Overgrowth it is a strange product, the son of that branch of games with complicated gestations and not always with a positive outcome. Born in September 2008 and released only in October this year, Overgrowth can boast of the rare archivement "in early access from the beginning of the program".
Wolfire games has supported his creature from day one with sudden updates to improve the technical side and the quality of the gameplay. A subtle hype has surrounded the title since the first gameplay on Youtube thanks to the spectacular action and the continuous flow of news, fueling the hopes of seeing the 1.0 release without bugs and ugliness of some kind. Everything seemed perfect.
Unfortunately, the official release of the title ended up greatly betraying expectations, let's go in order and find out why.
I will find you.
Launched the title we will find ourselves in front of a single game mode divided by campaigns: the two the selectable storylines, one belonging to the prequel Place and a original created specifically for the title. Completing both of them will be a half-dozen hours of effort, fun but with reserve.
La original campaign of the title does not begin with the best of preambles: to our rabbit Turner they kidnapped the family and in an attempt to retrieve it, he will stick his nose and ears where it was better not to investigate. She will therefore have to travel the game world in an extremely linear way, in an attempt to find a solution to her problems by facing every kind of anthropomorphic animal possible with martial arts.
As can be easily understood, the plot is not the strong point of the title. In addition to abusing the clichés, he is also the victim of dialogues bordering on insane. The characters present within the storyline are extremely flat and limited to a few sentences with little impact, ending up sketching figures without charisma.
We will find ourselves dealing with numerous enemies without having an interest in knowing why we are there, if it was really worth it and so on. Disheartening from every point of view.
The shape of nature
Better on the technical side thanks to a notable care in the creation of the models of the various characters. Further attention has been given to the animations and their fluidity making movement and action very natural and beautiful to see.
You soon end up appreciating them and develop a certain curiosity in wanting to see what choreography you are able to perform with your character.
The settings in which the plot develops appear instead terribly careless, empty in their immensity and sadly disorienting. There are levels complebili in 10 seconds of jumps and races set in the locations described above. The game fails in an attempt to communicate, through the level design, what to do on certain occasions leaving the player the opportunity to make mistakes by wandering for minutes and minutes without being rewarded. Overgrowth therefore it flaws in a terrible way in the construction of levels, in communicating to the player through its fundamental elements what to do in the course of each game.
All this is a great shame because the visual identity of the title is strong and consistent in the vast majority of cases. The Phoenix Engine that animates the title manages to leave a positive glance with a wise use of colors sinning under the side of optimization. Frame drops are often unjustified even with considerable configurations and remain unchanged often regardless of the level of detail
Anonymous is the sound that remains harmless with oriental themes without infamy or praise. The sounds that do not value the action very much and do the homework right are quietly ignorable.
Anthropomorphism
The title of David Rosen is a 3D brawler featuring splendid anthropomorphic animals. The characters have movements that recall the east, the many points and the most excited and spectacular actions end up resembling the films of Jackie Chan.
In addition to giving them a good reason between kicks and punches, our beautiful pets have a lot of fun using edged weapons such as swords (special guest: a similar Buster Sword directly from Final Fantasy VII), daggers, halberds, brass knuckles and so on.
The control system makes simplicity its strong point: the keyboard is entrusted with the task of controlling the movements of the character while the mouse takes care of beating the hands and counterattacking by pressing the two keys.
Combat is kind contextual since the moves available to us will depend on how we are positioned with respect to our opponent.
Taking up arms will cause very few changes. They are lethal from the first use (the large ones are capable of killing anything in a maximum of two well-placed shots) and are used with the same contextual system as the white weapon combat. The only addition is the possibility of being able to throw them as bullets against our opponents.
In one-on-one fights, everything works meticulously and gives good times. Unfortunately, in the most agitated clashes the delicate balance of times and movements are destroyed, to leave room for the most absolute confusion. Also noteworthy is the presence of stupidly cheap moves (like football in flight) capable of resolving clashes without the slightest effort.
Much better platform sections, embellished by the sense of omnipotence that one feels at every jump of one's rabbit and which end up entertaining the player despite some avoidable game over. Our rabbit Turner he will end up imitating the good old Prince of Persia several times between a wallrun and a leap into the void.
A puzzle that is missing pieces.
The game suffers from a crazy camera and clearly under the effect of exciting, capable of causing motion sickness even to the most experienced. In platforming levels it is hardly a problem thanks to the more relaxed rhythms. The course is different in the most messed up clashes, where it becomes the tombstone that condemns the player to the choice of hit & run strategies in an attempt to govern the view to face their opponents.
Wolfire games made a rather odd choice in implementing stark story and gameplay. In fact, both campaigns available to us follow an episodic structure with the exact same plot: kill what you see or reach point B starting from point A (killing everything you see if you need).
This, repeated for the approximately fifty episodes of the two campaigns, leads to a quick boredom that will end up crippling one's experience with the title. It should also be noted that some chapters are composed only from cutscenes and some instead are very short walks.
Overgrowth and its future made in Steam.
The title has one feature that instills confidence: it is completely moddable.
Full support for mods means infinite playability thanks to community support. It means being able to transform your rabbit Turner in a much more charismatic character and being able to patch the holes left in the game by the developers.
There are mods for multiplayer, mods that transform the game into a one-on-one fighting game and maps inspired by other video games with an important platform component such as Mirror's Edge e Assassin's Creed.
Overgrowth it will never end up being a Horizon: Zero Dawn but, thanks to the fans, the foundations for an interesting future are there.
We played Overgrowth su Steam thanks to a code provided by the developers of Wolfire games
Overgrowth is a title with good ideas and a bad execution; great intuitions that in the act turn out to be crude. In a curious game of contrasts, the title offers a fun gameplay immersed in a world that is not at all, an interesting graphics which, however, are never fully expressed. The feeling that persists throughout its duration is of an incomplete title that still deserved some work. We just have to hope for mods and updates to be able to see the caterpillar become a butterfly.
