izigame.me

A game that got more hate than it deserved because the marketing didn't really show what the game was. Its a third person action story that is also an RTS game. Its a shame that most didn't give it a shot because of the RTS part, as the entire game is quite good.
The cast and characters in this are great. You grow to care about all of them even though some barely have any lines or scenes. One of the characters goes from your ally to your enemy, and I had to stop and google the end of the game because I had to know if that character was going to die or not. I had to make myself mentally ready for their fate. The art style and animation are great and look better than some triple A games that came out this year. The combat is good, with a nice bit of variety. The RTS part of the game started off as the weakest part of the game, but by the end its a blast. Once you wrap your brain around it, it can be quite fun and interesting.
The negatives for the game are mostly small nitpicks. The game is quite short. There are only Three big bosses and if you just play the story parts you can finish in about seven hours. The open world is vast, but quite empty. Once in awhile there's some interesting designs but it all blends together. The side missions are all basically the same: a fight, a race, hunting, a turret sequence, and catapult. other than one mission where you help this bat family, who are Ozzy Osbourn and his family, they are all not that interesting. They do a lot of plot dumping at the end, and you never really get time to deal with it. The second to last fight also has a dramatic uptick in difficulty, and I had to completely change the way I was playing to win it. Also the ending is odd, in that the main guy leaves without telling anyone, and his love interest is on a hill watching him go. Why wasn't she in the car? also they left a stinger to suggest a possible sequel, but it was pretty weak and uninteresting.
There are a few tiny changes that could improve the game for me. A mini map or even just a compass would make navigating the game dramatically easier. Love if it indicated where enemies were coming from during the turret scenes better, as just a side character saying, "there coming up behind you," doesn't work if you are spinning around in circles. Would love if it marked on the big map all of the secrets and collectables I'd already found. A health bar would have been nice as well. I wish you could cast spells or attack while flying over the battlefield, though that might make the game too easy. Wish there was some kind of fast travel, as having to drive the entire map to complete one quest is frustrating, and if you crash at any point, you get dropped back at the start and have to do it all again.
Overall, it a game with a great style and tone. The action gameplay is fun and simple, while the RTS side is a little tricky to wrap your brain around. Its an ambitious meshing of styles that for the most part works. It is a shame this didn't do well, as it feels like this is a game that was building to a stronger sequel. Still, this is a blast for what it is and I'm glad I gave it a shot. If you are having trouble with the RTS, I recommend looking up a few guides as they really help explaining how the system works.
This is an underrated Gem that would have done so much better if it hadn't tried to hide its RTS system.