‘Godfall’ impressions: A solid, sometimes boring adventure

It was also pitched as a “new idea,” and to be fair to them, that’s also kind of right. Yes, the industry is being smothered with big-budget “live service” games that offer endless loot, and many of these games struggle. The recent “Marvel’s Avengers” caused publisher Square Enix to post a $63 million loss, for example. Still, there hasn’t really been this type of game that’s featured a “character-action” style of combat a la “God of War” or “Devil May Cry.”

In an industry always trying to nickel and dime players, I find it rather delightful to play a game of this type with no microtransactions. They’ve kept that promise. Everything the game needs is within that now-standard $70 retail price for a next-generation game. I’m only about 20 hours into the game and have a ways to go, but so far the game feels packed with features and things to fight and find.

The best way to describe it is that it’s a feature-complete “Diablo-style” game with action that’s like “God of War” for the PlayStation 4. It’s a lot faster, but it relies on the same shoulder-button combat, punctuated by R3 takedown animations and an explosion of colorful equipment and upgrade materials. (There were times when the R1 button, which triggers the standard attack, wouldn’t register at all; I hope that issue isn’t common or gets fixed soon.)

The lack of a jump button is also akin to “God of War,” but player character Orin (who can morph into 12 other different armor types) is able to dash and slide around the battlefield. As a result, the action is very much grounded and relies more on placement and timing than anything else.

If no part of Lee’s initial sales pitch grabbed you, it’s safe to say this game isn’t for you at all, and you shouldn’t expect the story to pick up the slack. It feels almost purposeful in how bare bones it is. There are brothers, one of which wants to become a god, which would be bad. You play as the other (good) brother, and your purpose is to find the bad brother’s lieutenants in five “distinct” worlds, based off earth, fire, water, air and spirit. Yes, this is “Avatar: The Last Airbender” but with no effort taken to write decent character motivation. Anyway, you’re meant to track down these five in each of the worlds, and then stop your brother from becoming the god. That’s the god fall.

The music also barely exists. While the main themes are standard sweeping orchestral tracks with major and minor notes, the battle themes are repetitive. Every fight sounds like it’s backed with the percussion from this classic “Key and Peele” sketch, and it’s consistently hilarious and annoying.

The “Seventh Sanctum,” some kind of other god that’s part woman, part machine, talks about how you need to “upgrade your gear,” and doesn’t even bother with the pleasantries of high fantasy jargon. In a way, it’s pretty refreshing when you realize the game is more concerned with making sure your sword is good enough to hit things than distracting you with nonsensical lore, like most other games try to do.

And this is very much a game about hitting things with swords. You have five weapon types: sword, two small swords, stick with sword at the end (spear) and really big sword. If you’re a sword person, this is a sword game.

It’s hard to tell where “Godfall” goes from here, but I can’t in good conscience call it a bad game, despite its hokey premise and boring features. I found myself letting the grind and the combat feedback wash over me in ways that the best types of these games (“Destiny 2,” mainly) can.

“Godfall” is certainly good enough, if any of this sounds interesting to you. And there’s danger in writing off a generic, fantasy online looter game with a stupid name so early in the generation. The PlayStation 4′s fairly disappointing launch in 2013 came with a free-to-play game called “Warframe.” At the time, the game was dismissed as a standard and confusing online shooter. Today, it sits alongside “Destiny 2” as one of the few games of this kind with a healthy, loyal community.

It’s a strong credit to developer Counterplay Games for building a solid foundation. “Godfall” can only rise up from here.

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