Indivisible Review
Fast Facts
Title: Indivisible
Developer: Lab Zero Games
Publisher: 505 Games
Website: https://indivisiblegame.com/
Genre: Action-RPG
Platform: Xbox One
Age Rating: PEGI 7+
Release Date: 8/10/2019
Price: £34.99 – Rapid Reviews was very kindly provided with a review code for this title.
Known for their work on the beloved Skullgirls, Indivisible represents Lab Zero Game’s first foray beyond the fighting game genre. Inspired by Valkyrie Profile, Indivisible is an action-RPG with a unique party mechanic that provides fighting-game like combos without needing quite the same amount of finger dexterity. Read on for our Rapid Review to learn more!
The first thing you’ll notice about Indivisible is how bright and colourful its world and characters are. You take on the role of Ajna, a young woman full of hope, dreams, and ambition. After disaster strikes her village, Ajna sets out on a quest for vengeance against those responsible. The twist is that many of the characters you meet on the way take up residence inside of Ajna’s mind. Think Pokemon, but your mind is the Pokeball and the monsters are people. It’s an interesting premise that pairs beautifully with the Southeast Asian aesthetic that permeates the game’s art.
The plot of the game doesn’t do much to break new ground in terms of storytelling. That said, the writing of the individual characters is lovely, full of charm, and enjoyable. I was engaged just by the conversations that Ajna has with her new mind room-mates throughout the game. This is good because there are a lot of characters to meet.
Gameplay wise, Indivisible plays like a sidescrolling Castlevania or Metroid outside of combat. You’ll traverse 2D environments and use acquired abilities to progress down side paths and forward through the story. I was a little disappointed by the exploration bits, as I had hoped for a bit more exploration, instead, the game does feel a tad bit linear for most of your time with it. But at its core, Indivisible is a game about combat, and that’s really where it shines.
If you’ve ever played Valkyrie Profile, that’s where this title draws most of its inspiration. In combat, your party of four characters (Ajna plus three others) correspond to different face buttons on your controller. Using simple button and directional inputs, you trigger attacks and abilities from the characters. By using certain combos, you can tease out techniques and fight strategically. Where this concept takes off is in the wide variety of characters available. While some do feel repetitive, there’s a lot here to experiment with, and it leads to genuinely fun gameplay from fight to fight.
Unfortunately, development of your characters leaves something to be desired. With very sparse menus and systems, the game is more about finding new characters than developing the ones you already have. This gives the game a feeling of a lot of width with very little depth. While it’s fun to encounter and experiment with the breadth of characters, I wish there was a little bit more here to develop with each one.
On top of this, it often feels like there’s a “right” set of characters to use at any given time. While skilled players can make interesting combinations work, I felt like at certain points it just made sense to shelve characters and use others that felt stronger. While this isn’t necessarily bad, it contributes to that shallow feeling mentioned above.
In the end, Indivisible is a game full of charming characters, beautiful backgrounds, and great writing. Unfortunately, it’s missing a lot of the most important parts of what makes an RPG great, offering shallow character development and a roster that starts to feel repetitive. With all of that said, the gameplay is enjoyable enough to pull you through if you find yourself invested in the characters.
Rapid Reviews Rating
You can purchase Indivisible from the Xbox Store at the following link, https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/indivisible/9nbfqmp69n1s?activetab=pivot:overviewtab
