Immortal: Unchained Review

Too Much Death to be Immortal
By Brett Wolfe
Reviewed on Xbox One
Released on September 7th, 2018 on Xbox One, PS4, and PC
Developer: Toadman Interactive
Publisher: Sold Out Sales & Marketing

Immortal: Unchained is a third-person, hardcore action-RPG developed by Toadman Interactive and published by Sold Out Sales & Marketing. Our protagonist, simply known as an immortal one, awakes in a mysterious place with limited knowledge of who he is or why he’s there. Against his will, our hero is released from his prison by a strange figure who introduces himself as The Warden and proclaims that you are the sole savior of the world. This unravels the adventure of a lifetime as you must travel throughout the different realms, facing events of apocalyptic magnitude. The journey will not be easy, and you may not make it out alive. Are you ready to face this insurmountable challenge or will you crumble under the pressure of all that oppose you? Remember, being immortal in the name of the game.
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You are a living weapon, a harbinger of destruction and despair. You must lay waste to all that oppose you, but you are probably thinking to yourself, “How am I any different from the denizens that oppose me?”. Well, that may be the easiest question to answer in this universe of secrecy. You must express discipline to overcome your crazed foes. The word discipline represents a double-edged sword in the world of Immortal: Unchained. Of course, you must strategize every move and hone your reactions, but Disciplines are also the specializations presented to you. From the get-go, you are presented with six different Disciplines, each providing a unique playstyle. I really enjoyed this as it reminded me of the classes in the Dark Souls series. Allowing the player to inevitably spec their character the way they wanted but starting with something different. It offers variety to anyone wanting to experiment, but not dive egregious hours into an archetype that they may enviably not enjoy. Throughout my playthrough, I used the Marksmen class, who are exceptional with long-range combat and has skills that benefit sniper rifles. I primarily used sniper rifles and assault rifles to receive these benefits, but I experimented with everything in the game. I will say, the Marksman fit me like a glove and enjoyed every minute with him. The other classes are also very interesting; however, I have not played much with them. Maybe you fare better with melee or you are a soldier at heart. Don’t worry there will be something to get you through hell and back.

Mechanically, this niche title is very similar to Dark Souls in many aspects. From the brutal nature of the enemies and bosses to dropping your currency upon death, Immortal: Unchained uses a variety of designs we see in the genre. One thing that is different in this title comes from their gun combat. This game literally revolves around becoming proficient with a gun of your choice and I feel that melee weapons were set aside. It came to the point where I started acting like I was playing a third person shooter instead of a hardcore action RPG. The guns just felt so fluid and natural, while swords provided me with a clunky experience that I did not enjoy. It would work sometimes, but not as well as other games you would associate this with. Melee-based attacks just felt awkward and clumsy and I felt like it would result in me receiving damage more times than successfully dealing damage. This could have just been me being bad at this mechanic and I am sure that others can make it work with those swords and daggers, but I just couldn’t find a reason to pull out my sword unless I ran out of ammo and that rarely happened.
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The visuals and soundtrack hold nothing back and excel on almost every note. The visuals are not perfect and can look a little dated from time to time, but it presents an amazing atmosphere to play through. The mixture of science fiction and baseline horror mingle perfectly and left me with wonder around every corner. I truly felt alone on my journey as even the NPCs that didn’t want to murder me had their own priorities. These eerie, alien realms each had their own flair and the environment never got old. One minute I was running through a snowy, barren wasteland and the next minute I was taking my own journey through the center of the world. Between the orchestral scores that play during the boss fights to the unnerving whispers that plague the lands, it puts the icing on the cake and brings everything together.

My experience with Immortal: Unchained was overly positive and I loved being able to review this game. However, it doesn’t mean that this game did not come with a few issues. First, I had issues with two different playthroughs becoming corrupted if I would quit out during the tutorial. This was very annoying, but once I completed the tutorial the third time, I never experienced crashing or anything along those lines. The second issue that I had came during a decent amount of boss fights. Normally, games ramp up the difficulty by making bosses faster or giving them new abilities that are annoying to dodge. Hell, sometimes they just make the character super beefy and they have a ridiculous amount of health. I view those as amazing ideas to make the game a bit more difficult, but they are easy to learn the tricks. However, this title went a different way and just spammed a bunch of smaller enemies while the boss lumbered around. It is unimaginative when you have the main boss just walking around and attack once or twice, while you are chased around the stage by all of his minions. Like, why didn’t you just make them the boss since they are more dangerous. I could not get enough of this game until I was met with too many encounters that did nothing but bombard the screen with minions.

In the end, Immortal: Unchained is an exceptional game with almost no negatives. The game is priced at $50 USD, which is more than games we usually cover but is well worth it. I would recommend this game to almost anyone, especially individuals interested in this genre. Now, if you are on the fence and think the Dark Souls series is too hard, don’t worry this game is not as hard. If this is your style do yourself a favor, pick up your favorite firearm and follow me, we have a realm to save.

*Note: A copy of this game was provided for the purpose of the review.

Final Score: 9/10

+Amazing Environment
+Interesting Hardcore Elements
+Eerie Visuals and Soundtrack
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-Sporadic Crashing
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