Californian studio made up of seventy-five people, Counterplay Games has benefited from the expertise of its members – there are people who have worked in particular on Destiny 2, God of War, Diablo III or even the Ratchet & Clank series – and from the publisher Gearbox Publishing, after having fundraised for good in 2018. And like any first work, the developers based themselves on what they knew how to do best: the flashy action … and loot. More precisely, Godfall thus bears the name of looter-slasher, a term which fits him like a glove since slicing mobs and recovering material will be exactly the main activity during the fifteen hours necessary to complete the adventure. A raw adventure of form stripping with obvious potential… but which still needs ambition to fully convince.
ONCE UPON A TIME
Godfall has this particularity of taking place in a rather alluring legendary universe: a mythology created from scratch based on wacky jargon and based on the foundations of constellation, cosmic materials and the very reason of existence. We then embody Orin, whose brother Macros seized the ultimate power at the top of a mystical tower, capable of drawing a line on Life (with a capital letter). After a failed duel, Orin falls and lands at the bottom of the hole, literally: he will then have to clear a vertical passage through the Kingdoms of Earth, Water and Air to go and kick his brother’s buttocks, sitting in peace on his elevated throne. An ascent in every sense of the word since Orin will have to rebuild his power, find powers and weapons and, ideally, change valorplates, these armor with distinct design and abilities, to defeat the generals of Macros and lead his quest. Oh good.
We have here a promising mythological world offering some very beautiful environments, always majestic and not hesitating to play on gigantism. It is also one of the big assets and the main ways to vary your adventure, even if it means offering the same structure in a loop.
Despite a context and an impressive world, we must nevertheless admit that Godfall rests, from a narrative point of view, on the minimum union: his story remains extremely succinct, quickly reveals his outline – two characters in a tiny HUB, poorly writings, with which we will interact in a scripted way – and in no case dare to go a little further. For a surplus of history and lore, it will be necessary to turn to the codices recovered in the universe and accessible from the dedicated menu: really not enough to break a duck’s three legs and, despite the sure potential of this golden universe, the plot of Godfall finally takes very little breath. Even its staging betrays a lack of budget and control, since all the faces turn out to be masked so as to hide the facial animations, while the real cutscenes are frankly rare. Moreover, the finish moves also lack a real panache, what a shame! So we just have to focus on the artistic direction, to which we will come back later, and especially its gameplay which inexorably defines its character.
THE FRAY
It must be admitted: the first moments of Godfall are particularly attractive. In addition to a sparkling plastic that reminds us that, yes, the next-gen is good, its nervous fights immediately lead to a real pleasure of play. Very inspired by the last God of War and titles from FromSoftware (not the worst references, you will agree), so we end up with a third person action that relies entirely on attack, dodge and counter, with light attacks and unstoppable ones. The damage points are displayed with each hit, using your shield requires precise timing and a whole skill tree is available to enhance the gameplay, both offensive and defensive. Divided into five categories – dual blades, two-handed swords, war hammers, polearms and long swords – the weapons feature combos and special abilities that will have to be used against a host of more bestiary in addition tough. The fights, Godfall does them pretty well and mixes technicality, precision and savagery in a generally controlled way, especially as the gameplay deepens quickly over the skills unlocked. To advance in the story, it will obviously be necessary to level up to correspond to the level requested, even if it means restarting certain quests or prolonging the exploration to garner a little more XP points. In short, we are here in familiar territory, the games of the genre exploiting this game design for years now. No surprise at this level then.
We must admit that Godfall supports the other capabilities of the PS5: the loading times are minimal, the vibrations of the DualSense instantly put us in a hot tub and the adaptive triggers do the job properly, even if still quite timid in their exploitation.
And if the clashes go rather well, apart from a difficulty which climbs suddenly and in a way not always well balanced in the last quarter, it is clear that Godfall is also turning quickly in circles. Before moving on to the annoying things, let’s still try to highlight some frankly impressive bosses, sometimes very difficult and with Dantesque character design (this also applies to many enemies or the valorplates), which will punctuate this muscular journey. Unfortunately, this is not everything and the title of Counterplay Games then offers an experience that reveals its architecture far too quickly. Very inspired by the adventure of Kratos, without ever taking back the finesse of writing or the variety of objectives, the software proposes to chain arena on arena in small open areas that it is possible to explore without there is much to discover there, apart from hidden chests (and that’s it). Continuously, with frightening perseverance, Godfall really asks us to chain the levels by following the same pattern: of continual fighting, resting indefinitely on the same bases, but not diluting in any way with platform, puzzles or, therefore, a gripping story. This level design of glaring poverty is very quickly noticed and does not fail to impose a real weariness. Because if, after a few hours of playing, you ask yourself this famous question: “Is that going to be it during the whole game?” … The answer is a big big “yes”.
HOPEFALL
So behind fighting mechanics that work very well, Godfall turns out, in the end, to be a game that is very lacking in material. And this is his biggest black. However, it is not for lack of having bet on long-winded loot: in addition to weapons, you can equip yourself with life stones, rings, charms, amulets and whatnot – which can be improved for a fee – all assigning very specific abilities, which must be combined as in any good RPG. But without any real content behind it, it’s difficult to properly exploit it once the campaign is over. Because the endgame, however essential in this kind of product, is also revealed to be lean in interest with repetitions of levels almost stupid and nasty, integrating all the same some variations but will struggle to convince the regulars of the genre. There are two solutions available to you to make the most of Godfall: distance yourself from its parts so as not to quickly come close to overdose and rely on online cooperation. As we often say (well, especially your editor here), it is always better with two, even when the original material is to be reviewed. Here, it could not be more true since the multiplayer lends itself well to the experience, and is almost required in front of the difficulty of certain levels. There is also a simple mode of infinite arenas with increasing difficulty, but apart from that, unfortunately Godfall offers NOTHING to ventilate his experience.
To end on a positive note (or almost), note that Godfall promises to be a frankly pretty game. So yes, the real next-gen isn’t here yet, but Counterplay Games has worked hard to build a world as beautiful as possible and still deserves some applause, especially for a first game. First of all, it goes through an artistic direction that hits the mark: here we have a promising mythological world offering some very beautiful environments, always majestic and not hesitating to play on gigantism. It is also one of the big assets and the main ways to vary your adventure, even if it means offering the same structure in a loop. Be careful all the same to the surplus because by playing with a palette of ultra-sparkling colors and a quintal of particle effects or reflections in all directions (which is really striking at the very beginning!), We can not only graze the too -much both visual… and technical. In performance mode, automatically configured and displaying dynamic 4K and 60fps, we regularly find ourselves with small drops in framerate / mini-freezes, sometimes quite annoying in such a fluid action. And it’s even quite recurring in certain specific environments, to believe that the PS5 has trouble managing specific assets (it is certainly a story of optimization, however), while we had the misfortune of ‘experience ten crashes and other bugs! On the other hand, we must admit that Godfall largely supports the other capacities of the PS5: the loading times are minimal (what comfort, nomidiou), the vibrations of the DualSense put us instantly in a hot bath and the adaptive triggers make the job properly, even if still quite timid in their exploitation. On the other hand, black point on the side of the 3D audio, much too shy here and which joins, in another register, an OST of the same character. But be sure: if you have a modern TV like 4K OLED or QLED, the visual spectacle is partly guaranteed. Strongly that larger productions (cuckoo God of War Ragnarok) are given to the bottom.
