The very first time I saw one of Extinction's giant orcs, called Ravenii, I felt a rush. This monstrosity, which towered above me and popularized destroying the generic medieval town I was tasked to protect, could clearly grind my puny bones into dust with one flick of its wrist, but I was ready. I needed simply to reduce this redwood-sized beast.
By time I encountered my last Ravenii, I never wanted to see a different one again.
Extinction is among those games that's dedicated to doing one thing really well while ignoring all of the smaller, arguably more essential details that make games fun to play. Namely, Extinction's priority is when cool it is to determine an enormous Ravenii stomping around at the cost of creating the rest of the game nothing more than a place-setting for them. And in contrast to the Attack on Titan series, which clearly serves as inspiration here, Extinction's plot just doesn't hold the kind of intrigue and intricacy of these anime-inspired games.
In Extinction, you take on the role of Avil, the last remaining member of an elite squad of soldiers referred to as Sentinels. As Avil, you must protect the final vestiges of humanity from the Ravenii as they attack the kingdom of Dolorum.
If that description seems like run-of-the-mill fantasy fare, that's because it's. But unlike more productive fantasy games, where you set out to explore a vast world and actively pursue the storyline, Extinction is perfectly content with making you sit around awaiting the experience arrive at you. Its missions are structured entirely around defense.
Every among the game's 34 campaign missions will plop you into a familiar arena and task you with completing one of four different quest types: kill a certain number of Ravenii or smaller monsters known as Jackals, save a particular number of civilians, or protect a fortification's towers for any set quantity of minutes. The issue is that each mission is set against a timer of sorts, in that you must complete your objective prior to the Ravenii can manage to entirely destroy whatever town is becoming your arena for your mission. Because of this structure, the entire campaign feels static and repetitive. Just consider the math. You will find four different objectives disseminate during the period of 34 missions. Solve for X, and you will realize how frequently you end up repeating the same type of actions and also the completing the same type of objectives.
The story, therefore, is equally as passive as the mission structure. Instead of going out and finding different quests to embark on, Extinction will feed you the story in dialogue that's presented by static, cartoon talking heads. The only real cutscenes present throughout the game come after every main chapter is completed, which are well-animated segments that, rather than advancing the present plot, spend your time around the less interesting background from the Sentinels and their dark secret, which you can probably already guess. This process of storytelling fails to breathe any life into the already uninteresting and clichéd plot, making the repetitive nature of the mission structure stick out even more.
Fortunately, the actual gameplay is a touch more exciting. As Avil, you're equipped with a Rune-powered sword, a whip that acts a lot more like a grappling hook, and acrobatic abilities that include double-jumping, wall-running, and air-dashing. The enjoyment comes from stringing together these different abilities to become monster-slaying machine. Avil's standard attack is conducted by pressing X or Square. However, you are able to string together a variety of different combos based entirely on this one button input with careful timing. Pressing X, pausing for a moment, then pressing X again performs a slash and then spinning-slash move, while mashing X performs an easy three-slash attack. Holding X launches one of the smaller enemies, the Jackals, in to the air, enabling you to then contact another combo and link together some truly devastating, visually exciting attacks.
In addition to these combos, you can also perform Rune strikes by holding on the left trigger or L2 button. Beginning a Rune strike slows down time, enabling you to highlight an enemy. Releasing the left trigger initiates the strike, and Avil dashes toward the enemy to perform a devastating attack. The trick is that every successful Rune strike lets you immediately get into another Rune strike, if you plan it right (or otherwise, there isn't much strategy necessary), you are able to string together Rune strikes in a stylish number of cuts and slashes. The only problem with the Rune strike system is that it makes fights with Jackals way too easy, to the point where I purposefully avoided using it just because I felt like I was neglecting the more satisfying single-button combo system.
The partner of Extinction's gameplay is its platforming, and while it can be as stylish and satisfying because the combat, it's a smaller amount polished. Avil are capable of doing a handful of aerial maneuvers to make traversing the somewhat characterless arenas more thrilling and engaging. Just like the combat, Extinction's platforming contains certain tricks that, whilst not totally necessary to completing your objectives, can majorly boost the game's fun factor.
