I’m more and more disappointed with Asgard’s Wrath. And it isn’t like I’m super advanced into the game, but also I don’t imagine the game improving a ton from where I stand.
-For being marketed (or at least hailed by the community) as a ''fully fledged AAA RPG VR game!" in reality is lacking in key areas. Yes, there is combat, and puzzles and some metrodvania progression and minigames, and things to collect etc. But it’s sorely missing in things like characterization, both the protagonist and the npcs, and the setting itself. So you are new god but in reality you posses a character for most of the game, and the first character is a totally flat and boring viking gal who wish vengeance for her brother. Who is she? Who was her brother? What happened? It doesn’t matter. Her personality is summarized in ‘waaagh vengeance!’. And we know the evil god of war and his follower is wrecking havoc and have destroyed her home. why? Uhh dunno, he is evil. There are also no npcs, outside of tutorial guy Loki and the npc quest givers/shoppers. Forget about visiting a normal town with normal people. And well, the setting itself is a vague ‘mmm yeah, Norse mythology thing’ thing, without any ounce of nuance, verisimilitude, or interesting twists. This isn’t an Obsidian game, not even a Bethesda one.
If someone thought this stuff won’t matter because it’s a VR game, well, he is wrong.
-Your character RPG progression is pretty poor. There is no classes, talents, skill tress, perks, nothing. You don’t even have proper armor, your armor upgrades are in reality just flat +x HP bonuses. And the weapon upgrades the same, +x damage.
-One of the few strong points of the game is, let’s admit, the pretty graphics (the AAA part), but in reality few people (rtx 2080 owners?) are going to enjoy them, the performance isn’t up to par. I had to lower the setting to Mid to not fall into constant retroprojection, and now it doesn’t look like as good as for example Lone Echo.
-The axe throwing system is maddening, I’m super bad with it in both low assistance and full assistance modes. Maybe this in onto me and it isn’t a flaw of the game, but just commenting…
-As others have said, the combat isn’t good. I think that looking at things at a high level, there are two ways to make a good combat system in a videogame: go arcade and fast, with combos, chain attacks, crazy jumps, etc, or go the slow/realistic/detailed way of doing combat. I think this is on no man’s land, in that regard: it doesn’t have a simulation like Boneworks or B&S but also it isn’t good or varied enough from the arcade point of view.
-I also noticed how maybe, the traditional RPG combat-heavy progression shouldn’t be used directly in a VR game, like AW does. It needs a more careful consideration of what’s best for VR. Even if the combat was better, don’t think I’m saying this just because the previous point.
In a normal game, the common filler combat can be surpassed lazily with just a few button presses, so it’s like, whatever. In a VR game, every time is a physical choreography of swinging, parrying, avoiding hits, etc. I’m not saying that is physically more tiring, although it is, I’m saying that in VR this is an active, engaging activity make you notice strongly how repetitive normal games can be. Reach new area, 4 enemies appears, you kill them with the sword. Enter a house, 3 new enemies, again you dispatch them. Get out, other 4 enemies in front of the street, the same actions of swinging at their undefended side and blocking their hits. Rinse, repeat.
-I guess it was technically needed, but the loading system every time you fast travel (and how the game’s structure makes you fast travel commonly) is more bothersome in VR than in traditional games. Lone Echo no-loads from start to the end spoiled me, I guess.
