angik20 | A Rambly Review of Axiom Verge 2

When I first heard the announcement for Axiom Verge 2 in December 2019, I was hyped beyond belief. I wanted to own it on Steam, as I had the first game on Steam, but I bought it on Switch on Day 1. I hate Epic and I don't own a PS4 or PS5. I also wanted to 100% it myself without a guide (managed to get to 98% before I caved in to the temptation of looking up a guide (ostensibly for the sanctity of the Twitch playthrough I was doing, but the more realistic reason is that I'm bad at video games)). It took me a while to put down my full feelings on the game because distractions, but here they are, under the cut

The things expanded upon in the first game are great. Corrupting enemies and environment objects become more widely varied with multiple options when Indra hacks an enemy or object. The breach pockets/secret worlds become an underlying Breach map to explore parallel to the overworld. The Breach Attractor, only a target in the final boss of the first game, is now a versatile item that lets you move around breach portals and access the more remote areas of the game. The drone gets more useful abilities, like the ability to hover for a brief moment and a grapple that flings itself forward with a spinning momentum. Even Hammond, a side character from the first game who only appeared thrice and had two lines, becomes an integral character to this game as one of the mysterious voices (from the ansibles around Kiengir) that guide Indra to where she needs to go. These are all great ways to expand upon the original ideas of the first game, especially expanding Hammond's role in the overall story.

The new things are a bit lacking. Instead of the guns Trace finds in the first game, Indra fights up close with a small variety of bladed weapons, mainly axes. Since many of the enemies fight with laser projectiles, this puts Indra at quite a disadvantage. The nano mist form is only useful for getting through grates and floating in the air for a bit longer than the drone can. It does not avoid damage nor does it damage enemies. I never found much use for the few boomerangs Indra finds, including a steerable boomerang that is difficult to control. The upgrade system with Apocalypse Flasks was only really useful for upgrading the hacking tool to let Indra access the entire game map. I didn't find many moments where using the upgrade system was particularly useful outside of the hacking tool, so I ended up downing the rest of the flasks at the literal end of the game. The bosses are giant damage sponges unless you use the hacker tool to cause them to damage themselves. One of the exceptions to this is the second boss in Lake Amagi, where instead, you must use the shockwave ability to cause stalactites to fall on top of it. The other exceptions are the two times you fight Amashilama. The first fight is almost a mirror match where she controls Indra's body and Indra fights back in a droid form. The other is the final boss where you have to hit her repeatedly to stun her long enough to give you enough time to flip the switches and activate the breach bomb.

For most of Axiom Verge 1, Athetos was discussed by other characters, building him up as a madman who committed genocide against the inhabitants of the world Trace found himself in. However, the characters who told him about Athetos become more unreliable. Elsenova kills Trace for not wanting to talk to Athetos and not going along with the Rusalki's plans and Athetos himself tells Trace that he can't tell him the whole truth. And at the end of the final boss fight, when Elsenova laser-blasts Athetos despite Trace's protests to spare him, Athetos tells him not to blame himself. In Axiom Verge 2, Amashilama is presented at the start as a helpful mentor to Indra, but not even halfway into the game, Amashilama betrays Indra and takes off with her body when she uses this machine. Afterward, Amashilama acts in an arrogant, holier-than-thou manner, taunting Indra for reasons such as the memories of neglecting Samara Indra's original body retains. Amashilama then moves on to attempt to destroy the mother world, A'Ansur, fully believing that doing so would free the worlds attached to it. This is why I feel that Amashilama is the better antagonist than Athetos.

The soundtrack was as enjoyable as the first game. The tracks of the overworld are very esoteric, with the backing vocals and realistic-sounding instruments (I don't know if they were the real instruments or digitized). The breach tracks are amazing chiptune renditions of the tracks of their overworld counterparts. I also love the whole "Axiom" motif used to great effect from the first game.

So yeah. I enjoyed Axiom Verge 2. Time to wait 5-6 more years for Axiom Verge 3!

On my main blog, I'm going to post a character comparison essay between the protags of both games.