Godfall is an action-slasher-looter-type game developed by Counterplay Games and published Gearbox. As one of the first next-gen-only titles, players will be keen on seeing what this game can do on their brand-new hardware.
Before diving in, though, it pays to have some caution as this shiny new piece of software may not be the killer app for your PS5. Godfall currently features a lot of things that may surprise early adopters of next-gen hardware, and those things may not all be good surprises. Here are just ten things that might be worth knowing before jumping into this next-gen experience.
10 You Can’t Jump
Or, to be more precise, the player character is unable to jump whenever the player wants. This is otherwise fine since the game accommodates its level design around this fact, but it hardly feels “next-gen.”
It’s annoying when a raised part of geometry forces the player to take a longer path around the obstacle. Instead, there are interactive warp points the player can use to traverse to out of reach platforms as well as a contextual action to leap across small gaps. Though, some warp points can be inactive during any particular mission, which feels even more limiting.
9 The Campaign Is A Collect-A-Thon
Another thing that doesn’t feel very “next-gen” is how the campaign progresses. The protagonist is essentially a one-man-army, and they’re relegated to collecting sigils that allow them to unlock boss fights.
The game’s storytelling leaves a lot to be desired, and the shallow context it gives the player doesn’t at all mask the fact that what they’re doing is the equivalent of running errands for a literal talking head that might as well be a stand-in for the game’s writer. For one of the first next-gen-only games on the market, it could be assumed that the game would want to make a huge splash into next-gen with a bombastic, involved, and robust campaign, but apparently not.
8 The Loot Is Boring
In the age of looter-whatevers, games are constantly trying to incorporate some kind of loot mechanic in the name of content.
Godfall’s loot system falls squarely into the category of overwhelming the player with loot to give the illusion of tons of content, but the actual depth of any of the loot is only skin deep. Sure, weapons can come with different damage types and perks, but different damage types only really change what sort of DOT visual effect the weapon gives to enemies. (If it even procs at all.) There is no real reason to prefer water damage over fire damage because they’re functionally the same. The same goes for the marginal differences gear perks provide the player.
7 The Sorting System Is Basic
As for what the player can do to organize the piles of loot they’ll be picking up, well, the game doesn’t exactly give them the best tools to do that.
The inventory system is about as basic as it can be. The game has separate categories in the armory for each loot type, which is a good start. The problem is that the game only sorts gear by how new it is, its rarity, or its level. There are no options to sort by damage-type, weapon-type, perks, etc. It makes looking through the inventory a huge chore. Also, some items will often have the same thumbnail and name, but completely different stats. This means that one might be useful to the player while the other is trash, but there’s no quick and easy way to decide what to keep and what to scrap.
6 The Realms Are Empty
For as beautiful as the game looks, the worlds themselves are absolute wastelands. There is little in the way of interesting places to visit or people to talk to. Realms are just big, open playgrounds where monsters roam around until the player shows up to temporarily erase them from existence.
Again, for a next-gen title, it can be assumed that it would put the upgraded hardware to better use to give the player a vast and lively world they can explore and get immersed in. But no. At the very least the player will get lost, but only because so many parts of a realm look exactly like other parts. Between that and fighting respawning enemies, the player will more than likely be running around in circles without a waypoint marker to follow.
5 The Game’s Universe Feels Painfully Small
Even if the spaces the player explores are a little lackluster, the in-game world itself could pick up the slack in making the player feel like they’re truly part of its universe.
Unfortunately, there’s no such luck here either. Godfall’s universe feels incredibly small. In what is essentially a war story and battle between two siblings, Godfall gives the player a grand total of two allies with little in the way of interesting dialogue that serves to only push the campaign forward instead of also better expand its universe. There are no other friendlies to speak to and the game barely shows any of the damage the big baddies of it are causing. Any sort of context is given to the player through very sterile dialogue. It all feels as though the universe only revolves around the player, which is never good.
4 The Difficulty Spikes When Not Doing Campaign Missions
This is the big difference-maker between players that think the game is too easy and players that don’t. If the player just does the campaign missions without going out of their way to do much of the bonus objectives, then they’ll probably blast through the campaign with little issue. Enemies are usually at a lower level than the player and are very sparse during missions, making the world feel even emptier.
The real difficulty pops up when the player is doing things outside of the main missions. Godfall’s combat loop when exploring a realm outside of the main mission revolves around slowly whittling down the player’s resources with spam and super armor until they’re caught in a tight spot. It can make getting into fights a chore when coupled with the world suddenly being populated with a lot more enemies.
3 There Are No Real Worthwhile Side-Objectives
While on the topic of those side-objectives, it honestly can’t be helped if a player chooses to not participate in any of them because they’re all pretty boring. They all involve opening a chest after solving a puzzle or defeating some enemies. Just more loot to pile onto the already mountainous amounts of it in the player’s inventory. The most interesting one is probably the treasure crab. It’s a super armored damage sponge that’s pretty annoying to chase after, but at the very least it’s more engaging than opening a chest, something the player has been doing all game long with very little variation.
2 The Pretty Graphics Get In The Way Of Gameplay
Godfall is very pretty. The combat is a spectacle of bright flashes and particle effects. Perhaps too many bright flashes and particles.
Whenever something explodes on-screen during combat, the player’s view is instantly met with a huge chunk of particle effects or mist or something that might obscure the enemies in front of them which could allow them to get a hit in on the player from behind all of the flashy effects. It also makes it harder to give any attention to the off-screen enemy indicators that surround the player character’s model during combat, meaning they could get hit by an off-screen attack they had no idea was coming.
1 There’s No Animation Canceling
Animation canceling is an important tool in slashers that feature it. It allows the player to mix offense with short bursts of defense for a more fluid combat experience. Godfall doesn’t feature canceling though.
Normally, this is fine. All a lack of canceling does is force the player to more heavily commit to actions. The problem is that most enemies in Godfall seem to have built-in countermeasures to specifically punish the player for committing to anything more than one or two swings of their weapon. Certain attacks do give the player super armor against most enemy attacks, but if an enemy happens to throw out an action that will knock the player down/stagger them no matter what, then good luck.
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