- Developer: Kamina Dimension
- Publisher: First Press Games
- Release Date: 29/09/2020
- Price: $23.99 / £17.99
- Review Code Provided By First Press Games
Introducing: Mindseize Switch Review
There’s nothing that hits quite as hard as starting a troubled and traumatic backstory like having your only kid kidnapped by alien beings while you have your spine blown apart. Man, MONDAYS, am I right? If I had a nickel for every week that started like that I’d uh… well, huh. I thought I was going somewhere with this.
Anyways, you can tell a lot about how a story wants to lead the reader by the first few seconds of the whole shindig. Scott Pilgrim Vs The World did a great job by subverting our expectations with some great humor and video game sound effects. Star Wars gets us with the incredible prelude and the text crawl. Good story telling gets you hooked with those first few moments. So, I’ll bet you can see where I’m going with this. Let’s talk about MindSeize and what this story and game is all about.
Mag-Locked
Like I said before, your character, M.C. Fox, is looking for his daughter who has been kidnapped by a secret organization called “The Ascended”. There’s a bit of a catch though. Remember that whole “somebody shot me in the spine” business I mentioned a few paragraphs ago? Yeah, kind of limits the whole going-hunting-for-my-daughter-in-this-intergalactic-hullabaloo thing. So, on a path to revenge and justice, you enlist the help of MAG suits – specially built mechanical suits you can control with your mind that are equipped with customizable weapons and powers. How great! What happens from here is a journey served Metroid style as you quest about multiple worlds to power yourself up and kick alien butts while you go to find the lost family that was taken from you.
The story is well… it’s alright. Maybe it’s just not exactly super captivating for me, but it’s written well. Various characters you meet along the way become likeable and you feel engaged with the story, but when it all came to a head for me I just didn’t feel the hook like I have with other stories. And where the price tag is a little on the chunkier side, not having a great story that ropes me in is kind of a deal breaker.
The Gun Isn’t Mightier Than The Sword
MindSeize is what is now categorized as a Search-Action game. Usually we called them Metroidvanias, but Search-Action sounds cooler. Mainly the gameplay consists of exploration to find a new ability that will help you progress forward to new locations, but unlike standard Search-Action games, there’s a money system and a limited healing option. It felt like the developers really liked that whole “Estus Flask” concept that the souls game brought in. At any time during play you can press a button to release nanobots that gradually restore health with a few catches: If you get hurt during healing, it stops the process and you only have so many uses before you have to recharge them. It’s not a bad concept and I think they did a decent job with it.
You have two weapons usually: a Melee weapon and a ranged weapon. The ranged weapons deal significantly less damage at a higher rate and the melee weapons do MASSIVE damage but expose you to chances to get hit. Additionally, each weapon style can be amplified with an energy bar your character has to do additional damage or to give additional range. Honestly, it’s fairly basic, but not in a bad way. I found myself hardly using the ranged weapons just because the sword the game started me with was so much more effective at killing everything in front of me. Combat works well, but it’s honestly nothing that really sells the game.
That’ll Do
While I might not be a tremendous fan of the gameplay of MindSeize, I am more than a huge fan of the beautiful scenery and art direction. There has been an impressive of care put into how good the worlds that you visit look and I think those people need to be given proper credit for their hard work. Each new locale gives an entirely different feeling and urgency to your mission and I simply can’t let something like that go unrecognized. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the enemy designs. Though they are varied and occasionally interesting, I was never really captivated or taken by any of the main enemy and boss design. It’s just a kind of middle-of-the-road quality for design, and if you haven’t already guessed it this is just how the game feels in general.
The music is fine. It certainly fits the scenario and even occasionally has some banging tunes, but it’s just kind of alright. Like I said before, it’s not bad by any means, but it’s certainly not great by any stretch of the word. Each tune is just about what you would expect and it sounds pretty good, but not amazing. If asked now, I couldn’t tell you a specific track from the soundtrack . That’s where I stand with it.
Returning to Base
All in all this game is a huge missed opportunity. I never felt connected to the story or the protagonist nor did I feel a connection to the world that I was adventuring in. I feel that the scenario and the feelings that the game was trying to go for we’re just on the verge of being everything they wanted the game to be, but it never felt like it all fell into place. Maybe you liked this game more than I did, and that’s fine, but I can tell you MindSeize this was certainly something that I probably won’t find myself ever going back to. Not because it was bad, but because it wasn’t memorable.
Pros
- Impressive scenery and world design
- Limited healing adds decent challenge
- Mystery is there if you are looking for it
Cons
- Hefty price tag for an average game
- Did not captivate me to want to play more of it
- Feels overwhelmingly average.
