Transformers: Devastation Review
Y’all know me when it comes to these character action games. I overlooked this game when it came out, figured it was just something Platinum whipped up real quick to keep the lights on. After some recommendations from folks, I decided to cave in. I was initially impressed with it, and after seeing the end credits, I walked away thinking “Why does this play better than Bayonetta 2?”. Don’t get me wrong, Bayonetta 2 definitely outshines this in many ways. For the moment to moment gameplay, and enemy encounters, this game is the winner.
First off, the game is very faithful to the original Transformers, if you have any nostalgia for that. Peter Cullen voices Optimus, Frank Whelker voices Megatron, and all the others sound close enough to their originals. The story is fairly typical stuff, and you get representatives from a variety of factions. It’s a pretty by-the-numbers plot, but it works.
The gameplay is highly reminiscent of Bayonetta. Time slows down when you dodge an attack, there’s light and heavy combo strings, and you can pull off a special move at the end of combos. You can transform into a vehicle, which aids in mobility, and there’s a few attacks you can do in that mode as well. At the end of a combo, you can pull off a vehicle attack which does a lot of damage and usually launches an enemy. Attacks have different effects to them, so the different combos have more than just an aesthetic difference. Learning what the different combos do is key to doing well in this game. Each combo also ends with a different kind of vehicle attack, so learning that greatly increases your capabilities.
The enemy design is good. Even though they’re all just big robots, they made sure to give them all unique behaviors and attacks. The way enemy encounters are laid out keeps things fresh and interesting, and always keeps you on your toes. There are some flying enemies that are kinda annoying, but when you learn to use the vehicle attacks to their full potential, they’re not so bad. The boss fights are also good, as they pretty much are just bigger and badder normal enemies. Bosses also won’t randomly teleport out of your attacks. Some enemies and bosses can parry you, but it’s predictable, and there are ways around it.
There is a third person shooter element to this game, and it’s not too bad. The way it presents itself at first is a little less than elegant. Just standing around like an idiot trying to shoot things is not the best way to use it. The best way to use them is to incorporate them into combos. For example, after launching an enemy, you can follow up with a few shoots before juggling them. After using a vehicle attack, you can use guns to shoot an enemy to trigger another vehicle attack as well. All this makes high level play look very impressive as players effortlessly go between attacking and gunning. This and vehicle attacks go a long way to give this game it’s own unique feel, even though it borrows much of it’s core design from Bayonetta. The guns have limited ammo though, which I felt was a pretty annoying limitation.
There are some things that prevent this game from reaching it’s full potential though. First are the RPG elements and loot systems. As you fight enemies, you get experience points and every now and then one of your stats will level up. Rather than just having static weapons to choose from, you get a whole bunch of weapons with it’s loot system and they all have random stats and passive buffs. This makes the difficulty of this game pretty unbalanced at times. Being too high level or having really good weapons makes even the default hard “Commander” difficulty a complete cakewalk where enemies die in just a couple hits.
On the flip side, trying to go into Magnus difficulty with anything below SS or S weapons will be an exercise in frustration. Even then, your low level means you’ll die in just a couple hits. The higher difficulties ARE enjoyable, but you have to go through a grind for playing it to actually be viable. And if you want to just relax on a lower difficulty, well, you pretty much can’t do that. There’s only one save file, so if you want to play on a lower difficulty and have it be balanced, you’ll have to delete your save. This obviously isn’t ideal. Even with using lower rank weapons, your own stats will be very high, and there’s no way to lower them. When your stats get maxed out from playing Prime difficulty, the damage you take in the lower difficulties is negligible. You’re basically invincible.
The level design is not the greatest. For starters, there’s basically four levels, but they mainly only use two. With 7 chapters, they’re really stretching these out. The first level is a giant city that’s sort of open, but it doesn’t take long for locations to start feeling familiar. Even in the same chapter, you can retread a lot of the same ground. The other levels are a space ship, a bridge, and Megatron’s lair or some such. These levels are all very simple with not much going on. It’s a shame that a game with a very short run time couldn’t have at least a unique level for each chapter.
I said the boss fights were good, and they technically all are, but there is a bit of a problem with them. Many of them feel kinda samey, and you even fight most of them multiple times. Some bosses feel like a variation of an earlier boss, and some feel like just buffed up versions of normal enemies. You can use a lot of the same strategies between them too. There are some stand outs, which are Devastator, Menasor, Shockwave, Soundwave, and Megatron. Even with these though, you can pretty much handle them the same way you handle every other enemy. Just have to learn the new attacks. Most of them lack a really good narrative punch to get you hyped, and just feel like another new enemy to fight.
Another hang-up is the fact that there’s no real lock-on in this game. You just soft lock onto enemies, and your attacks will go in the direction of the closest enemy, or the closest enemy in the direction you’re holding the analog stick. It works most of the time, though there are occasions where you seem to home in on an enemy you had no intention of attacking. This coupled with the lack of an auto-correct on the camera means that it’s very easy for enemies to fly off screen, and you have to then stop and chase them with the camera. This can also happen in boss fights, and it really feels like something that shouldn’t have made it out of playtesting.
Even though this game has some large blemishes, I still feel this game shines where it counts. When you’re in there fighting things, the game is a blast. I suppose it’s a bit similar to DMC4 in that regard. If you’re able to enjoy that game in spite of it’s shortcomings, you should definitely be able to find some enjoyment here. It doesn’t quite have the same level of production value that Bayonetta or W101 do, but it’s still satisfying if you want something in this genre and maybe overlooked this. If the stats and loot system is a huge turn off, I’d say you can safely ignore it if you just do the Warrior and Commander difficulties.