Avil can perform a double jump whenever after his first jump. He is able to also mix in an aura dash either before or after he uses that double jump to increase his horizontal reach. In addition, if Avil double-jumps and lands on a bouncy surface just like a tree or an awning, his double jump will reset, giving him an additional jump. On top of that, each arena is filled with poles and branches that Avil may use to zip around together with his grappling hook tool. Zipping also resets Avil's jump and air dash. These mechanics can result in some really cool, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater -style lines that you can use to quickly get over the map.
However, the platforming does have some weird quirks which will make it less than enjoyable. Wall-running utilizes a frustrating mechanic that breaks up whatever flow you've built up while bouncing round the arena. While accumulating a wall, Avil stops after a few moments and starts to slide down the wall. In order to keep running up the wall, you have to press the jump button again. You will need to do this many times to climb up a single wall, also it can become increasingly frustrating when you're trying to climb up a Ravenii's to decapitate it.
Equally annoying is the fact that some walls just aren't climbable, leading to some annoyingly precise platforming moments that Extinction's loose controls just aren't designed for. Even running on the floor can sometimes cause issues when Avil gets stuck on the roots of the tree. You heard right: Avil can swing around an arena like Spider-Man in mid-air, but somehow stepping over roots is a skill he apparently never acquired.
You must utilize all of Avil's combat and platforming skills to consider down the real stars of the show, the Ravenii. Using Rune strikes, Avil can target a Ravenii's limbs and chop them down slowly until it resembles a Monty Python knight (that is even referenced in one of the game's achievements). However, it is not as simple as just entering Rune strike mode and taking out all the limbs. First of all, a Ravenii's limbs re-grow after a brief time period, so you have to operate fast. Secondly, Ravenii wear different forms of armor, each that require a certain action to destroy.
Wooden armor may be the weakest and could be destroyed in one Rune strike. Metal armor, however, is a touch more complicated, for the reason that it takes you to definitely target locks around the armor. Taking down these different types of armor may be the only sort of variation (besides their visual designs) found in the Ravenii, plus some armor can be truly frustrating to deal with. The more proactive armor-wood, metal, bronze, and barbed wire armor-is usually pretty fun, for the reason that it requires you to definitely do something to consider it down.
On another hand, higher-level armor-bone and spiked-is reactive, in that you have to trigger an action in the Ravenii to do something in order to be capable of taking on the armor. Bone armor, for instance, remains safe and secure by fiery skulls, however the shockwave from the Ravenii's attack will briefly snuff the fire out, providing you with a brief window to fight the skull and break that specific bit of armor. Spiky armor works similarly, though I honestly couldn't learn how to break any spiked armor besides the critical neck piece. Then there's steel armor, that isn't breakable regardless of what you need to do.
These more reactive armor types could be a pain to cope with, particularly the spiked armor. The sport is never super clear about how to deal with spiked armor, also it can result in some frustrating moments where a Ravenii basically crushes a whole town along with you only having the ability to cut off its legs to a minimum of slow down before you've stored up enough Rune capacity to kill it. It does not help that climbing a Ravenii, especially one with stronger armor, becomes increasingly frustrating as the camera whips around, making it often hard to judge where you are or why you're getting crushed, tucked in a Ravenii's armpit.
In to finally kill a Ravenii, Avil needs to cut off its head, and in order to stop its head, Avil needs to have a complete Rune meter. You can fill your Rune meter by either killing Jackals (which provides you a little Rune juice), saving civilians (which provides a decent quantity of Rune juice), or by destroying a Ravenii's limbs and armor. The problem with this Rune meter system is that it only adds a kind of artificial difficulty. It does not make taking down Ravenii harder; it just gives you more busy work to finish before allowing you to provide the fatal strike. Additionally, it implies that, no matter what your objective is, you will be performing the same actions repeatedly: saving civilians, killing Jackals, chopping up Ravenii.
Thanks to this monotonous structure, the brief 10-hour campaign feels twice as long. There are several more modes you can play aside from the campaign, but they basically all boil down to exactly the same formula, and by the time you're down using the main story, I'd be incredibly surprised should you wanted to do more of the same.
Extinction is really a game that just doesn't seem to push itself far enough. Where there might have been more interesting mission structures and more varied enemies, Extinction simply depends on its one main hook-that is, killing big orc things-and copy-and-pastes the remainder.
