Immortals Fenyx Rising

This engaging adventure with Greek gods has loads of puzzles to keep you busy, and plenty of positive messages about redemption and being true to yourself in the face of overwhelming odds. Unlike other open-world games that impose plot-driven boundaries on your progress, Immortals: Fenyx Rising lets you explore any part of the island influenced by the gods at any time, which gives you a lot of freedom, because you can explore at your own speed and make the plot develop on your terms. The only limitations you face are in having the strength to face down powerful monsters, and the stamina to consistently perform powerful attacks or scale cliffs. Even these caps are designed to get you to slowdown, explore the world, and invest yourself in Fenyx's tale, as well as the tons of trials and puzzles scattered around the land. Regardless of whether you make Fenyx male or female, the character's story is a positive one, as they grow from overlooked soldier that no one respects or values into a formidable warrior able to destroy hordes of monsters and mythical beasts alike. But it's more than fighting skill, because Fenyx gains the respect and admiration of the gods themselves. When you can make Zeus introspective, you're doing something right, and without spoiling the tale, it leaves room for expansions or sequels. The first expansion, A New God, brings Fenyx to the heights of Olympus to test their skills against incredibly challenging puzzles that will test your reflexes and your brainpower. The focus on combat and even on significant story elements in this pack takes a backseat to solving complex, multi-stage brainteasers. The second expansion, Myths of the Eastern Realms, takes players to China and presents a new take on world saving adventures with a new hero, Ku. There's a larger focus on action and puzzles, and while much of it feels like a re-skinned version of the title with fewer deities, characters, and dialogue, the shape of something special is here. In a way, it should've been its own game instead of an expansion to a previously existing title.

Unfortunately, Fenyx has some issues that keeps it from fully soaring. The difficulty doesn't scale to meet Fenyx's strength gained as a result of your exploration. If you spend time fighting creatures and completing vaults, you'll have more than enough power to destroy virtually any enemy thrown your way, so you'll only find yourself in danger if you're not paying attention or mis-timing when you dodge attacks. The other significant issue is that the difficulty of the puzzles isn't always uniform or even, so while you'll sometimes skip or bypass ones that are tricky, it can be hard to determine where one ends and another begins. That makes it hard to complete some tasks, but it makes it even harder when you face mandatory puzzles that must be completed before you can move forward. It's worth fighting past these issues though, because this game, whose influences are clearly taken from Breath of the Wild and Assassin's Creed Odyssey, is an enjoyable and entertaining journey.