Babylon's Fall review: Intention is not enough in this action RPG by Platinum

When we saw the trailer for Babylon's Fall, we were hoping to get our hands on a classic and interesting RPG. But we only got the former. Usually, and even more so nowadays, when a video game has a "different" design it usually sends us a message of "hey, I know I'm a bit weird and I don't have very good graphics, but I'm a great game mechanically, you won't regret trying me out" but this is not one of those games. And it's not that the game is bad, in fact it works quite well and I consider it ideal for people who are starting in the world and still need a lot of practice to pass Elden Ring for example, but if you are an experienced person or have already played other RPGs Babylon's Fall will seem obsolete

A design that promised

As soon as we start we see that the game has a design that aims to simulate an oil painted canvas, this would be a great idea but because the filter they use is a fixed texture superimposed whose relief of brushstrokes is very distracting, if already on a 17" screen is distracting I do not want to imagine in a 40 or 50 inches, but I like the idea and if they develop it better in future games will be beautiful. As for the textures and design of the rest of the elements it is a classic medieval RPG with undead, dragons, giants with armor, magic of terrifying worlds... If you have never played a dark fantasy RPG this game will give you everything you need to get into the world.

One good thing about this game is that you can create your own character, a point in its favor is that, although it does not have much variety of bodies (but this is something that sin all RPGs), the characters are 100% inclusive so it is fairly easy to make your character look a little like you, but do not expect miracles, later you can unlock more possibilities but still falls quite short. In addition, you can choose "species", so that we understand, you can choose to be a standard human, wealthy elf or tribal warrior, none has a big difference in terms of mechanics so choose what you like, in the end you are all "sentinels".

The story of Baylon's Fall

Once our character is done we start the story. In my case I started on a ship as a slave, everything is quite confusing because it seems that all the citizens were waiting for you to arrive. Suddenly, your captors stick some objects in your back that kills half of your companions and leaves you quite weak

These objects, which look like portals to another dimension, give you the power to summon additional arms that, in-game, give you the ability to carry weapons

Now your duty is to save the town and make a living as a soldier/mercenary of the army that kidnapped you, it doesn't make sense in this way but as the story progresses you will understand it.

The game is 100% linear and does not allow you to investigate too much, and whenever you run into enemies, energy domes will be created to delimit the combat zone

This system works very well for a "tutorial" mode, but we would have liked it to be much more open and "explorable" afterwards. In addition, the traps you will find along the way do not allow you to develop your skills, you can not do "speedruns" so to speak because the mechanics of jumping with chain, sweeping, etc ... goes by order commands and not when "we want", this in times of "Prince of Persia" had already been overcome so I do not understand why this game does not give you that freedom.

Successful combat mechanics

The mechanics are simple, they are based on real-time combat, which, although they are not exactly turn-based, the enemies have like a timing in which they will repeat attacks so it is easy to create a pattern or strategy to eliminate them. You can carry weapons with your hands and the tentacles on your back, a total of 4 slots that you can combine as you want, this is interesting because depending on the "arm" that carries the weapon it changes its functionality and damage, for example, if you carry a bow with your hands you can make precise hits but if you carry it with the tentacles you can shoot bursts while hiding behind a wall, a very simple and interesting system that I would have liked to develop more as it is the best thing about the game, but they have reduced it to "hit a lot, drink a lot of potions and go around a lot". Too bad.

During the game you fight alone or with three other characters, the game can also be collaborative, a plus that will allow you to have a laugh with friends, something that raises many points to the game

In addition, another point in favor is that, although the equipment you can get are limited for each category, you will see that the same armor can have random enchantments, sometimes you can find a weapon that heals and other times the same but increases your attack speed, this is quite interesting because depending on what you can find you can think a strategy or another and makes it more interesting to get the loot. In addition you can level up your pieces of equipment until the end of the campaign, this is achieved by combining weapons as you earn loot.

Once the first campaign is finished, we arrive at the village where we will find the typical stores for items, weapons, correspondence... The NPCs are pretty basic and you will see other players walking around. At that point you can level up and advance in the story by accepting new missions and entering different skirmishes or sieges.

You can do the quests with friends or random people and everything works pretty well, so far I have not found performance problems or serious bugs, some flying apple but nothing that hurts the game, in that sense is great and as I say, if you just get into the world of RPGs is to thank that everything works well.

Something that has grieved me a little is that the fact that players join you to fulfill the missions only helps to finish them sooner, in that sense it is exactly the same as Lost Ark, you do not care what "profession" you choose, do the mission alone or accompanied has no strategic difference

Final Conclusions

In short, this is a basic RPG. The level 1 for any player who has just bought a game console. It is simple, entertaining and linear. With a fairly improvable aesthetic and intuitive and simple mechanics. Honestly it would have worked better as a game for smaller devices such as a cell phone or a portable game console.

The best thing about it

• The combat mechanics, although simple, are very interesting

The Worst

• Too predictable, the story doesn't make any sense
• The visual aspect, although it has good intentions, is not very attractive

We have made this analysis thanks to a PS4 code provided by Koch Media.