We took a first hands-on look at PlatinumGames’ latest, Babylon’s Fall, and found little to like outside of the slick combat that the studio is known for.
With the continued success of games-as-a-service titles, more businesses are attempting to develop their own version of the concept that will gain momentum and grow over time. Square Enix has attempted to replicate this with Babylon’s Fall, which takes place in a more fantastical world and was developed in partnership with the renowned developer Platinum Games. While the fighting feels fresh and innovative, Babylon’s Fall is turning up to be a complete disaster. With a lack of or muddled based features, it’s resulted in a slow boorish rut that needs a lot more time to hone in and focus on what it wants to be, or it’ll be dead on arrival.
You play as a sentinel in Babylon’s Fall, a customizable warrior chosen by a relic known as the Gideon Coffin. In a majestic standing tower known as the Ziggurat, you are given the power to battle against the approaching perils. Each quest will take you higher and higher until you reach the summit. Due to the review’s participation in a closed beta test, he was only granted access to the first six levels, which became increasingly tough as he progressed up the tower. Quests were found to be uninspiring in terms of level design, with uninteresting passageways, obvious encounter spots, and few prize containers along the way.
I was rewarded with loot after completing each task, which I used to strengthen my character. But the situation was made worse by the fact that I couldn’t see the loot I had earned until the level was completed. Instead of showing me what the goods were, I picked up relics, which prevented me from upgrading between bouts while on a quest. Sentinels are housed at the sentinel force HQ in between quests, where I was able to accept quests, sell items, and manage inventory. Quests are found on a job board, and other players in the hub area can join your tasks to form a four-person team. Playing with your buddies, on the other hand, is a difficult stumbling block to overcome.
The sentinel force HQ can only hold a limited number of players at once, and despite being largely a cooperative game, Babylon’s Fall does not allow you to welcome a friend into your party in the classic sense. To invite a buddy, you must first provide them your HQ code, an eight-digit number that will allow them to join the same hub world as you and begin the same quest with you.
Worse, once your friend joins, you are not instantly assigned to the same party. It’s just that you’re in the same hub. As a result, it’s feasible to start a quest without your friend. This HQ code technique is most likely due to PlayStation consoles and PC cross-play functionality, but with so many other online games presently using far simpler alternatives, introducing a bloated multi-step system like this in 2021 is plain ridiculous.
Sentinels have four different weapons, each of which is dedicated to a single button. The light and heavy attacks are handled by two weapons, while the spectral weapons are handled by the other two.
Other than your health, you have a spectral energy bar that depletes when you use your spectral weapons. It reappears both over time and when you hit an enemy with your light or heavy assaults. You may mix and match different loadouts using five different weapons, including a sword, hammer, bow, rod, and shield, to create some extremely violent scenarios after you get better gear. However, considering the majority of encounters are so uninteresting, this doesn’t really make up for anything. Bosses put up more of a fight later on, but the gameplay isn’t worth engaging in because they’re so infrequent.
Right now, Babylon’s Fall is in a bad way. It has very little going for it, especially when other games-as-a-service titles, such as Destiny, are doing better than ever before, while others in the same vein with name recognition, such as Marvel’s Avengers, are fighting to get traction. Platinum has demonstrated time and time again that they have the ability. Let’s hope they can bring Babylon’s Fall up to its full potential.
