I gotta hand it to Drinkbox Studios. After the success of Guacamelee, they ought to have been able to produce a game for whoever on whatever, but instead they stuck true to their roots and made Severed, a first-person, touch-based, role-playing dungeon crawler currently exclusive to the PlayStation Vita. It’s clear they had a particular vision in mind and believed it suited to the Vita. They’re taking a gamble, but in terms of game design, it’s a huge pay-off for Vita owners.
All in all, I was kept intrigued and motivated to progress through the game, an achievement I also attribute a great deal to the game’s stellar presentation.
Despite being heavily stylised the world feels alive and I was often totally immersed into the game. Obviously the sound design contributes greatly in this sense. Enemy design is exceptional, blending the tone and style of the game with its gameplay. Sound here plays an important role again, cueing enemy attacks, powerups and more.
In summary, presentation perfectly blends the game’s story and gameplay. There is a near seamless flow that heavily immersed me in the game much to my surprise, considering it’s traditional obtrusive touch-control approach. It just works so excellently, both conceptually and technically; I never ran into any slowdown on the ageing hardware of my OLED Vita.
I found the game design simply flawless. The dungeon’s are incredibly well designed and laid out. There are secrets and challenges abound, puzzles galore and hidden areas to uncover, but it never becomes overly frustrating or obstructive in terms of the game’s flow. As you gradually develop new powers, the game invites you to retrace your steps and open up new areas. Strange or obscure symbols now have meaning encouraging you to race back to question marked areas on your map in anticipation of what you’ll find next.
When it comes to Severed’s gameplay, I was initially doubtful of its touch-controls, but I had no reason to be. As you navigate Severed’s world, you move from node to node, circular areas you can pan around horizontally. On occasional nodes, you’ll run into enemy encounters that will spawn around you in a circle. You attack and parry enemies by swiping the touch screen, with a substantial array of enemies requiring a variety of approaches. All other navigation requires you to use the physical buttons or thumbsticks.
Typically complaints of touch-based controls persist though. I occasionally felt the touch screen was imprecise at times and having my fingers hovering over the screen sometimes blocked the all important timers for enemy attacks. I’d have also appreciated greater options in terms of controls; as the square, triangle, circle and ‘x’ buttons are treated the same as the directional pad, I had to get used to using left and right to pan around and triangle to move forward. A minor, technical complaint I know.
<em>The Vita version of Severed was primarily tested for the purpose of this review.</em>
View Comments
Good review! I was debating on getting this game but now I think I will. Looks sweet!