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Apotheon

Apotheon

Ancient Greece comes to life in Alien Trap's stunningly beautiful metroidvania.

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Imagine a pristine mural for ancient Greece come to life. Full of animation, character and - dare we say - bloody murder (deaths in Apotheon tend to be rather brutal). That's pretty much what Alien Trap's Apotheon offers. It's a game of the "metroidvania" persuasion, where you negotiate areas to uncover secrets, progress your skills and upgrade your arsenal in order to unlock new areas, secrets, etc. It's a lovely premise and Alien Trap has done a lot of things right.

The aforementioned visuals and design aspect is spot on. Many developers have taken to Greek mythology and few - if any - have been able to create something that feels both authentic and stylish at the same time. There is a tremendous level of attention to detail, and the animation involved when doing simple things like jumping or performing a dodge roll is a joy to behold. The audio side of things also impresses, with appropriate melodies, ambience and instrumentals making for a suitably simplistic yet atmospheric score.

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Mankind has fallen upon hards time, and Zeus has turned against them and robbed them of the favour of the Gods. Thus you ascend Mount Olympus in a bid to convince him otherwise and prove yourself worthy to the Gods once again.

There is a ton of detail and backstory to plow through if you want to, and lots of characters from Greek mythology that many of you will have heard of before. For some it may be a little heavy-handed and the written dialogue does break up the pacing a little bit, but if you're among those interested in Greek mythology, there's a lot to get your teeth into here.

The beautiful renditions of the environments, and the beasts you'll need to conquer, makes it a pleasure to explore and travel to new areas. The backgrounds are elegantly done, and it fits together really nicely. However, exploration and finding objectives in new areas is never really a challenge in itself.

The game offers a lot of different mechanics and does them all solidly. It's not really a stealth game, but there are stealth elements where you will want to avoid detection. There are objects to interact with and, at times, the typical flow of combat will be broken up by particularly inspired touches of boss or level design. Your torch may be used in a couple of different ways. And combat (with various weapons like knives, swords, spears, hatchets and bows) offers a lot of variation as you switch between ranged and melee attacks.

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But combat is also where our first gripe with the game becomes apparent. Even if it clearly favours skilled players with a lot of tactical layers, we were also left with the feeling that it doesn't quite click together. It feels a little random at times and occasionally you might even turn to button mashing in hopes of landing a blow on the hit box of a particularly frantic enemy. Mechanically it feels a little stiff, and this sits in stark contrast to the potential tactical element the many weapons and items allow for.

Another issue is the way in which you choose weapons. Rather than an easily managed system, picking weapons just feels overly complicated. You will often find yourself pressing "options" and switching weapons when the game is paused, as the real-time system is difficult to manage in the heat of battle (it works fine otherwise). It's little things like this, none of which are game breaking, that hold it back. The game would have been better served with a less complex and more easily managed combat system.

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As it stands Apotheon is one of those titles that offers a great premise, but simply doesn't reach the same level as the best games in the same genre. We're sure this game will be embraced fully by some, but for us it simply fell a little short of the mark, especially when it comes to the combat.

That said the brilliant presentation should be enough for many of you to have closer look, especially if you're a fan of this sort of game or enjoy the period of history. It should also be noted how seriously the subject matter is treated, which is a nice change of pace from say God of War, where at times in that game a few liberties too many were taken.

Apotheon was part of PS Plus' instant game collection for February, so you can't fault the price of admission if you're a subscriber, although you'll have to pay if you want the game on PC (or if you wait and pick it up on PS4 in March). Either way, if you enjoy history and are after an interesting title, this may well be it. It's not a classic by any stretch, but that doesn't mean there isn't plenty to admire in this beautiful homage to Greek mythology.

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07 Gamereactor UK
7 / 10
+
+ Wonderful visual style and level design, exciting approach to an interesting period of history.
-
- Stiff combat and a clunky weapon select feature.
overall score
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Apotheon

REVIEW. Written by Bengt Lemne

"It's a lovely premise and Alien Trap has done a lot of things right."



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