Pantheon, we will therefore have to make our way in this gigantic open world between challenges of all kinds, dungeons and heroic deeds. The first interesting thing that immediately catches the eye, at least in terms of style, is that during the adventure we will be accompanied by two off-screen narrators, Prometheus and Zeus, which will be the real comic shoulders of this title that we already think will occupy the players for a long time. Like two friends on the bench, the two will use many jokes, inside jokes related to the world of video games and the internet, and a strange accent capable of tearing smiles more than once, even in a demo.



Immortals Fenyx Rising - Preview, an adventure between mythology and dungeonsFor the rest, the first glance immediately fascinates with his bright colors, its cartoonic effects and a world that immediately proves to be large, albeit not a little inhabited: if in fact at first glance we could find some parallelism between the Ubisoft Quebec game and Link's latest adventure, many refinements, many different mechanics and a desire to propose a fresh and fun product immediately points out the differences (positively). The game is an Open World adventure where every part of the map will be explorable. Thanks to the wings we will in fact be able to glide, double jumps and reach any location (often using the level design): where they do not allow us to arrive, climbing comes to our rescue, which can be done more or less anywhere. However, each of these actions will weigh on the stamina, energy that we will consume to run, glide and climb, and which once finished will make us fall ruinously.

Traveling around this island is simple, especially thanks to the magnificent map system of the game and the fact that we will also be able to exploit one mount to move faster. Everything else, of course, falls within the scope of the two other macro components of the game: the dungeons, positioned scattered on the map as entrances to the Tartarus and real challenges of combat and intellect, and the RPG part, which will lead us to customize our Fenyx more and more with upgrades, skills and equipment.

The combat system

Difficult to assimilate but very rewarding once you understand how it works, Immortals Fenyx Rising's combat system puts it all on light, heavy, dodge and special attacks: if in fact the backbones will allow us to attack with a fast sword or with a slower but lethal ax, dodging will become the focus of the game (also because with every successful dodge, time will slow down enough to prepare for the counterattack). To accompany it all, a system of potions (which you can create in some precise areas with certain ingredients and formulas) and a series of skills (activated with the left bumper and the relative skill button) will add as much variety as needed to transform the battlefield in your own personal rodeo. The enemies, in fact, who will aim to kill you in the fastest and most painful way, will have various attack patterns and will require an excellent speed of execution on your part to bring them immediately to defeat. Therefore, regardless of whether you love to throw yourself into the fray or if you study combat from a distance (thanks to the bow that Fenyx possesses), you will inevitably find your style (and the classic aiming and lock on target systems will help you in this).



Speaking of enemies, we found the artistic choices made very interesting, which place us in front of terrible beings inspired by Greek mythology but with a decidedly cartoonish connotation (like the rest of the game): seeing soldiers, minotaurs and creatures of all kinds gives that very welcome plus to the challenges. By advancing in the game and completing the latter, Fenyx will be able to unlock various types of swords, axes and bows to enhance his attack, but also armor (here positioned as a single piece and not as various equipment to be assembled) and helmets. The eye also wants its part, and for this we will be able to change mount, wings and probably also companion (that little phoenix you can see in this photo below) during the game.

Immortals Fenyx Rising - Preview, an adventure between mythology and dungeons

Going back to talking about the stamina bar, the mechanics used turned out to be one of the most interesting to discover: if in fact, using attacks, running, dodging and doing any other action we are going to remove energy from that reserve, once finished we will still have a sort of negative reserve (in red), which will increase the recovery time but which will allow us not to be helpless in front of the enemy: if in fact many titles immediately make the player perish with every calculation error, Immortals Fenyx Rising instead is softer " under this point of view.

The dungeons of Tartarus

One of the dynamics we found most interesting concerns the Tartar, or rather the challenges inside: reachable by following the red craters that you will find scattered in the game world, they will put Fenyx in front of the challenges of ingenuity and combat that, once overcome, will unlock a Zeus lightning bolt, which will allow us to enhance the protagonist. The challenges will also be present in secondary quests, which many times will require the use of various game mechanics (from gliding to double jumping, through climbing, or the use of a sort of magnet to lift rocks of different weights) , often fitting them together with the right timing. Among the various challenges that struck us most, two really stand out in terms of genius: in Tartarus, in fact, we were asked for a notable use of Fenyx's various abilities to bring several boulders to a point on the map, also taking advantage of the different destructibility depending on the material (which for example causes the wood to break, or the stone to be reduced into two smaller boulders). The other challenge, on the other hand, was linked to a constellation to be reproduced through blue spheres on a platform: these, scattered in sub-challenges adjacent to the constellation area, required technical skills not related to the simple "press the button in that place", but precisely to timing, head-hand coordination and speed, something that in today's games is much more reduced and not very present.



Immortals Fenyx Rising - Preview, an adventure between mythology and dungeons

Immortals Fenyx Rising is a game that, as we have said, uses a colorful and fresh graphic system to tell a vast open world, full of challenges and fights. But what makes this title to keep an eye on in the coming months is the wisdom used by Ubisoft Quebec in inserting irony, challenges of various kinds, a diversity of gameplay exceptional- at least presumed, given the test of only two hours - e a panache that is often lacking in today's games. We were certainly bewitched by the setting, by the colors, by the artistic direction behind every single place or creature, and by the script, which does not show a too original plot but which manages to give it those right filings, moreover due to the dialogues we hope keep this style, making it delightful to discover.

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