My Review

[Sarcastic Slab]

This is an amazing surreal game overflowing with unique style. The distinct crosshatch shading combined with the strange environments and odd characters makes for a visual experience unlike any other. I have a great appreciation for Ace Team's commitment to creating characters that look weird and have unusual anatomy. I never knew I enjoyed punching strange bird men and giant three-legged elephants to save a cute little bird child with hands. What makes the world of Zenozoik unique is that it doesn't belittle its own weirdness or have self-referential jokes that poke fun at the wacky characters. Instead, it embraces these aspects, and has the player walk through the world to unironically explore and interact with its residents.

The world is wonderfully complimented by Patricio Meneses score, which is used to great effect throughout the game. Often upon entering a new area you will be treated by a new track, and these always had me slowing down and listening as I walked into a strange new forest or mountain ruins. There are elements of sound taken from the Zeno Clash games which were a delight to hear, but there were also the new vocal performances. From the primal shouting and electric guitar in 'Pseudo's theme' that makes you feel like a badass, to the soft, but dramatic, female vocals in 'The boy calls'. I heard many instruments I didn't know, and many tracks feature a gentle piano that is used sparingly but was always a nice surprise. I've put in my vote for Clash: Artifacts of Chaos in this year's WSA Game Music Awards, and I hope to see more from Patricio Meneses in the future.

The story of Clash: Artifacts of Chaos is a simple one and falls into the “Strong dude protects innocent companion” trope that has been quite prevalent in popular culture recently. If you’ve seen the character dynamics of the main characters in games like God of War (2018), and The Last of Us, or shows like The Mandalorian, then you probably already understand the way Pseudo and Boy and going to interact. That’s not to say there isn’t unique elements within the narrative, but the journey and growth the main characters go through is predictable. Without going into spoilers, I did enjoy the mysterious nature of some of the older characters, who drop hints about the world beyond Zenozoik. Fans of Zeno Clash will also recognise the themes of madness and insanity that are presented through the Corwids. You meet characters affected by the lifestyle of the Corwids and it is interesting to explore how these characters rationalize the bizarre behaviour of the forest dwellers. The Corwids are a living example of the chaos that Gemini hopes to eradicate with the One Law, and throughout the story, Pseudo’s adherence to the Ritual and participation in the power struggle of Zenozoik is questioned. These aspects of the story are intriguing, but few and far between, as most of the denizens and henchmen of the perilous land seek only to fight and thwart Pseudo on his journey.

Like the story, the voice performances are competent and sufficient albeit simple. There are moments that let the main characters express stronger emotions, and at times Pseudo’s strong-willed defiance and concern are genuinely touching. The Boy’s innocence and sadness are well communicated through the acting; however, the voice can be a bit overbearing at times. I’m not sure if there were issues with the recording of Boy’s voice, but at times I heard mic-peaking and overall, the voice seemed too loud without realistic reverberation. Pseudo rough and serious tone is aptly juxtaposed with the Boy’s juvenile banter, reminding me of Kratos and Atreus from God of War (2018). It is weird to talk about voice acting in a game like this, however. Fans of Zeno Clash understand that these games have always featured…unique voice acting. It is most certainly toned down here, but there remains the odd bird man with a strangely comedic squeaky voice, and it can be jarring if you’re not expecting it. I personally find these voices funny, and they are used for good effect in this game without being too distracting. Overall, the npc’s talk and behave in ways believable for the world they live in, and they service the story well enough. The casting and performances in Ace Team’s games get better with every iteration.

The gameplay is fun and snappy, featuring many difference stances and customization for special attacks. While it falls into the ‘third person action’ game combat category, it oddly feels more like a fighting game. I’ve seen some reviewers approaching the game with a ‘souls-like’ approach, and express frustration with the game for being too ‘punishing’ and ‘clunky’. I too become slightly frustrated with some of the earlier encounters, as I felt like enemies stunned me too much and I didn’t know how to approach fights. It wasn’t until I started treating it like a 2d fighting game that I really understood how to make the most of my abilities. You fight in close-quarters, and you don’t have any dodge-roll I-frames to protect you, so you must rely on timing your attacks and dodges around enemy movement. If you space a heavy attack wrong, you will be punished for it. Once you understand the combat, you can really start customizing your playstyle with difference stances. I applaud Ace Team for the variety in special attacks which undoubtedly came with a lot of difficult animation work, which is all brought to life with the detailed character model of Pseudo made by Felipe Diaz. Depending on how you play, Pseudo can feel like a heavy-hitting brawler, or an elegant ninja. It really is impressive to take the first-person fighting formula from Zeno Clash and see it reimagined in a third-person perspective with this much love and care. The boss fights were a highlight for me, Moon-Sun still haunts my dreams. I found they added extra challenge and spectacle to the combat, and I was always excited to encounter Gemini’s top henchmen. Pseudo will get clobbered, thrown, and smashed into the ground by these bosses, and it forces you to become more strategic with your approach. One mechanic I fell in love with was the enemy friendly fire. Enemies can hit each other in this game which adds a new layer to the group fights which always made me laugh. Does the encounter have a massive guy with wide swings? Well just let him do the work for you by positioning yourself behind the other enemies! Sometimes creatures join the fray too, randomly or through an artifact, and this just added to the chaos. Which brings me to the Ritual. The One Law imposed by Gemini dictates that the Ritual may be used before combat to chance the conditions of the fight. These conditions are determined by the type of Artifact used. This Ritual system was a big draw for me when I saw the trailers, as it offered a randomized, chaotic aspect to fights that I haven’t seen in other third-person action games. For the first half of the game, I really enjoyed this mechanic. It reminds me of the randomized boons you get in roguelike games, and initially I thought it would add greater replayability. However, as I went further into the game, I used the ritual less and less. Early on you don’t have many dice, artifacts, or effects on your ritual belt so it was fun to try whatever new Ritual I found during my next enemy encounter. After using a ritual multiple times however, they do lose their charm. There are some fun effects like capturing an enemy to be used in a later fight, or restraining them with a rope, but in the second half of the game, I was so strong that the ritual become redundant. Not only was I becoming bored of the effects, but playing game would always take longer than the fights themselves. In my playthrough I did a lot of exploring, and was quite thorough, so the end game fights were not very challenging. I didn’t need the ritual anymore, and the risk of losing was not worth it. I think there are too many boons to collect on your ritual belt, and that the Ritual mechanic in general should of either been streamlined or expanded. As it stands, it doesn’t ruin the game or anything, and you can even skip the Ritual in most fights, but I do wish It was more compelling.

