Declining World, Declining Interest
HIGH Charming pixel art, modern civilization fallen into ruin with Norse mythological backdrop
LOW Clunky movement, weak combat, wonky UI
WTF Why do I need to disconnect my controller just for the game to be able to launch?
Vessels of Decay makes a good first impression.
When I saw a gameplay video, I was instantly drawn in by the retro-inspired graphics, isometric action, RPG gameplay and a post-apocalyptic setting steeped in Norse mythology.
The player follows the adventures of siblings Freja and Mud as they fight a wide variety of monsters on their quest to restore the world’s former glory, which entails navigating dilapidated city centers and mysterious Zelda-esque temples chock full of puzzles and challenges.
When I finally set out on my hero’s journey, however, that first impression quickly soured due to a host of technical issues… starting with the game’s failure to launch.
After trying to boot it up several times and failing, I took to the Internet to see if anyone else had encountered the same issue. Other players had already figured out that Decay wouldn’t launch if they had a controller connected, so I had to disconnect my controller, reboot, and then plug the controller back in once the main menu had loaded.
The menu featured the same image used for the promo materials, and it captures what appealed to me in the first place — the two siblings standing on a precipice overlooking a vast landscape and facing what appeared to be a giant deer god. Honestly, it’s a scene worthy of being an album cover. Things were looking up again… for a little while, anyway.
Getting back to controllers, Decay is poorly optimized for them. Even when I tried to rebind the controls, the UI was so clunky that I had to go through and reconfirm or reassign every input entirely (there’s no way to change one and back out) so I eventually just settled on the default settings, which detracted from the overall experience as the developers made many odd choices in determining which buttons to have the player use for certain actions.
Past the controls, I wish I could say that Vessels of Decay lived up to my hopes and expectations, but truthfully, I’m struggling to find positive things to say about it. I liked the vibe and appreciated what I could glean from the few cutscenes and bits of dialogue (each chapter shifted perspective from one sibling to the other) but the way the story was presented made it a little tough to tell the different between dreams or visions and reality.
Initially, I remember being enchanted by the ethereal synth music and the nostalgic pixel art throughout the city ruins which served as the tutorial area where (sadly) I experienced even more egregious technical difficulties.
I was shown the ropes of combat soon after. The game offers heavy and light attacks, a parry, a dodge and executions, but the movement felt sluggish, even when “sprinting”, which was quite finicky. Platforming challenges like swinging from pole to pole across gaps were mired by inconsistent timing, particularly infuriating during a chase sequence when I was being pursued by a giant boar. Balancing on beams between buildings tended to be glitchy — sometimes I would still be walking as if I was on the beam after I had already jumped off and I would be forced to restart from the checkpoint.
Once I made it to the first boss arena, I was disappointed to find that my opponent, the giant boar, was not necessarily challenging, but was still an incredibly repetitive and frustrating fight. There were many times when nothing was happening on-screen, yet the arena would ‘vibrate’ to signify that the boar was stomping around somewhere, so I would have to wander around the arena until I finally triggered its charge attack.
Sometimes the boar wouldn’t make any noise as it did so, looking almost comical as it flew silently around the map trying to attack me. At other times, the camera would neither track me nor the boar, and would instead be fixed on a patch of trees somewhere. Such a viewpoint made it impossible for me to tell where I was or what was going on, so I would end up guessing and dodging blindly in a given direction. Miraculously, I managed to finally bring it down, but rather than feel accomplished, I mostly just felt relieved to have gotten past something that had been the source of so much frustration.
As things progressed, I unlocked some satisfying abilities like the Thorn Stomp which allowed me to use what was essentially a spell slot to trigger far off switches or attack enemies from a distance. I also enjoyed the Charge Dash, though it caused me to get stuck in the wall on several occasions, requiring me to reload the game from a previous save.
The various types of puzzles and challenges in each area weren’t anything that hasn’t been done before (I half-expected the item discovery sound effect from Zelda anytime I opened a chest) but the areas were aesthetically captivating, and at one point I came across a shopping mall which acted as the lair for a host of giants, goblins and trolls — an interesting location!
At this point, I’m running out of positives to share. I had completely lost interest in the story by this point of the game and all of the persistent technical issues drowned out any enjoyment Vessels of Decay had managed to cultivate. To be perfectly frank, it’s unlikely that the developers will be able to address all of the issues that would need to be resolved to make Decay appeal to a wider audience. There are a handful of great ideas here, but the execution falls so wide of the mark that I hope the devs can take this as a learning experience and improve their next venture.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10
Buy Vessels of Decay — PC — XBO/X/S — PS4/PS5 — Switch
Disclosures: This game was developed by Simon Jakobsson and Aurora Punks and published by Headup. The game is currently available on PC, XBO/X/S, PS4, PS5 and Switch. It was obtained via publisher and reviewed for PC. Approximately 3.5 hours were devoted to the campaign mode. The game was not finished. There is no multiplayer mode.
Parents: This game is not yet rated but it would likely be rated T for cartoon violence, blood and gore.
Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game has only text-based dialogue and no audio cues that impact the gameplay in any significant way making it fully accessible.
Remappable controls: The controls can be remapped.
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