[Review] Immortals Fenyx Rising | Daily Nintendo

Help Fenyx to save the Greek gods.

Immortals Fenyx Rising was billed as Gods & Monsters at E3 2019, but was renamed this year. The game was developed by the same team as Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and that is clearly visible when you play the game. The developers also took inspiration from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but does Immortals Fenyx Rising manage to match this game?

Greek gods and a deadly Titan

One of the most famous battles in Greek mythology is the Battle of the Titans; Zeus and the other Olympian gods fought against Kronos and the Titans for world power. The Olympian gods were victorious and the Titans were banished to the underworld. The same can be found in Immortals Fenyx Rising. God Zeus and Titan Typhon disagreed about who would take control. Ultimately, Zeus won this battle and Typhon was banished to the underworld where he was chained. However, the disaster started when his chains were pierced by meteorites and he was released. This is the point where all the mischief started, but luckily there was Fenyx!

Fenyx is a simple squire who lives in the shadow of her brother, Ligryon. While you and your brother are sailing a ship full of soldiers at sea, a storm suddenly appears. When you wake up you are suddenly lying on a beach. You walk a bit and see that all soldiers have been turned to stone. Then you see your brother’s sword. You pick these up and know that your heroic adventure begins here.

A story told by Prometheus to Zeus

What’s unique about this game is the story. This story starts with a bet; Typhon has escaped and Zeus cannot believe there is anyone who can beat him. Prometheus, a Titan and a cousin of Zeus, starts a bet and begins the story of the heroic Phenyx. You will hear elements of this story throughout the game, with regular commentary from Zeus. This can lead to hilarious moments, but at one point I found the commentary to be a bit too much. The story is useful if you don’t know what to do anymore. Tips will be given regularly.

As mentioned earlier, Fenyx starts her story with a shipwreck where you end up on the Golden Isle. You start your adventure on a small piece of the island. Here you learn how to fight and get your wings. Once you get these, you can explore the open world. As you explore, you must free four Olympian gods, Athena, Aphrodite, Ares, and Hephaistos, from Typhon. You can choose in which order you liberate these gods, you can also choose to explore in between.

A world full of secrets

Exploring the world is not only fun, but it can also be very useful. When you look at the map for the first time, you can see that almost every area is covered with clouds. You can make the clouds disappear over an area by climbing one of the statues of the gods. This is an element that comes straight from the Assassin’s Creed games. What also comes from these games is the Far Sight. By using this and looking around, you can see what things you can find in your area. You have to keep in mind that you cannot go straight to every thing; sometimes you have to come back at a later time because you are not strong enough yet.

For example, you can find Ambrosia with which you can upgrade your lives, you can find various chests, but there are also quite a few challenges to be found. For example, you have small harps in different places; you have to memorize the tune of this and replay it on a large harp located in that region. There are various sliding puzzles, you have a navigation challenge, but there are also various rafts in the game.

A dive into the underworld

These rafts become the Vaults of Tartarus mentioned. These are all levels that are very similar to the shrines from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The main purpose of these levels is to solve puzzles. For example, in one level you have to avoid lasers, and in another you have to blow away gigantic balls of air. At the end of such Vault you get an item you need for a quest (if available) and a piece of Zeus’s lightning bolt. These levels are a lot of fun to complete, only when the end is in sight after a lot of effort and you are told that you need a power that you do not yet have, it is a bit disappointing. That will be doing the vault all over again if you do have this power …

The home of the gods

Finally, there is one central hub in the game: The Hall of the Gods. This is the home of the gods, that is, if they weren’t kidnapped… Since this is a fairly important place, you should go straight to the introduction area here. You can upgrade your health points, stamina and weapons here, but you can also get new powers and do weekly assignments. To upgrade your health points you will need ambrosia and to upgrade your stamina you will need enough pieces of lightning bolt. So make sure you collect enough of this.

You can also upgrade your weapons here. Since the whole world is full of monsters and you also have to slaughter fairly strong monsters while saving the gods, this is quite important. Fortunately, you have three different weapons at your disposal: Achilles’ sword, Atalanta ‘s ax and Odysseus’ bow. So you have the choice in which way you want to slaughter monsters and which weapons you want to upgrade for this. However, you not only make it with these weapons, but luckily you can get special powers. This could be an attack with a giant hammer, or an attack where all kinds of spears come up from the ground. You have to obtain these new powers Coins of Charon needed, which you can get again by solving different challenges on the island.

A world with little detail

When I saw the trailers of Immortals Fenyx Rising I had quite high expectations for the game: everything looked colorful and beautifully detailed. Unfortunately, this is a bit disappointing in the Switch version. It is still a beautiful world, only the colors are very pale and the details in the game are missing. For example, the grass consists more of strips than really of blades and there is no texture on rocks, for example. Some elements also load very late; I have regularly had flowers in vases, for example, only load when you are standing next to them. This shows that the game might be a bit too heavy for the Switch graphically. What is really good in this game is the music. For the music, for example, a clear distinction is made between the quieter world and the more fierce battles in the underworld, but each character also contains good voice acting.

Conclusion

Immortals Fenyx Rising is a great game that does drop some graphics. There is plenty to do in this game and you can choose how and in which order you want to continue your adventure. For example, you can choose to use the Far Sight to use to find everything easier or to explore everything yourself without tools, but you can also choose which weapons and possible powers you want to use so that you can make the battles as easy or difficult as possible for yourself. In short; Immortals Fenyx Rising is definitely recommended if you are looking for a game that looks a bit like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and that will keep you busy for many hours.

Final mark: 7.2