Immortals: Fenyx Rising

An environmental puzzle and exploration game crammed with fun and friendly content. It's presented in an open world format, though it is absolutely not an open-world RPG. Instead, the "world" is just one big obstacle course crammed with puzzles, collectibles, and enemies.

Most puzzles are very structured and have a specific, sequenced solution, but quite a few allow you to think outside the box and come up your own innovative, cool, or just plain brute force solutions. Some of your combat-related powers later in the game can even be used to circumvent entire solutions, which might offend purists (though nobody is forcing you to use these powers). I would rate the puzzles as generally good, but just remember that they are environmental, which could mean some tedium as you run back and forth across the landscape looking for items and then placing them in their right location. Most puzzles can be solved in your own time but quite a few require quick reflexes, and of them a few even require speedruns. Similarly, a small minority of puzzles require directional precision, which sometimes needs to be achieved quickly. Not everybody likes all or even any of these aspects, so consider them carefully, as they will determine whether you would enjoy this game. Unfortunately for the precision work, controls and physics are not so great in this game, making such puzzles potentially frustrating even when you know exactly what to do to solve them. That said, none of the puzzles are especially hard, and most are actually very easy.

What makes the puzzles and the game itself especially fun is its incorporation of exploration. Exploration is always rewarded, as almost any direction you go will uncover something good, whether it's a new puzzle, a resource you can use to level up, or a collectible. And it's incorporated into many of the puzzles, for which you may need items that need to be found. Often while looking for these items you might discover something new because the content is packed so closely together. You're not going to be spending long, empty minutes marching through the wilderness.

There are "quests" to keep you focused on progress. They lead to opening up new puzzle areas, but really are just specially marked puzzles. They are wrapped in a goofy background story involving Greek gods, which is not very interactive and there are no choices to be made. Is it good? It's skin-deep and cliché, but also entertaining and often funny. The tone is irreverant and the humor is snarky, with quite a bit of innuendo and even a few puns. But it can get a bit much. The voice acting is mediocre, with over-the-top performances and grating fake accents. This fits with the narrative tone, but again can wear out its welcome. Remember, though, all of this is just background and amounts primarily to cutscenes and voiceovers.

There's also combat, which is much better than it has any right to be for a game so focused on puzzles. It's not great, though: there are few enemy types, they are all very dumb, and it gets repetitive fast. Despite the many attack types and powers, it's likely that you will focus on leveling up a few favorites and then just rinse and repeat. On "normal" difficulty it may prove quite challenging at first, but once you level up a bit things become much easier. Long, long before the endgame you should already be powerful enough to take on anything without much difficulty. Even bosses can be beat without breaking a sweat. If that sounds boring to you, then by all means increase the difficulty level. "Normal" here is what many combat-focused games would mark as "easy".

The game looks ... OK. The artistic style is very cartoonish and colorful, which fits the story well enough, but too often goes overboard. Lots of stuff glows and sparkles and shimmers and it's just tiring on the eyes. The HDR implementation is also OK, adding a little bit more color to what is already a very colorful presentation. However, it sometimes smashes all the bright lights into one big blob. I fiddled with the controls but couldn't solve that problem.

I have only one big criticism of this game: cosmetic rewards. Here and there you solve a puzzle and get a cool new weapon or piece of armor, but more often than not it will be a new "skin". It gets worse as this cosmetic loot system feeds into the usual online microtransaction nonsense. It's all been carefully engineered so that the main game would hook you on cosmetics and then you would be more likely to spend more money on the game. I hate this stuff even in the best cases when it's just an optional distraction I can ignore, but when it's so intricately tied into the main game I'm just constantly angry whenever I get a new "skin" as a reward. It feels like a popup ad.

In summary, if you enjoy not-too-hard environmental puzzles and lots of exploration, and are not too put off by the more mediocre aspects I mentioned, then this game is for you. I had a lot of fun with it!

New God DLC

This DLC is comprised entirely of difficult Tartaros-Vault-style puzzle areas. There are no quests and no real exploration, which is quite disappointing. It's ... just relentless puzzles.

Unfortunately, though many puzzles are quite clever, they too often emphasize the weakest aspects of the game engine: miserable 3D platforming, awful aiming precision, and circus controls. And so many of the puzzles are more frustrating than fun, as you aim, miss, and then have to back and do it all over again. There are also a lot of quick reflex puzzles, which again punish your mistakes with having to do a whole sequence all over again.

Recommended only for players who hardcore enjoyed the Tartaros Vaults in the main game.

Myths of the Eastern Realm DLC

This is a true expansion comprising content of the same kind that's in the main game, just with a new skin and few mechanical changes to puzzles.

It's not quite as good as the main game. The puzzles are all very easy, indeed too easy. The story is underdeveloped and forgettable. At least the snark has been dialed down, so the dialog is less grating.

There's not much more to say: if you finished the main game and wanted more then this DLC will scratch that itch.

The Lost Gods DLC

This big DLC could have been sold as an independent game. It has a lot of content. It's generally in line with the main game, but it's also an odd remake or rather a reimagining of it with different mechanics. To be clear, it's fun! But it can take some getting used to.

Notably, it's more difficult: a top-down perspective means you see much less of the world, and the save system requires you to be at specific save locations—and consume certain resources—guaranteeing more tension and higher stakes. You can buy regeneration tokens but can carry only 3 at once. In the early game this can be frustrating: it really sucks when you die and lose 45 minutes of gameplay because you couldn't reach the save point in time. But, those 3 regeneration tokens will do the job soon enough.

Also, powers are doled out very slowly: in the main game you can run and fly pretty early in the game, but here ... well, it depends. The Lost Gods is less linear than the main game, so you might end up gaining different powers at different times. I was annoyed when I got the run ability so late in the game. It was extremely slow moving until then. Quality-of-life stuff shouldn't be a "power".

Another major change is in how the RPG-style progress happens. Honestly, it's a convoluted system that I never quite understood and didn't care about. Just choose whatever and get stronger and kill faster. Finetuning your "build" is unnecessary and tedious.

Final complaint: performance. Despite having a more limited view, this DLC is miserably optimized. I enjoyed 60 FPS gameplay in the main game. With the same settings, this DLC got less than 30 and a lot of stutters. I had to reduce quality quite a bit in order to get a decent experience. And ... I have quite a monster rig. However, you see so little of the world with this top-down view that visual fidelity doesn't matter. Just lower everything a lot in order to make the game playable.