‘Good things come to those who wait’ or ‘better late than never,’ take your pick as Axiom Verge is now available on the Wii U. As far as I can tell, Axiom Verge on the Wii U does not include any new content or changes to the core game, but it does have the inherent support of the Wii U Gamepad, which is two-fold like most Wii U experiences: if you’re playing on your TV you have a second screen, which in this case doubles primarily as a map, or you can simply play the entire game on your Gamepad. During my first couple of hours I played with the TV and Gamepad separately, but I got very comfortable with just turning on the Wii U via the Gamepad, booting into the game, and then tapping just one icon to send the game to the Gamepad — TV, receiver, all that stuff never even has to turn on.
Either way you play it, Axiom Verge has a whole lot going for it. Created entirely by one man, Tom Happ, over the course of five years (during nights and weekends), this game has a great atmosphere and familiar yet modern gameplay. I was pretty quickly able to understand, again a year and a half after it’s original release, why I heard so much about buzz about it on my gaming podcasts and other outlets. It looks and plays like an old school 2D action platformer, but really only in the positive sense of the term. More on that in a sec, but first a word about the story which is smartly developed and unfolds in a really nice way. The story sees you as Trace, a scientist who dies in an experiment at work. Yet, he finds himself awake and in a strange world, alone and without a clue as to how he got wherever ‘here’ is. Your befriended by a strange voice that compels you to investigate and repel dangerous biomech type bugs and creatures. The story unfolds slowly and deliberately, never keeping you from the game for too long yet giving you enough to chew on to keep you thinking about life, free will, and other big topics not all that far off from a game like SOMA for example.
A compelling story goes a long way, but Axiom Verge compliments this with an immersive atmosphere. Level design isn’t always the most interesting, but the graphical variations of this alien world have welcomed and refreshing changes at regular intervals and the music is spot-on for the mood the game set out to convey. As I moved from screen to screen, I was genuinely interested in what I would see and encounter next. Most of the weaker enemies aren’t that interesting, but they serve their purpose just fine and if you don’t manage encounters with them wisely your life meter will drop fast.
Fortunately, especially for a guy like me that doesn’t typically play this genre, there are save points placed at regular intervals. You’ll always find a save point very close to a boss encounter and at a comfortable interval or two in between such encounters. One gripe about this however is that you cannot save in more than one slot and the time from dying to getting back in the game is artificially long. Going through the death and re-load animations gets grating in a hurry, but, I suppose it promotes playing a little more carefully than if you had insta-load times. Overall I’m happy with the save points for sure, but I do wish the time between dying and getting back at it was quick, just as every other load time in the game is.
Axiom Verge has no shortage of cool boss encounters and lots of neat weapons and gadgets as well as secret areas. Equipment such as a drill to literally bore through walls and floors or a device that lets you phase-shift thru some walls adds a lot to the exploration gameplay. The Gamepad makes weapon and equipment switching quick, vital for some of the twitch reactions you need to overcome some of the tougher encounters. Control response and feel in general is very nice and felt ‘at home’ on the Wii U, and I liked Trace’s default jumping distance and height, definitely a good thing to ‘like’ in this type of game where jumping is so common.
Overall, Axiom Verge is a solid game with very little to complain about. In the case of it arriving on the Wii U, it’s definitely a case of better late than never.
