In 2020, Ubisoft Quebec developed Immortals Fenyx Rising, which was published by Ubisoft for the majority of major consoles including the PS5 for which this review was written. With the promise of epic battles against giant foes, a beautiful Greek isle to explore, and exciting new powers to earn, Immortals Fenyx Rising set out to conquer a crowded market. We take control of the fate of numerous Greek Gods in this Immortals Fenyx Rising review!
Immortals Fenyx Rising Plot:
The game is set in the mythical world of ancient Greece and follows the story of Fenyx, a mortal warrior who sets out on a quest to save the world from the wrath of the gods. The story begins with Fenyx, a young warrior who is washed up on the shores of the Golden Isle, a beautiful paradise that is home to the gods and their creations. Fenyx is discovered by the god Zeus, who tells him that the world is in danger as the other gods have been turned to stone by their own envy and pride. Zeus enlists Fenyx’s help to defeat the evil Titan Typhon, who is responsible for the gods’ transformation and plans to conquer the world.
Fenyx sets out on a journey across the Golden Isle, accompanied by the god Hermes, who serves as Fenyx’s guide and mentor. As Fenyx travels through different regions of the island, he encounters various gods and mythological creatures such as Athena, Apollo, and the Cyclops. Fenyx also meets the Forgeborn, a group of mortals who were chosen by the gods to defend the Golden Isle from Typhon.
Throughout his journey, Fenyx gains new abilities and powers, such as the power of flight, and uses them to defeat monsters and puzzles that stand in his way. Fenyx also gathers the gods’ blessings, which allow him to upgrade his weapons and armor and gain new abilities.
As Fenyx progresses through the game, he discovers that the gods are not as benevolent as they seem and are willing to use any means to defeat Typhon, including manipulating Fenyx and using him as a pawn. Fenyx must decide whether to trust the gods or forge his own path and find his own way to defeat Typhon. Fenyx discovers his brother is still alive and starts having friendly competitions about who can finish tasks or climb mountains first. This leads to his brother predictably betraying Fenyx in favor of Typhon who promises to make him a God. Despite his brother trying to kill Fenyx, he shows mercy on his brother and decides to fight Typhon instead.
The final battle against Typhon takes place at the top of Mount Olympus, where Fenyx must use all of his skills and abilities to defeat the Titan and save the world from his wrath. In the end, Fenyx emerges victorious and becomes a hero in the eyes of the gods and mortals.
Immortals Fenyx Rising Gameplay:
In Immortals Fenyx Rising, you can customization your character with a number of different aesthetics including playing between a male or female protagonist. I choose a male, although I doubt it makes any difference in the storyline or gameplay. While I wanted to enjoy my Immortals Fenyx Rising review, it was hindered right away by a glitch. Within the first ten hours of playing, I ran into a glitch that crashed my game and made me restart from my last save point.
When you open up the map, there are certain icons that if you put the cursor on them, will break the game. Now, keep in mind that Immortals Fenyx Rising was out well over a year before I fired it up. Any bugs or glitches should have been patched but instead, I was left with a very frustrating experience in an already tiresome game. I was not the only person who dealt with this glitch, and there was a forum about it but not too many solutions. Once I tweeted about the issue, someone who has experienced the same glitch told me to turn off the icons that were glitching the game on the map, and once I did that, I was able to visit the map without glitches. It’s never fun to start off a review trashing a game, but glitches and bugs are something I take very seriously as it takes away from the entire experience of a game.
Once I was able to avoid the glitches, I was presented with the bread and butter of Immortals Fenyx Rising, and boy did it disappoint. Graphically, the game isn’t impressive for the PS5 but it still looked pleasant. With so much land and area to explore, I was excited to begin my adventure and make my way around the isle but instead, I was greeted with tedious tasks EVERY INCH OF THE MAP. You couldn’t walk five seconds without some dumb collectathon, dungeon, side-quest, mini-game, or challenge popping up.
Sometimes there’s TOO MUCH to do in a game that distracts the player from the main quest and I felt that Immortals Fenyx Rising took the same five quests and just multiplied them by a hundred and scattered those icons over the map. Some were crucial to gaining new powers or leveling up your health so I did my best to complete those challenges, but others were just a waste of time and added nothing to the gameplay.
There’s a dungeon around every corner, and at first, I thought there would be different types, like puzzle dungeons, combat dungeons, exploration dungeons, etc… but instead, they were all just puzzle dungeons that acted like a toddler’s toy. Find this shape, or colored box and put it on this lever or platform to move into the next room and repeat 50 times before exiting the dungeon with little treasure. I cringed every time I entered a dungeon knowing that 20 minutes of puzzle-solving was in front of me. Some puzzles were frustratingly hard, not from a solving aspect, I knew what I had to do most of the time, but because of the controls. Some boxes were just out of reach and didn’t travel well when you selected them or pulled them with magic. The results minimized whatever fun I was having and completely changed the pace of the game.
Despite the open-world nature of the game, my Immortals Fenyx Rising review felt very empty. Sure, there were challenges and enemies everywhere you looked, but it didn’t have any substance. There were no towns, interesting characters, or anything unique. Once you walked five minutes over the map, you wouldn’t be seeing anything new for the rest of the game. The best point of interest was your hub station, which served as the communication portal with the Gods where you could level up and increase your power. Other than that, the world felt dull and littered with pointless elements.
The writing in Immortals Fenyx Rising ranged from having me chuckle out loud to cringe humor that added absolutely nothing to the game. For the most part, the writing was good, I’ll give credit where it’s due and the writing and character dialogue between Fenyx and the others were solid. Unfortunately, for the plot, it was quite predictable with Fenyx’s brother betraying him near the end.
Surprisingly the combat was more difficult than I imagined. It’s more than a hack-n-slash game although there’s plenty of that. Most enemies will have a style of fighting that you’ll need to adapt to in order to defeat them. Most boss fights were fun and not too much of a challenge but the final boss was a chore and you needed to be properly leveled up to take Typhon on.
Memories:
Immortals Fenyx Rising was the first game that I played on my PlayStation 5. Probably not the best game to showcase the awesome power of my new console but I was curious about it as I had seen multiple advertisements for it. Much to my disappointment, I quickly lost enthusiasm for Immortals Fenyx Rising due to the glitchy map, cringe-character dialogue, and repetitive puzzle dungeons. It was a chore to play, and I couldn’t wait to be finished with the game to move on to something else with my PS5.
Immortals Fenyx Rising Review Score:
Overall, while the dialogue was clever, the combat was average, and the empty world filled with markers was quickly redundant. Immortals Fenyx had a tough task rising above all the other Greek Mythology hack-n-slash games, but failed to take off. The glitches shut it down right from the start.
Immortals Fenyx Rising scores a 5.4 out of 10.
What would you write in your Immortals Fenyx Rising review? Who was your favorite God during your playthrough? What was your favorite ability? Were you sick of all the puzzles too? Let me know your thoughts and comments on Immortals Fenyx Rising, I’d love to read them.
Tiger Chainsaw 