When you’re not fighting, you will be navigating a fairly linear semi-open world with light platforming and exploration. There are many nooks and crannies with items to find and enemies to fight. The night-time gameplay encourages the player to backtrack and seek out various body parts which act as armor. There were some great challenging ‘nightmare’ bosses to seek out during the night. Like the Ritual, the night mechanic overstayed its welcome for me. I became burnt out of exploring the same area twice everywhere I went. While this is a genius move in terms of reincorporating assets, and recycling content, it became a bit of chore in my final hours. But I must commend that most of this is optional, and the night-time environments are awesome to look at, with a mysterious and surreal ambience. Pseudo and his enemies are all re-created with strange, twisted bodies of wood and shadow, which combined with the eerie music creates a disturbingly beautiful world. The progression/collection system could have been streamlined, and some of the resources felt a bit tacked on or useless. Upgrading a stance and special attack requires too many statues to become impactful, especially towards the late game, and because of this, I stuck with only a few select stances and special attacks. I feel that there should have been fewer resources required to upgrade a given ability, that way the player has more incentive to try difference ones. As it stands though, you could still beat the entire game without upgrading your stats and abilities. The skill points are very straight forward, you get XP and skill points for defeating enemies, and you pick one of four stats to invest in. While I appreciate the unique way that you find and unlock stances and special attacks in this game, I kind of wonder if it would have been better just to build them into a skill tree. Nevertheless, the game rewards players for exploring the strange world of Zenozoik as you go from one camp to the next.

I was running the game on a higher-end PC with max settings, and everything ran smoothly. The loading times were okay, but the frequent loading zones were slightly annoying. I didn’t encounter many bugs, and most were harmless. I think I encountered all my bugs in combat. The most frequent issue I ran into, was clipping into enemies with a special attack. During special attacks with forward motions, I would clip into enemies along the wall of the area, and both me and the enemy couldn’t move. This led to me dying of course, as I couldn’t dodge the attacks. At times my jump attacks would get cancelled by invisible walls over rock formations, and being attacked mid-jump would sometimes freeze Pseudo. I only died to these bugs a couple times, and overall, it was a very polished and smooth experience from day one.

Thank you, ACE Team, for creating this underrated gem and continuing to create the weirdest, most unique worlds to explore. Leading up to the release of this game I played Zeno Clash, and was taking a course in game development. I was inspired to make many fun and weird 3D models of creatures and characters. I enjoyed embracing the randomness and combining the physical elements of different animals to create something unique. I even made my first ever character model based on Pseudo, and It’s not very good, but I learned a lot while making it, and had never done anything like it before. I bought the Zeno Edition and have thoroughly enjoyed reading the Digital Art book, thank you ACE Team for putting it together. I have gained a lot of inspiration from seeing the character designs and drawings. More than anything, I love the art style of this game and all the characters that range from cool, scary, weird, colorful, and unique. Many games these days lack originality, and there have been many disappointing lifeless AAA games I have played recently, but Clash: Artifacts of Chaos is just dripping with originality and heart. I think it’s awesome that ACE Team continues to embrace the weird stuff and produce games that distinctly their own. 😊

[Kuruseida]

The fact that you received an award but no comment is outrageous! Here's a comment to change that also here's an award too cause the review ,while long, is still interesting.

[Pixie_Yu]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Sarcastic Slab:

I have already posted a shorter version of this review on the official store page. :)

why ? there is special section " About this game " on the main paige in Store . it's decrbing of game similar to your words . game came out 5 months ago

[Snobby Hobo]

I agree with a lot except the combat, which I think achieves almost nothing besides looking decent in the end. I very strongly disagree with the notion that you need to "strategize" battles. I would really like to see you play for you to claim that; I've done nothing but use the mammoth dropkick into another high stun attack for 90% of the game and barely got touched by the enemies. The only boss I died to ONCE was the big elephant guy because he 1 hit me with a sweep (literally 100% of my stats are in red because of the aforementioned).

The real standouts for me are the graphical design, setup and the OST. The game gives you the idea it's going to be really elaborate with the combat system and has some really cool features to provide this with. Unfortunately it doesn't go anywhere. The OST is a real sleeper hit. The art direction is just one of a kind.