Kong: Survivor Instinct Review (AeroFunk80)
I really liked this game when it first started, but it slowly got annoying and repetitive as I played. While there are positives, there are definitely more negatives. Is it worth playing? Maybe. Should you wait for a sale? Definitely. Due to the number of issues, though, I find myself giving it a thumbs down.
You play as David, which is a pretty bland name for an equally bland character. He’s cheesy, probably tells annoying dad jokes, and repeats the same cliché phrases over and over throughout your journey. So much so that you wish the developers knew how to turn off dialogue repetition after a line has been spoken once. David doesn’t need to say “Why are you all so stubborn?” EVERY SINGLE TIME he kills a person. Silence would be fine, too.
Then there’s the combat. Fun at first, but it gets repetitive fast. You have a melee weapon, and you’re supposed to dodge and parry attacks. The problem is that David’s actions often feel random. You try to hit an enemy, but instead, he kicks them away. There are also enemies with guns that tend to stand behind companions, forcing you to dodge bullets Matrix-style, which feels odd since David has no special abilities or powers. You do get a gun yourself, and this does make combat more bearable, but ammo is limited, so you still find yourself doing more melee fighting.
And if the repetitive combat isn’t enough, exploration follows the same pattern. You do the same things over and over—find a key, locate a part, unlock a door, activate an elevator, turn a generator on or off, discover a glowing aura. Once you build up enough points, you can summon a titan to clear a path. The game claims to be a “Metroidvania,” and while you get a sense of that when you find a new weapon or item, it doesn’t happen frequently. There aren’t enough secret areas, there are few items to discover, and the game is pretty linear with minimal backtracking.
Oh, and the game is called Kong: Survivor Instinct. I’m about 50% through, and I’ve encountered Kong maybe three times, and it was incredibly brief. There are other titans, but you see them so rarely that the game starts to feel more focused on the human enemies than on the titans.
Finally, the game does have some chase scenes with the titans. While visually impressive, they’re frustrating from a gameplay perspective. The developers made these sequences so precise that one wrong move equals instant death, and you have to restart from the beginning of the chase. By the time I finally succeeded, I was too frustrated to enjoy the moment. It’s an example of prioritizing challenge over enjoyment.
The good things:
-The visuals are stunning.
-Level design is well-done.
-The titan scenes are the highlight of the game, but there aren’t enough of them—excluding the chase scenes, of course.
Other than that, the story is bland, the dialogue is poorly written and acted, and David is an uninteresting and annoying character. Combat and exploration are repetitive, with minimal items, hidden areas, or upgrades to make it feel rewarding. Overall, try it at your own risk. You might enjoy it, but don’t forget—Steam does offer refunds.