Enslaved: Odyssey to the West (2010)

I watched tons of Monkey King in Chinese growing up and loved it even though I didn't understand it. It was great to see how the staff, cloud, monkey, pig and the even the crown were re-imagined and fit in the world.

You start with a whole world where you're trying to figure out who are these people, why are there murder robots everywhere, why did the world "end"? Unfortunately by the end of the game you don't really know that much more about the people, some plot points felt super blunt while others felt too vague. The pacing towards the end feels rushed and is probably the worst part of the game. Nothing really feels really resolved and it was a very deus ex machina ending.

Traversal was bearable at first and made sense with the monkey king influences but, after a while it became a boring hold direction/mash jump until you're done. Even worse than say an Assassin's Creed because most of the climbing sections were linear vs the more open nature of AC. Using the cloud was great though, it felt good and looked good while using it though transitioning

The gameplay kinda followed the story with a solid premise. An okay Arkham Knight like combat with basic shooting but, as the game went on it the mechanics on top of it didn't feel great. Offensively the upgrade tree didn't provide much variety or even options. The limited options it did provide felt super inefficient compared the the standard mash quick attack.

Shooting in this game felt pretty unwelcome. It was slow and clunky and unfortunately became more mandatory as the game progressed. There were segments later on in the game where I'm basically <travolta.gif> because I'm being shot at by by enemies I can't melee and ammo is somehow scarcer than health.

Honestly I think the game is worth an hour or two of your time but, it isn't worth seeing through to the end.