Immortals: Fenyx Rising review

Intro

I recently finished Immortals Rising/Fenyx Rising/Fenyx Immortals Rising or whatever random name this game was given and I have mixed feelings about this game. Ubisoft did an awesome job of copying The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild mixed with Assassin’s Creed Odyssey but they didn’t manage to copy the feel of either games.

Story

The protagonist of this story is called Fenyx, a simple shield-bearer who is the only survivor of a shipwreck. He/she (it’s up to you) needs to save the world from the escaped titan Typhon.

Ubisoft’s probably a big fan of Greek mythology and figured Assassin’s Creed Odyssey wasn’t enough. Where Assassin’s Creed has a serious tone overall, Fenyx Rising is peppered with humor.

The story is told by the titan Promotheus to the famous God of Thunder: Zeus (no, not Thor, he is from the Norse mythology). Throughout the game, those two will comment and argue about the bad parenting skills of Zeus. His children Aphrodite, Ares, Hephaistos and Athena are captured by Typhon and you need to travel to all corners of the map to free them in order to defeat Typhon (similar to the Divine Beasts in Breath of the Wild).

Story rating: 7

Gameplay

Immortals: Fenyx Rising looks fantastic and the gameplay is really smooth. Ubisoft got it spot on when deciding what stuff to copy from Breath of the Wild: the paragliding, the climbing, the visuals, a big open world to explore filled with enemies and treasures, it has it all.

The start

You start off on a reasonably sized island with the promise of more adventures beyond the horizon. The island itself, however, could be a game on it’s own because there is so much to do! And once you get your wings and glide to the rest of the big open world, it feels fantastic.

The world is brilliantly crafted to get the most out of the core mechanics of this game: climbing and flying. Everything can be climbed on (if you have enough stamina) and flying through the beautiful environments is a joy for the eye.

Enemies, puzzles and treasures

Like in Breath of the Wild, the game rewards exploring by filling every nook and cranny of the world with enemies, puzzles and treasures. Maybe a bit too much, because there isn’t much variety to this.

You encounter the same enemies over and over again with the difference of having a different color depending on their strength level. The puzzles differ from bow shooting to running an obstacle path or collecting orbs and are fun the first few times. However, when halfway through the game, I decided to skip the most as they start to feel tedious over time and the rewards aren’t that great in general.

Chests are one of the best inventions in games ever. You never know what you get and if feels really satisfying to open one. In most cases (pun intended), the opening is more fun than the actual content of a chest. I’m sad to say that this goes for most of the treasure chests in Fenyx: Immortals Rising. There are a few types of weapons, but you acquire most of them early on in the game and you probably will stick to one type for the rest of the game. Since weapon upgrades are done by collecting resources, chests often contain cosmetic updates or resources that can also be collected when exploring the world.

NPCs

Let’s talk about NPCs for a moment. Non-playable characters make a world come alive and give the player something to interact with or at least provide a safe place to linger for a while. Fenyx Rising has virtually none. There are the 4 gods you need to rescue, an annoying Hermes repeatedly asking if you have “any Elektrum burning a hole in your pocket” and now and then some random soldiers you can’t interact with you need to rescue from some evil monster. That’s it.

I think a few small villages or wandering NPCs would have made the world much more lively and memorable.

Vaults

Breath of the Wild has shrines, small dungeons providing resources upon finishing required to upgrade your health or stamina. Fenyx Rising has vaults, small dungeons providing resources upon finishing required to upgrade your health or stamina. Need I say more?

Combat

This is where the game differs the most from Breath of the Wild. Where Link has breakable weapons with no special attacks, Fenyx has some magical unbreakable weapons and a LOT of special attacks. This system is cleverly copied from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. The combat is fluent and you can chain some nice combos together. One could say that the combat maybe is a little too good as you get a little bit overpowered halfway through the game.

Gameplay rating: 7

Graphics

I’m a big fan of brightly-colored, cartoony open worlds and this game really does it right. Yes, it’s a copy of Breath of the Wild, but it’s done right. The sunsets and sunrises are amazing, painting the whole world in different colors. Add the stunning vistas and the picture is complete.

The world is divided in regions with various biomes: grasslands, forests, deserts and snowy mountains. Every biome is crafted expertly with cleverly placed landmarks and stylish ancient Greek buildings/ruins. As in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, there is a photo mode, hurray!

Graphics rating: 9

Audio

The general feeling about the audio in this game is ‘decent’. Apart from the title screen and some cutscenes, there isn’t much music. Voice acting is all right, if you can bear the fake Greek accent like in Assassin’s Creed…

Environmental and interactive sounds, luckily, are better integrated. The sound does transfer the peacefulness of nature, the danger when entering combat or the satisfying “click” when opening a treasure chest.

Audio rating: 7

Memorable

This game takes the best elements of other games, but adds too little of its own to distinguish itself from those other games. When I think of Immortals: Fenyx Rising, I feel nostalgic about Zelda and remember the big world of Assassin’s Creed but I can’t think of anything noteworthy about Fenyx Rising.

Memorable rating: 5

Conclusion

If you like Assassin’s Creed and/or Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you’ll like this game. The game starts strong, but lost a bit of my interest halfway through the game. At that point I couldn’t bring myself to keep doing all the puzzles and vaults and just finish the story and be done with it.

Played on the Playstation 4.