Since its very first presentation, the new creature of the house Lab Zero Games - team best known for the series Skullgirls - has been able to win the attention of critics and audiences. The idea of a curious as well as interesting mix between platform, metroidvania and distinctly JRPG elements, all mixed with a visual style capable of bursting with vitality from every pixel, has undoubtedly proved to be a winner in the eyes of the players, who since the first trailer published have trusted in the creation of a small pearl. However, such an ambitious project required huge capital, first coming from a successful fundraising campaign on Kickstarter and then from 505 Games, a publisher who is committed to supporting the team with additional funds and a rich marketing campaign.
The prerequisites for a simply exquisite work were all there, there was a smell of originality, the budget was not lacking and the team was made up of skilled developers who in the past had already proved their worth, a triptych made of dreams and hopes that ultimately materialized in what we all know today like indivisible. In the end, we at Resources4Gaming were also able to finally test the experience offered by the production in its entirety, finding ourselves in front of a title of great quality even if some small oversights were not missing.
A "special" mind
Ajna is a lively and cheerful girl who spends her days in carefree and training with her father in the art of fighting. During an afternoon like so many others, however, the young woman finds herself in front of her village in flames and with her father himself on the ground, now on the verge of death. Hot tears stream down her face when the killer of her old man appears before her, a presumptuous boy ready to send Ajna to the other world as well. But it is at this point that the girl's dormant power manifests itself, a strange ability that allows her to trap other people inside her mind, being able to rematerialize them if necessary. From here will then begin a journey in search of revenge which will however bring to light something much darker, a threat that could lead to the end of every living being.
How easy it is to understand already from these few lines, Indivisible's script is nothing that hasn't already been seen in other productions, but in any case the final result manages to keep the player's attention high thanks to a good pace of events which, between dialogues and twists, proved to be more than pleasant during all the approximately 25 hours necessary to complete the 'Opera. The real pillars of the narrative, however, are represented in particular by a general tone of the story that often and willingly takes little seriously - between jokes, quotes and easter eggs capable of letting out much more than a few smiles - and, above all, by an avalanche of simply wonderful characters. In the course of the adventure we will in fact end up with recruiting over twenty companions ready to give us support during our dangerous journey, a long line of faces that we will soon learn to love.
Each of our allies will not only be able to showcase a wonderful character design, but will also prove capable of conquering our hearts one line of dialogue at a time, between cutscenes and various skits that will allow us to get to know each of the companions in greater detail. that we will take with us, some of which are totally optional. It must be said that not all characters turned out to be treated equally and it is evident that more attention and importance has been given to those who will follow us out of narrative necessity, but in fact we have not found a single element of our crowded group that proved unable to deserve our praise. The real highlight of the adventure, however, is identified precisely in Ajna, our protagonist, a naive country girl found herself in front of something much bigger than her, a girl who in her not even being of age shows off all her sometimes childlike nature, a troublemaker unwilling to listen but always willing to throw punches left and right which often and willingly will do more damage than anything else. The work put into Ajna's writing and her journey of inner growth undoubtedly managed to win us over and at the end of the adventure we were able to put the pad on the desk with a satisfied smile on our face.
When art becomes a video game
As mentioned above, playfully speaking Indivisible expertly mixes various genres together. Basically, we will be able to move freely within various 2D maps full of platform phases, traps and secrets. In this sense, the adventure shows off a great challenge where hand-eye coordination will be the master, with various rather intense phases in which even missing a jump of a few centimeters could lead us to an inglorious end. The metroidvania structure is perceived from the first moments in-game, with various areas that will be reachable only many hours later, when we finally have the right power. From this it agrees that backtracking will be a key part of the experience, with the player who will find himself repeatedly retracing his steps to unlock some previously unreachable area in which we could find real companions to add to our team - which otherwise we could risk never recruiting - and specific essential items to upgrade . Each setting will in fact be scattered with particular stones called Ringsels represent the only way to improve the attack and defense of our party, many of which will therefore be well hidden or placed in points reachable only by sweating the proverbial seven shirts.
However, around the maps we will also find a great variety of opponents who, once hit, will start the real fight, where the gameplay shows all its qualities. In these phases the title will in fact put us in front of a play structure in the style of JRPG where each member of our group - made up of a maximum of four characters manageable at the same time - will have to face the danger of turn. Each of our allies will be linked to a single button on the pad and it will be our task to make the most of every attack available to avoid looming in a fateful game-over. Initially the system will offer a rather simple and not very branched experience, but once we have entered the adventure we will find ourselves in front of a much more complex and articulated combat system, with three different types of moves available for each of our companions.
In this sense, the party members shine again, all well diversified and characterized by unique abilities. Creating the best team trying to balance attack and defense will be the basis of victory and once you become familiar with the controls, we will be able to ring dozens of combos in an infinite multitude of colors and special effects. The parry system was also essential, necessary to decrease - or reset - the opponent's attack or to dodge some dangerous hold. Mastering the mechanics to reduce the damage taken as much as possible will be of vital importance, with the boss-fights in particular that will prove to be almost impractical in case you are not able to parry at the right moment.
Speaking of boss-fights, these have all turned out to be more than pleasant to deal with, although on some occasions it almost seemed to us that the team wanted to "cheat" to force us to suffer dangerous additional damage. There is also a peculiar system of final moves for which, by loading the so-called Bar Iddhi up to a maximum of three notches, we will be able to showcase loaded attacks - precisely, divided into three different levels of strength - with the which do massive amounts of damage. All this goodness, however, has brought with it some headaches that have proved capable of making us turn up our noses. Primarily, we have noticed a certain imbalance in some of our trusted warriors, proved to be far too powerful and capable of forming parties with which it is possible to massacre opponents with unprecedented violence.
Secondly, in addition to a backtracking at times exhausted due to the lack of fast travel, at about three quarters of the game we realized that the fights - bosses excluded - all turned out to be practically useless, with our heroes now so exaggeratedly powerful to go almost to zero the challenge factor. We have very little to say about the technical work carried out, simply sublime in every possible and imaginable aspect. The guys of Lab Zero Games are masters in the art of animation, a talented team that with this Indivisible has once again shown all its skills thanks to amazing characters, a sector of animations from ten and praise, splendid scenarios and an avalanche of details to season everything. To close the circle there is an equally high quality audio component, thanks to a soundtrack full of valuable tracks accompanied by a really excellent dubbing.
