Immortals Fenyx Rising – Myths of the Eastern Realm DLC - Review

When Ubisoft first announced Gods & Monsters, now known as Immortals Fenyx Rising, part of me cheered at more stories in the Greek mythology, but a small part sighed. Zeus is interesting and all, but there are dozens of cultures around the world, each with their own myths, legends and tall tales that could have been explored instead and strangely enough, that is what we got with the second DLC pack for the game, the question is, is it a tale worth investing in?

The story picks up right after a scar has broken the space between heaven and the earth, taking with it all of the gods, bar two and all the mortals, yet somehow Ku, a solider awakens and is not impacted by the effects. After hearing a melodic voice, Ku follows it to find Nuwa, the mother Goddess of China, creator of all living beings on earth and together, they come up with a plan to repair the heavens and close the scar. I say that they come up with it together, but it is mostly just Nuwa’s plan, Ku; like Fenyx before him, just knows all the stories and tales and tries to argue that the plan won’t work. But like a good mortal, he sets off with the goal of obtaining the bits of the sky that fell down, when the scar appears, but as they are corrupted, he ignores the Goddess and heads out on his own plan.

Sadly, all that story happens within the space of about 20 minutes, meaning that, before you even get to understand either Ku or Nuwa, they are doing their own thing and there really isn’t any ground to support one or the other. Eventually, Ku discovers he is right, so with that in mind, he heads off for the next part of the plan and discovers Lord Gong Gong, a god known for his brute strength, but because of the scar appearing, lost his strength. While the Gods in the main game were playing the opposite of their normal selves, here they are staying true to their roles from myth and it is Ku that is left to flounder. The start difference between Ku and Fenyx is that whilst Fenyx is willing to help, Fenyx is snarky and strong willed, while Ku is still snarky at times, but he would rather do it, when no-one can hear him. It also doesn’t help that Ku’s adventure is barely a good few hours in length, not counting side activities, so what could easily have been a wonderful tale, feels shoved into a smaller runtime.

The core gameplay that folks can find, is almost identical to that of the main game, with a few notable changes and additions. The biggest change is that you don’t have to unlock powers and abilities, those are all granted to you at the start and while they have different names from the main game, they are functionally the same. The additions come in the form of new puzzles, flipping tiles over with your arrows and being able to pull yourself around with the new gauntlets you have on. While the tile puzzles are fun, there is no upgrade for the bow and arrow, at least that I could find, that would provide me with a faster recharge of arrows, which means puzzles that require a lot of effort to solve, take a while.

The other addition, being able to pull yourself around, like a ziphook, is actually fun, except when you have to complete a challenge for Lord Gong Gong, which requires you to zip around the sky, whilst fighting waves of enemies. The challenge isn’t to difficult, you just need to learn how to balance, attacking, gliding and zipping, all while dodging, if any of those fall out of your head, then Ku falls out of the stage and has to start all over again. I really did like the function, at least when on the ground, because instead of randomly attacking in one direction and waiting for the animation to stop, you can interrupt it and bring the fight back to the enemies.

Something that I was not a fan of, was the lack of effort in making the game feel more Chinese, there are elements everywhere and they fit within the theme of the world, but it feels cheap. What I mean by this is that there are a few core locations, that are wonderfully created, for example instead of the Hall of the Gods, you now have the Peace Forge, which is a Pagoda, complete with the architectural elements that the world associates with that design. The problem lies with the rest of the world, for the few buildings and locations that get the theming right, the rest feels like it is reskinned assets from the main game, which from a development standpoint, may have made sense, but in the execution, it didn’t work. These stick out even more, when you start to see some of the armour and weapons that you can obtain, as your journey continues on.

Even though the world has Chinese names, like the Peng Lai Si Rang, or challenges like Li Quells the Horizon, it is all brought down by the horrible voice acting and I do mean horrible. Each of the characters, outside of Nuwa, sounds like they were folks from the studio that were used as temp audio and then they forgot to replace them with proper actors later. I don’t mean with the audio quality being the issue, I mean the fact that there is no soul to most of the voices, there is no interest in what is being said and even when someone is angry, their voice lacks heat. Nuwa manages to avoid this, mostly because her character is soft spoken, rarely does she get agitated enough to warrant speaking any louder than a whisper. All of this is made even more noticeable, by the fact that the music is wonderful, with many of the tracks featuring traditional Chinese instruments like a Guzheng or a Pipa.

Immortals Fenyx Rising: Myths of the Eastern Realm could have been something amazing, taking the core gameplay of the base game, but layering in an a usually untouched mythos. The problem is, almost every aspect feels like it was done on the cheap, bar a few exceptions, from art that looks great a few times, to reskinned the rest of it and character voices that sound like they were temporary. The gameplay is solid and the addition of the new combat options help make things interesting, the problem is the rest is just not able to hold interest for very long.

The Score

7.0

Review code provided by Ubisoft

The Pros

+The games musical score is wonderful and even when standing still, makes me think of China

+The new gameplay additions are fun and equally frustrating at times, but provide new challenges to overcome

The Cons

-There is very little that stands out in the presentation, lacklustre visuals and temp sounding dialogue among them

-The length of the main story is short, even if the world is massive