Developer: Platinum Games
Publisher: Square Enix
Platform: PC, PS4, PS5
Tested on: PS5
Babylon’s Fall – Review
Babylon’s Fall is one of those Square Enix releases that crept by without making a huge impact on the gaming landscape. The game was released on PC and the PlayStation 4 and 5, but sadly, the sales were so underwhelming that the current community is so tiny it’s actually hard to play together with other people. Playing with a full party is very crucial for a game such as this, and even though the game has a few fun elements, the fact that we couldn’t find many other players to play with immediately detracted from the overall fun to be had. The graphical quality and the convoluted gear system didn’t help either.
Story
In Babylon’s Fall, you’ll assume the role of an unnamed Sentinel who has to climb to the top of the Ziggurat tower in order to free the world from a horrible curse. Sadly, you are basically a prisoner of war who is forced to undergo this arduous task, and to make matters even worse, you have a contraption strapped to your back that will corrupt you over time. This so-called Gideon’s Coffin grants you the power the wield spectral weapons, but it also strains your body. As you progress through the game, you’ll get to know the characters that inhabit the very tiny world of the game.
Even though the story does have a few interesting moments, it does take the backseat in a game such as this. You’ll mainly have to grind through the levels over and over to get better and better gear, and thus the story becomes less and less relevant the further you progress. We do have to compliment the developers for fleshing out the theme of the game, as it does add a bit of value to the overall experience.
Graphics
As a whole, Babylon’s Fall is one of the ugliest games we have seen in years that has been published by a big publisher such as Square Enix. While some enemy designs are quite interesting, for the most part, you’re looking at an upscaled PlayStation 2 game, and that’s actually still being quite generous on our part. The game consists of janky animations, loads of invisible walls, bland NPCs, and just a whole lot of dated textures. Credit should be given where it is due, however, and we have to be honest that some of the armor designs are quite interesting and have better textures.
The cutscenes in the game are presented in a sort of oil-painted style with a minimal amount of animations, which is probably an attempt to mask the otherwise unimpressive graphics. The only fun part here is that your character is shown with all their gear on, but other than that, these clips look abysmal. We do understand the developers wanting to ensure that the game would run smoothly, but even so, the graphics are subpar.
Sound
The sound design is fairly okay. We did appreciate the fully voiced story segments, but other than that, you’ll have to make do with a fairly sober backdrop and run-of-the-mill sound effects. Everything is very functional here, but you won’t be getting a very cinematic experience here.
Gameplay
Babylon’s Fall is an ARPG with hack and slash elements. The offset of the game is very simple, and you’ll get the hang of the base mechanics after only one mission. The game has an original equipment mechanic that allows you to equip four weapons at once. Two of these weapons will serve as your main weapons to deal a consistent amount of damage, as well as to regenerate your spirit gauge. This spirit gauge will allow you to use your additional two spectral weapons, which often have a higher damage output or other additional effects. This means you could opt to have a sword and bow as your standard weapons, covering both short-range attacking possibilities as well as long-range ones. And then you could choose to equip a shield and a hammer as your spectral weapons, one allowing you to block incoming damage, while the other delivers skull-shattering blows. It’s honestly all up to you, even if you wish to just equip four different swords.
We did find the equipment system as a whole a bit unclear, however. We often found items that were higher in level, but the stats on them were often negative compared to our lower-level items. We did feel that it was necessary to swap out our lower-level items for the higher ones, but most of the time we felt like the gear system was not explained properly. We did enjoy finding a lot of loot though, as this allowed us to quickly swap between different gear set-ups.
The game has you go from one short level to another. Some are a bit lengthier than others, and some will only present you with a boss battle. As it was hard to sometimes find other players to join us on our climb to the top of the Ziggurat, we found certain missions very tedious, and some were nearly impossible to beat on our own. We would have loved the possibility of adding AI players to the mix, or a serious downscale in difficulty when playing solo. This is currently the game’s biggest issue. The fact that Square Enix then also wants to throw many microtransactions in a nearly abandoned game does not help at all.
Conclusion
Babylon’s Fall does have a few fun elements thrown in the mix, but the game is basically held back by its high price point, with its many microtransactions thrown on top of the initial purchasing price. Another offputting factor is the very shoddy graphical quality. Some gameplay mechanics also feel a bit dated, but as a whole, the concept and the different weapons combos are fun to experiment with. In our humble opinion, this game should have been free-to-play, with possible cosmetic purchases and perhaps a few experience boosts in order to lure in a bigger crowd. As it stands now, this is a very expensive game, with almost no player base, while also feeling highly unpolished. Action fans that love grinding might have a lot of fun with this one though.
Babylon's Fall - Review,
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