Too Human ain’t the greatest, but it’s certainly not as bad as the critics say.
With my lack of satisfaction from sinking many hours this past week into Viva Pinata, I decided to fire up Too Human to give my gaming some sense of variety. The game, a loot-based action-RPG set to Norse Mythology, got universally panned by critics but I found the demo playable. I have a soft-spot for loot-based games like Diablo and Phantasy Star Online, and while this game isn’t as good as either of them, it still satisfies me.
From the five or so hours I’ve put into this game so far, I’ll say it was under-rated by reviewers. I’m not going to go out so far and say the game is excellent or very good, but it certainly isn’t a game that belongs in the 50′s for a review score. The loot system works fine, and there’s a decent skill-tree to choose from. The enemies are kind of boring though as they’re all robotic-based it seems. I found myself playing the game until 1AM last night, so it does have a certain addictive quality in it. But that may be just me and loot-based games – wanting to get a bit further to take on another mini-boss and see what type of items he drops.
The game plays somewhat clunkily though. It doesn’t have a simple and smooth feel like Phantasy Star Universe, nor does it have an epic polish like Gears of War. I guess the best way I can describe it is that it plays like a “ghetto” version of Mass Effect while adhering more towards just action. The game also has lots of weird intricacies that I’ve yet to figure out, as I find myself dying far more often than I believe I should be.
Combat focuses on both using a melee weapon and firearms, but it’s nowhere near as stylish as Devil May Cry. The biggest controversy of the game is that melee is completely controlled with the right stick while firing your guns is with the triggers. Wherever you move the Right stick is where your character will swing, and if the enemy is a bit further away, you actually slide towards the enemy to attack him. I guess part of the “fun” of mastering the melee combat system (which I haven’t done yet) is being able to slide from one enemy to another by meleeing because you gain more damage/speed from bouncing around. But to be honest, the combat feels too bland for me. I’m really just in it for the shiny loot.
There’s a total of five different classes available, and I’ll probably try my hand at each one. They’re all male characters though, so I had to think of names for each one and went with prominent video game male characters: Phoenix (from Ace Attorney), Dante (from Devil May Cry), Snake (from Metal Gear Solid), Arthas (from Warcraft), and Wesker (from Resident Evil). I actually find my Wesker character the most amusing because Wesker is a pretty cool Resident Evil villain yet I have him as the medic class in this game.
I’ll need to spend more time with this game of course, but my current attitude about it is that it is decent and I will play it through.
