E3 2018: Hands on with Indivisible

Whenever a game has a cool sounding title, I feel I have to give it a look in, because the title usually points to something cool about the game, which is the exact reason I checked out Indivisible at E3!

Indivisible tells the story of Anja, a girl who spent her entire life living in her tiny remote village, on the edge of the jungle, but she discovers that she has some mysterious powers and that causes her to venture from the safety of the village. As she embarks on her grand quest, she begins to realise that the world is far larger than she could have ever imagined and that the world of Loka, is also way more dangerous than she could have imagined as well. But she won’t have to do the journey solo, in fact she will gain more allies than Mario to help her on the journey, thanks to those mysterious powers.

The power she has, is not bad, but it does freak her out, as she is able to absorb people into her inner mind, something I am sure would shock anyone, but while they are there when she explores, when she enters combat, she can summon, for lack of a better term, three of those people to help her out. The combat is based around a concept, similar to that of Valkyrie Profile, so fans of that game should feel at home here, each character has their attacks assigned to a face button, based on the location that they stand in.

Combat plays out a little differently, each character has three slots and as time passes, a slot will fill up and once it is full, pressing the button for that character will have them launch their attack. If you wait until all three slots are full, you will get a more powerful attack, but whilst you wait, the enemies will attack you still, time does not stand still. There was an enemy in the demo that absolutely demolished me, repeatedly, but thanks to some info from the developer on hand, he pointed out that I could also use a special ability, once the gauge at the top of the screen had filled up some. Dealing out damage is what fills the gauge and once I had the first section topped up, I activated the ability, which healed everyone and if they were already knocked out, would bring them back with some health. It took a few tries to get used to the combat, but I was I finally able to beat the baddie and the saddest part though, it was not even a big boss.

Outside of combat, the game is a Metroidvania, the opening area that I got to explore, had loads of blockages that I was unable to clear, from tree branches to cracked walls, the temptation to return was strong. Towards the end of the demo, I was able to locate an axe, which can be used in a few ways, one is, of course, to chop away those pesky branches that are blocking some of the paths we passed earlier, the other and probably the cooler of the ways it can be used, as a grapple type item, which allowed me to start climbing the tall shafts that I feel down before and start retracing my earlier steps.

I managed to escape the temple ruins that I was exploring as part of the demo but sadly encountered a creature that was way too strong for me to defeat, so my time came to an end. While I knew about the game, thanks to its cool name, having now played it, I am psyched to play it some more, it scratches my Metroidvania itch, but adds a deep and complex combat system on top.

Sadly though, the game is not expected to release until sometime in 2019, so there is going to be quite a wait until we can all enjoy Indivisible.