I had been waiting for Too Human with a lot of excitement, and it didn't really disappoint. It has its problems, but that is to be expected when you have a game that tries novel ideas with game controls and has certain expectations set on it by the story. One of the problems there is that the levels are massive and the enemies legion--something that was probably assumed to be just expected by Silicon Knights because the game is based on Norse mythology. There is also the matter that no matter how hard you level up, because the enemies scale up to meet your challenge, you never really feel like leveling up means a damn thing. The Hellheim level can get very annoying because of the endless battles against enemies that can make Baldur seem about as strong as a preteen nerd, rather than a cybernetically-enhanced member of the Aesir.
So, that's all that I can really complain about. A lot of the reviewers have missed the point about this game which is that it is a fusion of a movie with a traditional dungeon-crawler RPG. The gameplay may be weak, but the cinematic component is very well integrated and on par with the story scenes in any game from Square-Enix short of Final Fantasy VII.
All in all, I would say that if you can get through the unbalanced aspects of the gameplay, you'll enjoy it. The gameplay rarely gets much worse than some of the tricky points in Gears of War, and it does have its great moments. Give it a shot, and hold off on judgment until Silicon Knights has a chance to work on a sequel which can give them a chance to fix some of the annoyances with the game.
So, that's all that I can really complain about. A lot of the reviewers have missed the point about this game which is that it is a fusion of a movie with a traditional dungeon-crawler RPG. The gameplay may be weak, but the cinematic component is very well integrated and on par with the story scenes in any game from Square-Enix short of Final Fantasy VII.
All in all, I would say that if you can get through the unbalanced aspects of the gameplay, you'll enjoy it. The gameplay rarely gets much worse than some of the tricky points in Gears of War, and it does have its great moments. Give it a shot, and hold off on judgment until Silicon Knights has a chance to work on a sequel which can give them a chance to fix some of the annoyances with the game.
**UPDATE**: Now that I have completed it, I stand by my assertions about it being a good game and just having some annoyances that need to be ironed out. The following are the game play changes that need to be made in Too Human 2 in order to really work out the kinks:
- Shorter levels and more of them; sometimes you can have a level that really is "too epic."
- Give all classes the ability to regenerate health, with the Bio Engineer doing it the fastest.
- Make Baldur's melee combat more effective at blocking hits.
- Use only static experience levels for determining the strength of enemies, so that when Baldur levels up, you really feel it in combat.
- When a boss or a creature like the ones called "She who sifts through flesh" or whatever they're called is on screen, provide a control that causes Baldur to switch his aim to them when shooting at them.
- Take a page from Mass Effect and make the units that follow you into battle intelligent and powerful enough to make a difference in battle.
Having the bad guys level up to you is one thing that annoys me as well - it almost makes the game easier to win if you try to avoid leveling up at all costs. While that's not an insurmountable problem (since I run rogues in games like NWN or Baldur's Gate, I tend to kill fewer guys anyway), when the boss has static stats*, even though he was easier to reach, he's almost impossible to kill.
* Is that a redundancy?
The problem with Too Human isn't anything to do with the boss battles. They're actually pretty easy if you have energy weapons because you can just avoid physical contact with them, and shoot out their leg armor, thus slowing their movement down dramatically. The problem is the sheer number of enemies that rush you, and your character often doesn't have an effective means of holding his own against them all at once. I think if they gave you a shield, and Baldur would automatically block, the combat would be A LOT more balanced.
Problems with leveling up have big differences on gameplay, if enemies level up with you, you never really feel like you've leveled up, so your still just that Level 1 newbie that has some new armor and more skills. And if enemies don't level up with you you have to revisit the very end of the game to make much of a difference to your experience, or play on a higher difficulty and this tends to make the game boring after you beat it.
Skills are another thing, only having 1 skill for the X, Y and RB buttons (Square, Triangle, R1 for PS3 I think) never makes you feel like an all powerful Mage, which is another class I think should be added, even if there is no magic, then how do ruiners work?
The smoothness of the cutscenes are disappointing, they are created to seem awesome, but sound effect timing is off, some sounds aren't loud enough, there is very little screen shake, and almost no controller vibration, and some charaters seem to be "moonwalking" or moving slower or faster than they actually seem to be walking or running.
Enemy creation is very predictable, usually giving you about 30 seconds of running further into the level before creating another horde, occasionaly throwing a Troll into the mix, and backing them up with Dark Elves, Rocket Goblins, Giant Spiders or Shamans. To give you an idea of what these enemies look like, just imagine them as machines.
Enemies aren't plentiful in variety, often leaving you saying ooh, what's next? oh... more Goblins. They seem to try and add some variety by adding "Elite" versions of these enemies, which are golden and a bit bigger than their original counterparts.
Overall I give this game an 8 out of 10