REVIEW : Poison Control (PS5)
Poison Control had us perplexed from the start. We thought we’d made a mistake in suggesting we’d review this, the latest from Nippon Ichi, because of the sheer audiovisual bombardment and hyperactive radio hosts. Poison Control was first released in Japan in June of last year, but it took until now for the rest of the world to get its hands on it due to the extensive text localization.
We were initially unsure if it was in the Disgaea universe, but one early mission seemed to confirm this, with Prinnys aplenty and doods aplenty. It wouldn’t be a Nippon Ichi game without a shout-out to their de-facto mascots, right?
You take on the role of a human main character who is trapped in some kind of hell. This is essentially a hub area where you can choose your next mission and improve your weapon attributes. The true action takes place in so-called Belles’ Hells, which are made up entirely of female Delusions. At the very least, it’s not as crude as the Senran Kagura games, though it comes close on a couple of occasions.
Midori and Kikuri, a pair of radio hosts: one hyperactive, the other subdued, introduce each Belles’ Hell on Higan Radio. They come in the form of fan mail sent to the radio station, which the girls read with varying degrees of scepticism.
These delusions are effectively situations for you to investigate and purify, such as jealous schoolgirls or a young lady obsessed with confectionery above all else. Alternatively, in one humorous illustration, a girl discovers an adult magazine and proceeds to distribute a self-published manga with similarly risqué material in her school.
The delusions manifest as psychotic physical entities that are trying to stop you. You’ll first meet one named Poisonette, who tries to take your body at first but ultimately decides that helping Belles stuck in their hells is a better option.
In practice, this means you must use a third-person shooter to subdue enemies (known as Kleshas) in each of the hells. When it comes to shooting enemies, there’s a little nuance: the longer you keep your reticule on an opponent, the more harm your next shot can do. Regarding the word Kleshas, which refers to the Buddhist principle of the same name, which refers to mental states that cloud the mind and trigger unwholesome behaviour.
In a Qix-like alternative mode, you’ll even have to purify mires by having Poisonette cover up the physical manifestation of poison. Even after sixty per cent of the way through the game, we’re still not sure what causes a mire capture to shift to a yellow state. It’s also how help objects and chests are revealed. Yellow chests contain plot-related or poison gems, while blue chests contain in-game currency and support pieces. If you get all three in a level, you’ll be able to use the poison as an equipped item.
Toxicants, deliriants, antidotes, and catalysts are the four types of poisons. Toxicants are as similar to a traditional weapon as you’ll come, starting with a regular slugthrower from Poisonette herself and progressing to rapid-fire and bomb variants, among other things. Deliriants are typically used as a heavy secondary weapon, with antidotes providing shielding and catalysts providing increased item drop rates.
Toxicants, antidotes, and catalysts can all be upgraded for increased efficacy and ammunition, which becomes increasingly important as the game progresses. The levels are divided into five circles, each of which is guarded by a Naga beast in a boss battle. They present a reasonable challenge at first, but as the game progressed, we became increasingly overwhelmed and were able to quickly dispatch them.
Despite this, we got stuck a few times on the same levels, mostly because we were overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemies that had spawned on top of us. Though cheesing it and fleeing is still a viable option, particularly when the sub-section target is to clear 75 per cent of the mires. When you complete the goal form, all of the enemies that had spawned will vanish, leaving you free to clean up in their absence. All the more so when you’re trying to locate the remaining poison gems.
When it comes to poison gems, you can unintentionally activate the level completion state when you aren’t actually done. It’s a little annoying when you’re as meticulous as we want to be when it comes to collecting collectables. At the very least, it preserves your existing gems so you don’t have to collect them again when you return.
Poison Control struggles a little in close-quarter fighting. You’re not going to last long when you’re surrounded by numerous enemies in a corner due to gates springing up behind you and mires ahead of you. Due to the onslaught on many occasions, we lost all three of our emergency recoveries in a very short period of time. Even our smart bomb was ineffective. At that point, Level 10 was such a difficult hump that we almost expected a platinum trophy, as in a Ratalaika game.
There is a level timer to keep you from procrastinating too much, but we only encountered it on the longest of multiple-stage Hells, and even then, we had a few minutes to spare. We assume it’s to prevent people from unnecessarily farming specific levels for upgrade currency, but we’ve never had a problem with funds.
Even with the genre the west forgot persisting, music and sound design are very vivid and colourful. In the Poison Control universe, dubstep is still very much alive. Though we’re not really running out to listen to Skrillex on Spotify, it suits and doesn’t feel jarring.
REVIEW : Resident Evil Village (XBOX Series X)
