Axiom Verge is what happens when one man wants to make a Metroid game without stepping on Nintendo’s intellectual property. There’s been a number of discussions about the game, usually calling it a Metroidvania, or a retro game of many styles. Honestly, I think they are mistaken. This is a hardcore Metroid game, not even a Metroidvania because that term tries to show the games that are offshoots of Castlevania Symphony of the night. This game is clearly trying to appeal to the original Metroid and it does a great version of it. It’s Metroid from the first moment… if it was done by a different company.
There was a popular fan game made in 2016 called A2MR, a remake of Metroid 2 and like most fan remakes I asked: “Why didn’t you take the work you put into that game and make your own game, make a ton of money and not get a Cease and Desist letter from Nintendo?” Axiom Verge actually was already out and had done all that. Well, I’m not sure it made a ton of money but it’s what a true fangame should be. Clear inspiration but not actually infringing on the original concept.
Axiom Verge doesn’t infringe on Metroid other than a concept and theme, and that’s really remarkably done. While Metroid does give the player weapons, Axiom Verge just blows that away. There’s a ton of items in this game, 20 different primary weapons, 16 “tools”, notes, upgrades, and more. This game is packed with stuff to find.
The concepts, on the other hand, are similar, but they are achieved in different ways. There are tight spaces, clearly a call for the morph ball. Except it’s not, there’s actually a drone that the player can use to get into small areas. There’s no screw attack, there’s no super speed run, in fact, only a few weapons have similarities to the original game, and that’s to be expected from 20 different weapons.
Unfortunately about half these concepts have issues. The drone is done excellently. The “lab coat” allows you to phase walls when you are standing next to them, just an odd feeling when you do that because you have to press against the wall. But for almost every annoying concept like the lab coat, there’s an upgrade like the trench coat that improves it (you can dash anytime rather than when you’re standing next to a wall, and farther too). Of course, the concept of a generic lab coat or trenchcoat doing this makes little sense. The fact that I had to play almost half the game with the inferior lab coat was quite annoying. It’s a shame because when you get the trench coat the game feels amazing. But there’s been a bad taste in your mouth for at least two to three hours because the lab coat isn’t fun.
Another problem comes in the controller itself. The game allows you to map 20 buttons, and it will use EVERY one of those buttons. It also requires 4 buttons (The directions on the R stick) for weapon selection, which means the game can’t be a twin-stick shooter, something I wanted after a couple hours. I remapped a bunch of it in-game, but then I remapped it again with the steam controller to use the grips. The fact I needed to demonstrates how crowded the controller is. Also, the lack of an auto-fire stinks as before long your finger gets tired, or you switch to weapons that have an auto fire.
When you get down to it, the real problems likely can be attributed to one thing. One guy made the entire game, and before I go on, I have to say that’s amazing. Thomas Happ deserves a lot of credit. But in the world of indie games, there have been some amazing things done by a single guy like Stardew Valley and the origins of Minecraft, and being a single person developer terrifies me. I applaud Thomas Happ for everything he does for this game, but I am forced to judge this game based on the game, not the difficulty for making the game, and the question has to be how does this stand up to other 20 dollar games, not just how does it stand up to the single person teams out there because we’re asked to spend 20 dollars on it.
There are small things that irk me. Thomas Happ was a programmer and honestly, the game is incredible from a programming aspect. The rest of the game is a mixed bag. One thing I noticed is the game lacks the true gravitas of Metroid. You can hear and feel it when you pick up an item. It’s supposed to be this great moment, especially when you pick up your first gun, and instead, a small blip plays and some weird text appears on the screen and goes away. It doesn’t have that great moment of reveal. Small things like that irk me on the game.
There’s also a heavy push towards this “glitch” mentality. Which could be cool but it is used too often and it seems to be a call back to NES graphical glitches. I get it, but it feels more like a broken game than a really cool feature. The glitched aspects of the enemies tend to be less pronounced as well, so the really cool feature doesn’t work. And it’s not even a part of the thematic story either. It just felt like I broke something, and not in a cool “You broke the game” way, but “The game is broken” way.
The game has other small design annoyances as well, the map didn’t work properly (probably because I remapped keys, I couldn’t set reminders). But it also didn’t have an objective marker, so I couldn’t see a theory of where I should be going. These markers didn’t have to be direct maybe an overarching idea of the direction I should be moving, but instead, the game hopes you’ll remember an idea of the direction and relies a lot on exploration. I did have to look up where to go a few times. A big one is right after an exploration of Kur where you get a drone.
There are other things I really would have loved to use to go back and see everything. There’s no scope so often you have to go drill a number of blocks or try to break everything. I also would have loved to have something on my map to show me all the items I’ve seen but haven’t been able to get with the tools I had at the time. Trying to fully explore the map also could get quite annoying especially in the tallest rooms.
But on the other hand, it’s not a bad game. There’s a lot to like here. The challenge especially is fantastic. I love fighting the enemies, I think I died only a few times, and only one really annoying section. I only died once or twice on bosses, but most of them really challenged me and made me try to figure out the best solution to their patterns.
That’s the thing, there’s nothing in here that was bad to the point where I put down the game (well aside from my controller mechanically dying, but that’s not this game’s fault). And I wanted to play a Metroid game, honestly, I was hoping for a little more Super Metroid which is my favorite, but this is more of an NES style and it’s great at that.
The gameplay is solid, the action is great, and the feeling is retro without feeling outdated. I enjoyed almost every minute I played the game. But overall the game itself isn’t perfect, and I think that the flaws are a thing that should have been caught or fixed even in the three years since it’s come out.
Yet, I heavily recommend this game, especially if people want to play a Metroid game, and especially if they want to see a different take on it. I think the weapon systems here are better. I love the bosses here, and the fact they weren’t based on 20-year-old designs that I’ve found more times than I can count. It’s not better than Super Metroid, but at the same time, it doesn’t need to be. I can still enjoy a classic SNES title, and enjoy Axiom Verge at the same time and at the end of the day I do. Axiom Verge is a solid game and should be played by any Metroid fan who can accept another game in the genre. And if Super Axiom Verge ever comes out, it’ll be a great day for the genre as well.
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3.5