Review: Babylon’s Fall

destructoid.com:

Platinum Games is seemingly at a crossroads. As a follow-up to Clover, one of the finest development studios of all time, its reputation was legendary. As far as single-player action romps go, MadWorld into Bayonetta, into Vanquish, into Metal Gear Rising, Wonderful 101, and Bayonetta 2? What a run! Then Legend of Korra came and pumped the breaks a bit on expectations. Since that turning point, Platinum has been spreading its time across multiple studios, including collaborating with Square Enix for Babylon’s Fall.

It’s a weird one.

Babylon’s Fall (PC, PS4, PS5) Developer: Platinum Games Publisher: Square Enix Released: March 3, 2022 MSRP: $59.99

When I talked about Babylon’s Fall in my preview four months ago, I noted the promise of the core action system. But at that point a lot of the freemium elements weren’t in full swing, and the assumption was that the tower would evolve and shift into something radically different the more you progress. That didn’t really pan out.

From minute one, asking me to mandatorily link my Square Enix account wasn’t a great sign. It even warns you multiple times that “you cannot relink this,” so my first emotional experience with the game was anxiety as I double and triple-checked menu text. 2022 in a nutshell. My first-impression blues didn’t get any better once I was asked to navigate a weird browser UI for seasonal news dealing with the game. You also can’t delete your characters for some reason, a notification that I got right after logging in. This game is a house of cards!

After actually getting in and creating my character, I got to experience a brief moment of joy, as I took in the incredibly weird story setup, which feels authentically Platinum. Your job is to climb and explore