Over the course of history there have been tales of kind and forgiving gods, and on the flip side, harsh and vengeful gods. Regardless of your personal beliefs, logic states in order to have a “good,” you must have an “evil” to balance the scales. That said, I am pretty sure you are playing the part of the villain in the new rouge-lite FPS hybrid Polygod. 

Polygod allows you to select from a number of gods (with only one available out of the gate), which will then be transported to a basic hub world filled with other gods or beings. These entities will offer some vague, often insane sounding banter in the form of word bubbles, with the only obvious direction of stepping forward into the portal at the top of a large staircase. Once you walk through the gate, you’ll instantly find yourself fighting against gravity and land on a randomized island. The game wastes no time putting you into the thick of it, with enemies often attacking you before you are able to orient yourself within the game world. Your goal is simply to collect as many souls as possible, which if you ask me, the jerk robots that make up the enemies in the levels are asking for it. I mean, I was just trying to see what was going on and all of a sudden they just start shooting.

Each god is equipped with a basic killing tool o’ death, which can be upgraded by exchanging souls for random perks that will appear above chests regularly throughout the levels. The offered perks are not limited to the weapon upgrades, as others are present and allow you to upgrade your health or modify the character’s movement. In addition to these, some will offer a trade-off, such as providing a sizable damage buff at the expense of a large chunk of your health. Much like everything else in the game, these are randomly offered but seem to be overly pricey in early stages, often requiring you to seek out additional enemies prior to moving forward to acquire the right upgrade. Much like a game of chess, you will have to select your upgrades wisely: do you throw all of your souls in for just an alright upgrade, or do you wait for a meatier perk later on? The choice is yours, but more often than not, either decision will still result in an untimely death.

Polygod is absurdly difficult. I won’t bother comparing this to Dark Souls, because that is getting kind of old and in all honesty, this game is light years ahead in terms of difficulty – I could at least beat the first few areas in each of the Souls games. The enemies you’ll face in this are relentless and as I mentioned previously, have no issue taking pot shots at you long before they rightfully should be able to. Much like a glass figurine of your chosen real world idol, the in game god is fragile, only being able to take a number of well-placed shots and even fewer attacks at close range. To evade the enemies, you’ll need to move constantly or use the environment to your advantage, as the malicious R2-D2 wannabes will pursue you relentlessly. The only thing that will stop them is death or using the high ground, which can be attained by jumping or using one of the large red bumper pedestals for additional height.

The visuals are very low poly, with most of the assets appearing as if they were on the higher end of the user created content from Roblox. The trees really stood out in this regard, looking as if they were cut and pasted from Super Mario 64. The enemies are presented in a slightly better light, but lack variety, as all of the ones I encountered had robotic features and the same attack patterns, which amounted to shooting at you until you die or running into you head first while shooting. Coupled with the fact that all of the enemies are very bullet spongey, combat is difficult, yet a worthy challenge if this is your type of game.

As I mentioned before, the game runs at breakneck speed and feels very much like a Doom clone, with the addition of a jump button. Gunplay functions as expected; however, aiming is not nearly as smooth as it should be. The game is well suited for those who like to bunny hop (jumping repeatedly to make for a harder target) which proved to be a bit more successful in terms of survival. This is due to the addition of the jump button being assigned to the left trigger, which took me a bit to get used to, but felt like second nature around my third run.

While the overall layouts of the levels are varied, the small areas that comprise the dungeons are not. Having tried unsuccessfully to complete over twenty runs, I’ve seen the same turrets or enemies sitting on the same pedestals or ledges enough to almost memorize entire sections. While I felt that I was doing better the more I played, the frustration vs. fun factor was not leaning in a positive direction.

Seeds are the one thing the game does well, and hopefully future games in the genre take note of, much like the recently released Chasm. You can save your seed or even replay the same one if you fail. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve played The Binding of Isaac wishing I didn’t have to write down the code to replay the same run.  While I was rarely in a spot that I enjoyed being bent over R2-D2 by C3PO with no oil so much that I wanted to repeat the experience again, it’s nice the option is there if you’re more of a masochist than I am.

Polygod is a game that will likely be a hit with its target audience, which is clearly those that think Dark Souls or Doom on the most brutal difficulty is the equivalent of Sesame Street. As someone who expects a bit more from their gaming experience, I found this title to be overly punishing (in the wrong way) and lacking in overall content. If you’re looking for a challenge, I would say go for it, but be warned, it may have you using your lord’s name in vain.

6 out of 10

Pros:

• Punishing Difficulty
• Ability to Save Seeds Easily

Cons:

• Frequently Repeated Scenarios
• Punishing Difficulty
• Ugly
• Aiming Lacks Precision

Polygod was developed and published by Krafted Games for X1, Switch and PC on August 17th, 2018 for $14.99. The game was provided to us for review on X1. For more information on Polygod, please visit their official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

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