Developer/Publisher: Thomas Happ Games
Gameplay Stats: 11 hours, 99% map, 86% items, Played on Switch so no achievements
A stealth drop of one of my most anticipated sequels?? Yes please!
Visuals: Extremely detailed pixel art, just like the first one. Environments, enemies, and characters all look pretty good. I mean, look at the title image above! The environments are a little less HR Giger inspired and I didn't think I would miss that but I did. This one seemed to have more middle eastern influence which was also cool though. This game incorporates some mild stealth elements and I think that it is shown very well. You can see vision cones and alert status easily.
Audio: Lelli lelli leeeeeelli. I think that one song is a bit much, but the rest of the music bops. I played the whole game with sound on which is a little unusual with Switch games since I tend to play them around people sometimes. The sound effects were also a lot, but once I turned the balance way down they faded into the music and made the game more enjoyable. There was a noticeable difference between the music in the normal world and the music in the Breach which was pretty cool. I think I could pick them apart pretty easily if I was blindfolded or something. I'm a big fan of musical themes like that. I'm sure I miss out on lots, but the ones I notice are neat!
Plot: We (Indra) get warped into a weird other world by going through a freight elevator when we are attempting to find some people that have been lost in Antartica. This other world has hyper intelligent AI and some biocomputers. We get swept up in a plot within the world to try to separate one world from the worlds that branch off of it. It was pretty interesting and the game kind of teased with the idea of a singularity. I'd have liked to have a bit more insight into the character I was controlling, but the game is pretty light on dialog and I don't hate it. Less certainly can be more.
Gameplay: The game plays like a fairly standard metroidvania at the start, but some of the upgrades you get are surprising. This is kind of a rarity from a genre that's been around for decades! The game is certainly easier to handle than its predecessor which I definitely appreciated. Double tapping a thumb stick in a particular direction just doesn't feel good to me, something that was common in AV1. This game has a front and back, kind of like how Spelunky 2 did and I enjoyed what that meant for the game. Lots of exploration and platforming! I found it interesting how at the start of the game I spent a lot of time in human form, but by the end I spent much more in bug form, which I think was intentional.
Overall I really don't have anything bad to say about this game. It was more AV which I really enjoyed. The game felt good to play and legitimately kept me interested in the plot. I'm blown away that this was made by 1 guy. I am excited to see what Tom Happ makes next! [9/10]
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