Cleaning up My Vita: Axiom Verge

On 05/18/2016 at 11:08 AM by transmet2033

Well, I finished up Axiom Verge over the weekend. I am currently in gaming limbo at the moment and not sure of where I want to go next. I have started up a second playthrough of Axiom Verge, but am not sure if that is really what I am feeling at the moment. I thought I was in the mood for Ratchet and Clank, so I downloaded it the other day, but haven't booted it up yet. I started Shadow Complex, but had to quickly put it down because I misjudged the amount of time I had. There was some sale a couple weeks back and I picked up Tomb Raider for cheap, but am not sure if I am ready for that game at the moment... these are the moments in gaming that I hate. I have plenty of games that I want to play, but I am not sure where to start. For the time being, I will probably just keep plugging away at Axiom Verge.

So yeah, I love Axiom Verge and I am glad that I waited for the Vita version... I know that it is not the ideal place to play the game, but mechanical and controller issues aside the game is nearly perfect in my eyes. There are moments of slowdown, that crop up every once in a while and the control scheme is a little annoying at times. It doesn't help that you are missing two shoulder buttons compared to the PS4 version. That is the crux of the problem, it was a game built for the PS4 and so there were issues that cropped up in the porting process, but I don't think that any of these issue truly detract from the overall experience. The moments of slowdown were so infrequent that I think it happened less than 10 times over the 13 hours that it took me to finish the game.

I say the game is nearly perfect and that must be taken with a grain of salt. As a huge fan of the entire Metroid series, it would make sense that I would love a well crafted "love letter" to the original Metroid. My only knock on the game was that about 75% of the way through the game I got stuck and didn't know where to go, so I ended up consulting a walkthrough just to get pointed in the right direction. It turned out that I must have skipped the explanation of one of your upgrades and did not realize how it could work. There are jackets in the game that allow you to teleport through walls blocking your path, what I did not realize was that one of the upgrades to the base jacket allowed you to teleport in any direction. Once I realized that, the path was clear and it was smooth going from there on out. I know that I had wasted a good 2 hours exploring the entire map twice...

I don't really know what else to say. If you love the 2D Metroid games and have not played Axiom Verge, you probably should... did I mention the soundtrack? well, it's pretty awesome. Anywho, I highly recommend it and unlike most of the other games in this "cleaning up my Vita" series, this game will never be deleted. It will just go into my yearly/bi-yearly rotation of Metroid playthroughs.

KnightDriver

05/18/2016 at 12:05 PM

Axiom Verge has gotten a lot of good mentions on my podcasts.

bullet656

05/18/2016 at 12:36 PM

I really enjoyed Axiom Verge too, but I got stuck probably 3/4 through the game and never got past it. I ran around the entire game area a few times trying to figure it out, but eventually put the game down for a little while. When I picked it back up I tried to consult a walkthrough, but by that time I had kind of forgot what I was doing and therefore became frustrated trying to figure out where in the walkthough I needed to look. I need to just start over again at some point once I get through my backlog.

transmet2033

05/19/2016 at 01:25 PM

You may have gotten stuck in the same part of the game that I did. At this point in my gaming life, I have no issues looking up a guide/walkthrough to point me in the right direction. I no longer have hours to kill like I did 15 years ago.

BretBaber

05/18/2016 at 12:44 PM

I'm the opposite, I have a lot of games to play and that I want to play, but have to finish others before I can move on.

05/20/2016 at 11:07 AM

I think that I understand exactly what you are saying. I prefer only working on one, possibly two games at once and don't like moving on until I am done with it. At the moment, I am just not sure what I want to play so I am bouncing around until something sticks and then I will dive head first into that game.

asrealasitgets

05/18/2016 at 05:38 PM

It's funny you mention the walking through walls and jacket upgrade because thats where I got stuck early in the game. I forgot that you could walk through rock walls. I got to an area with rock walls that I typically use the drill for but it did nothing, so I backtracked through the whole game again and then I remembered to push against the walls. This was my main issue with the game. Since upgrades are new in this game, I'm not always sure how to use them. The game doesn't always telegraph what you're supposed to do next. The bosses are fun though.

I actually have a bunch of PC games to get through and some books to read so my time is divided up right now. Have you tried Pocket Jockey on 3DS? Seems the internet is raving about it.

05/19/2016 at 01:31 PM

I have not touched my 3DS in quite some time. I just don't like the form factor of the 3DS anymore and it has to be a very special game for me to want to pull that system out at this point....

I have a nice little stack of books to read as well. I just can't seem to force myself to sit down and read them. I have a couple of the Star Wars former EU books that I want to read and then I need to get back to the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series at some point.

daftman

05/19/2016 at 09:14 PM

I really want to play Axiom Verge at some point but I'm just waiting for...something. I don't know. I big enough sale maybe. It looks fantastic. I've just got so many games in my mental queue lol. But sooner or later I will get to this one.

05/20/2016 at 11:09 AM

That is part of the reason that I felt the need to give up at backloggery. I needed to stop thinking about all these games that I had, and therefore felt the need to play and start playing the games that I want to play. Gaming is a hobby, not work so I needed to get back to treating it as such.

Cary Woodham

05/20/2016 at 01:46 PM

If Axiom Verge comes out on PS3 or Wii U, I may download it. I think i'd rather play it on a big screen.

Is there a Ratchet & Clank game on Vita?

05/20/2016 at 03:09 PM

The Ratchet and Clank collection is on the PSN. They never released a physical copy though.

I thought that I heard that Axiom Verge is supposed to come to Wii U, so you have that going for you.

I did boot up A Boy and his Blob for a little bit the other day. That is a beautiful game. I hope to spend more time with it in the future.

PixlBit