Recent reviews by Mutagene

Transformers: Devastation is an incredibly satisfying game with a stellar soundtrack and massive nostalgia for G1 Transformers fans. What's there is absolutely fantastic, the only thing weighing it down is that it feels like the budget was strained, and the end result suffered for it.

The credits are about as all-star a list as you could ever get. The Metal Gear Rising director and most of his team, the Bayonetta gameplay designer and Bayonetta 2 composer, main themes by Vince DiCola and Kenny Meriedeth, battle music by the Devil May Cry composer and his sound design company, story and script by the Transformers comics writer, and almost all of the surviving voice actors from the original series. It's absolutely clear that they put their all into this game, and it's wonderful.

The problems come in with presentation and general variety. While they got the surviving voice actors and great soundalikes, there are very few cutscenes to showcase them. Like MGR, the cutscenes use the game's assets and engine, but are prerendered videos, and it's fairly jarring against the silky-smooth 60fps gameplay. While they're all used very well, there's no denying that bosses are recycled many times. They get different attacks and vastly different setpieces, but in the end you're still fighting Starscream or Blitzwing again, which can be a killjoy for a lot of people. The lack of environments is frequently criticized, and while I think they're interesting enough to not become stale, I can definitely understand those complaints. Lastly, the collectibles feel shoehorned more than any other Platinum game, which is both good and bad since they're abundant and easy to find.

Pretty much the whole rest of the game is superb. The art design is incredibly bright and colorful, with great attention to detail in both the characters and environments. Make sure to keep an eye out for all the references to the original series scattered in the city. The story, while certainly very cheesy, is true to the source and provides great setpieces. There's not very many games with the balls to have a powerful antagonist like Devastator as the first chapter boss. The variety of weapons is already impressive by itself, but some of the legendary weapons will tickle fans' nostalgia to the bone, with appearances from fan favorite eras. The playable cast isn't large, but it covers the best variety they could have gotten, and it's worthwhile to try them all with their unique abilities and usable weapons.

The gameplay isn't revolutionary for Platinum; in fact, it's probably the most by-the-numbers combat they've done. This is by no means a bad thing in any way though, because it blends Bayonetta and Vanquish with light RPG elements to make an incredibly satisfying experience. Vehicle attacks seem silly at first, but once you try them yourself, chances are the impact of the attacks will be felt through the whole body. Hits are hard and crunchy, with every weapon type feeling perfectly tuned and a joy to wield. Guns aren't just a necessity, but also provide immense utility with the right guns and builds, and also allow for a huge amount of stylish variety when integrated into the melee combat. The variety of guns is even larger than the melee weapons, with some outlandish and truly brutal armaments available. There's nothing quite like using a gatling missile to tear through your most hated enemy types with reckless abandon.

I have few complaints about the gameplay, but they do drag it down a bit. Weapons have a solid variety of combos, but the animations aren't as stylish as you'd expect. It probably wouldn't fit for Optimus Prime to do breakdances, but for Platinum fans it could be a disappointment. Another minor complaint is that the command specials (Tetsuzanko and the 360 attack from Bayo return) don't utilize your equipped weapon, instead reverting to bare metal fists for the animations.

The campaign is 7 chapters of varying length. The game is about 5-6 hours on a first run, so players who don't care about replay value will be left disappointed. For those who want to do and find everything, though, there's easily 30+ hours here. I got over 20 hours and I've yet to even beat Magnus difficulty or half of the challenges.

Speaking of difficulty, though; BOY does this game have it. The normal difficulty is a healthy challenge when you start fresh and don't have good gear yet. The hardest default difficulty is a HUGE step up and requires incredible patience and agility to do for your first run. After completing that difficulty, another is unlocked. There are two additional difficulties unlocked by clearing the last hardest one, and both are brutal and completely unforgiving. For anyone familiar with Bayonetta's difficulty levels, the unlockable difficulties in Devastation also remix enemy placement and numbers, with some of the hardest enemies appearing at the beginning and many parts swarming you with incredibly aggressive waves of them. On these difficulties, your max HP and defense stats mean nothing--you will always die in 3 (or 2 on the highest difficulty) hits. If you can't dodge or parry flawlessly, you will not even make it past the tutorial section on Magnus difficulty. It's frustrating at first, but because the mechanics are so fluid and skill-based, it's also incredibly rewarding to succeed in. However, there are issues with the super high-end gear crafting making weapons that are really strong even for Magnus difficulty, which reminds me of how the Musou games with weapon crafting tend to have the same issue. Here it's not as glaring an issue, because your offense is largely secondary to your defense; you're absolutely required to learn enemy patterns and the openings to either dodge/parry or retaliate, because there is no room for error.

In addition to the campaign, there's 50 unique challenge missions, which range from simple "defeat all Decepticon soldiers," to fighting several bosses at once, to more outlandish things like playing Decepticon Darts. There's a lot to be had here as well, and some challenges also provide lucrative opportunities to acquire money and gear. Unlike a lot of games, your character progress is totally universal between modes and difficulties. Challenges will reward you with items and gear depending on your completion rank, which ends up being the best way to gear up, and within the mode you have access to all the crafting and leveling systems of your home base (dubbed the Ark, identical in function to the Gates of Hell from Bayonetta).

For hardcore character action game players, the ranking system might prove a disappointment. There are bonuses for finishing quickly and without taking damage, but far more points will come from the variety of options you used during the fight. Sometimes, this can mean purposely using weaker weapons and prolonging the fight to get the most bonuses. This is something that has annoyed some players and should be considered if you're one of them.

Now, as far as the PC port goes, it's very solid. As others are quick to point out, 60fps is the maximum framerate, and some resolution options are missing. Performance is excellent though, and I rarely have any issues at all on my outdated rig. It's definitely a game that can be played on budget builds, which was a very welcome and smart move on Platinum's part. After all, more people being able to run the game means more sales, and this is a game that requires the highest framerate to be at its best.

Without going into direct spoilers, the ending and especially the post-credits stinger are a blatant sequel hook. The story is self-contained enough that a sequel isn't necessary for that, but I do very much hope that Activision eventually greenlight a sequel and provide a higher budget.


P.S. Activision, please for the love of the Allspark, release the soundtrack for purchase. I would pay top dollar for it, and I know plenty of other people would as well.

Overheat and explode as the fire mage, PC shuts down. 10/10 immersion

It's kinda like God Hand, if your fists were replaced with singularity cannons and the mooks kamikaze'd into asteroids because you're a deviant trickster.

9/10 it's ♥♥♥♥ -IGN

Smooth as silk controls, intense mechanics, in-depth customization, fantastic enemy design, stages that require proper strategies to beat, and 8-player co-op with friendly fire. It's all you need.