What’s this? A Stadia piece?
The world is topsy turvy! You mean to tell me that Connor is going to write an impressions piece about a demo of a game on Stadia after mercilessly thrashing one of its creators? Of course I will. MMO Fallout has really jumped the shark. They’ve gone down hill since 2013.
Immortals Fenyx Rising is Ubisoft’s store brand of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but that’s not exactly a bad thing. I got a chance to play through the demo this week and what I found was a very fun story and an equally fun game. One that takes inspirations from other titles but ultimately seems to create its own face.
The first thing we need to talk about with Fenyx Rising is the plot since it is a big part of the demo and is shoved right in your face from the get go. The story is told as a narration by Zeus and Prometheus, the former of which has the latter tied up at the top of a mountain. The main character of the story is Fenyx, the gender-customized warrior tasked with rescuing the Greek gods from Typhon.
It’s a very light hearted story and essentially boils down to two old men trying to recount an old story as it plays out in front of you, the player. Prometheus is the more realistic of the two while Zeus tens to boast and exaggerate leading to some strange moments in the story. The fine details aren’t that important, this is about the hero.
So Fenyx Rising feels like the next evolutionary step in Assassin’s Creed becoming less about assassins and more like Breath of the Wild. You can climb, glide, and hack and slash your way through the landscape. There are collectibles to collect, basic puzzles to solve, and plenty of damage numbers. There are chests containing gear that will power you up and you have access to different abilities as you progress as well as various cauldrons that dot the landscape where you can brew potions.
Making the demo Stadia only is a great way to incentivize people to try the platform at least once. As someone running the game off of a Stadia Chromecast with Verizon fiber optics connected via ethernet, you’d never know that the game was completely streamed. Your mileage may vary.
Gameplay is pretty darn tight if you ask me. As Fenyx you can dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge, not to mention swing your sword and shoot your bow and arrow. You can block and parry and dodge and pull off all sorts of maneuvers to get the upper hand on your foes. The demo showed off a number of flying and grounded enemies, culminating in a big cyclops where you have to whittle its health down while evading blows.
Thankfully for most of you the full game is not going to be Stadia exclusive, so you can pick it up for your system of choice. I do recommend that anyone who can conceivably run Stadia gives the demo a try. It doesn’t cost anything and it is available until October 29. I had a lot of fun with Immortals Fenyx Rising and in a world where Google doesn’t hate my guts they would send me a review copy for the Stadia version.
MMO Fallout 