"Too Human is a strange game. I find myself wanting to like it more than I do. Yet, every time I think about the cool story, I think about large, empty environments that make everything feel like a big hallway. Every time I think about the solid infrastructure that makes improving your character easy, I think about the endless barrage of loot that comes at you too fast, making it feel like you need to change helmets every two minutes. Good ideas are brewing in this game, the presentation rocks, but core gameplay elements need refining. A lot of wasted potential here. "

Jason's Score:

7.0

"I will play the sequels and I'll probably enjoy the story as it unfolds, but enjoying the game itself is up to the developers."

Guest's Score:

5.5

After I heard that Too Human was based on Norse mythology, I became quite interested in it. I didn't hold my breath though, because, for some reason, developers seem to have problems creating decent Action RPGs. Unfortunately, Too Human is not an exception.

At first, I was quite pleased. The graphics are quite nice; some areas should even be described as spectacular. The voice acting was well done, not awesome, but well done. The music is just right and fits perfectly with the game. The really strange control scheme took a bit of getting used to, but once you got it, it works very nicely and made for a fun experience. My worrying about being disappointed seemed misplaced, so I threw it away and began enjoying the game.

This is where Too Human commits one of the most deadly sins of gaming, Deception. It creates a beautiful world, an intriguing story, fun gameplay, but then its shroud drops and you realize that it is a completely pointless waste of time. It makes you feel like an idiot for lowering your defenses (which is another deadly gaming sin, berating the player). The game totally backstabs you in the face. Why do I say such harsh things? What can possibly drive one to criticize a game so?

People play RPG's because they offer something other genres do not, a real feeling of progression, of accomplishment, of becoming more powerful. Too Human gives a feeling of this, but in actuality it does not actually give it, not at all. Scaling is the reason behind it all; every enemy in Too Human scales to match your ability. It's not like it was in The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, where they only scale to your level, which was bad enough. In this game, they scale based on your character stats after the application of any modifications. This renders gaining a level, finding that one ridiculously powerful rare item, and everything else completely pointless. When I find that one item that only defeating the last boss in the game can offer, I expect to (at least for a time) obliterate all in my path, or at least those that I was just fighting a minute ago. Not so here. Here is an actual example of what I experienced: the melee weapon that I had did around 500 or so damage and I just found one (an ultra rare drop) that did an immense 1200+ damage, a rather large upgrade. My previous weapon knocked off a little more than one third of the weakest enemy's health, so I expected to start one-hitting everything in sight. I equipped the sword and, lo and behold, did around one third damage to the weakest enemy. All I did at that point was sit in my chair, seethe with anger and disbelief, and stare at the screen.

Unfortunately, that's not all. What's worse is how the game seems to rub this fact into your face after you've figured it out. Loot drops from almost everything, constantly. It is entirely possible to spend more time managing your inventory than actually playing the game. I had to pace myself and check my inventory every half hour or so, but since the game scales, all that time spent in your inventory is essentially pointless. You also gain levels quite frequently, which gives you points to spend on abilities in two skill trees, not unlike those found in Diablo 2, but again, the scaling renders this useless as well. The only possible thing in the game that can actually improve the damage you do is the ability to hit more than one enemy at one time.

And now for the cherry on the cake of Fail: Death. In a normal RPG, of any sort, death is a pretty big thing. It normally ends the game outright and in lesser cases comes with severe penalty. In Too Human, when you die, the only penalty is your own, personal, wasted time. You don't start the level over nor does the game end. The only thing that happens is you see a cinematic of a Valkyrie come down to pick up your body and carry it off, then you respawn a short distance from where you were, right in the middle of what you were doing. I once died nine times fighting one of the bosses.All I did was get back up and continue the fight. Yay. Despite the lack of penalty, death is just as maddening in this game as others, because you have to watch that damn Valkyrie cutscene over and over and over. I can only wonder how much of my life was wasted watching that stupid, unskippable cutscene. Sure, your equipment takes durability damage, but they don't break, so that's useless too.

After finishing the game and spending a bit of time to let the experience marinate a bit and let the anger fade, I will concede that this game is still fairly fun to play. It's just so chaotic when the enemies spawn in their dozens and swarm over your whole team. As long as you can get past the fact that it's all for nothing, save finishing the story, there is still fun to be had. The items that you equip do change how you look and they can be customized. Although all you have to show for it is "my sword does more damage than yours," but you won't be able to tell by playing the game.

The only thing that I can genuinely praise this game for is its completely different take on the Norse mythologies. Too Human takes those rich, wonderful stories and puts an extreme sci-fi twist to them that works amazingly well. In fact, it works so well that it feels like it's a sort of translation of the original stories as if this is how they actually exist, since the original Vikings had no way to describe modern technology except as magic and divine influence. Because of my heritage, I've heard these stories lots of times, but this game makes them feel like a new experience. This is where Too Human shows real promise. If the developers can fix those gameplay elements, then maybe the remaining games in the trilogy have a chance of being quite good. So, yes, I will play the sequels and I'll probably enjoy the story as it unfolds, but enjoying the game itself is up to the developers.

All in all, and despite the major flaws, I would still recommend that you at least rent this game. As long as you know that it is essentially a regular action game, not an RPG and that your character will show no progress, except for their looks, you will have fun and possibly enjoy the story that Too Human has to tell.

-Jeremiah Brown

Pros

Cons

Bottom Line

Jason's Score:

7.0

Guest's Score:

5.5