Vivid Reminiscence Infinite – Destructoid

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I positively need extra, however not fairly like this
A number of years again, a bunch of us have been collectively wowed by Vivid Reminiscence Infinite: a shooter that appeared high-budget however was truly the work of a single developer. That narrative of pleasure took form and fairly quickly it was on quite a lot of radars, ours included. Then got here the prologue “episode.” Now, we’re prepared for the complete recreation, Vivid Reminiscence Infinite.

Vivid Reminiscence Infinite (PC, Xbox Sequence X/S)Developer: FYQD-StudioPublisher: FYQD-Studio/PlayismReleased: November 11, 2021MSRP: TBA
Vivid Reminiscence. Vivid Reminiscence: Episode 1. Vivid Reminiscence Infinite. These are the phrases I’ve seen floated across the previous few years.
However let’s preserve issues easy: it is a overview for Vivid Reminiscence Infinite, the complete recreation. You might recall our overview of “Vivid Reminiscence,” which got here out final 12 months. That was a prologue of kinds, clocking in round 30-45 minutes. It is a greater recreation, lasting a number of hours. On PC (not Xbox), should you already purchased Vivid Reminiscence, you’ll get up on November 11 and discover Infinite ready for you. However sufficient about pageantry! Onto the sport.
It’s a pure shooter, with out a lot regard for a story. There’s an agent named Shelia, a black gap, and an evil normal named Lin is concerned. Oh, and a few supernatural stuff. That’s just about all it is advisable to know, as a lot of the plot is nonsense, not defined, or truncated. It’s very a lot a B-action film, generally deliberately, generally unintentionally so.
Whether or not you employ raytracing or not, Vivid Reminiscence Infinite appears to be like attractive. And it’s not simply the uncooked visible energy. There’s an element the place you’re working towards a firefight in an alley, and a large black gap is centered within the sky: showcasing among the great stage design and the framing. It additionally has a couple of motion set items which are straight out of over-the-top ’80s and ’90s flicks, and issues get even wackier as soon as historic troops come into the combo that seem like they got here proper out of a Harryhausen movie.

You’re not making associates with these monsters: you’re going to be reducing them down with a sword, psi-like talents, and weapons (a rifle, shotgun, pistol, and sniper, all of which have alt-fire modes). Neatly, FYQD funnels each melee and ranged fight into one another, because the sword is linked to a mana bar of kinds, and capturing fills it quicker. So that you’re continually balancing the 2, working in to get some fast slices (and possibly even a juggle combo), then diving again out. You’re additionally free to improve your talents, your sword, and the alt-fire in your weapons in any order via “reliquary” collectibles.
The short dodge that Shelia has entry to essentially helps Vivid Reminiscence Infinite‘s fight come to life, as you will have full management mainly always. It usually looks like a dance, and you’ll undertake a number of approaches to conditions relying on the panorama. Should you needed to, and didn’t thoughts the cooldown — and have been nice at dodging — you can use the sword a lot of the recreation; deflecting pictures and melee assaults, leaping round in all places. Leaping round is essential, as some mild platforming is required. Beneficiant double leaping hides the janky design of some areas, which is across the first time you’ll begin to see the cracks of Infinite seem.
The prologue (once more, Episode 1) retains hammering it via your head that Vivid Reminiscence‘s core power is fight. Sadly, the ultimate construct has moments the place it deviates from that successful components, and it doesn’t actually put its greatest foot ahead. The insta-fail stealth part the place Shelia “loses entry to her swimsuit” is one huge instance that stands out. It’s not notably powerful, and you can most likely speedrun it in lower than 10 minutes, however it’s annoying.
Though it has a couple of standout ’90s arena-style boss fights, many areas pressure you to kill a gaggle of enemies earlier than you possibly can progress, in an virtually comical trend. A few of the slugfests truly make sense. A few of them will solely allow you to crawl via a large gap in a fence after you dispatch some goons after which are capable of press the “X” button immediate to slide via. Provided that Infinite is just some hours lengthy, these missteps harm it far more.

The glitches harm it too. Most of them have been minor exterior of a number of crashes on PC when loading right into a chapter, like different languages popping up on-screen (a couple of of those cases have been mounted in a pre-launch patch), or the lack to show down sure quantity ranges within the choices display. For controller customers, the d-pad doesn’t work in menus, and the menus themselves can have navigation points. You possibly can’t appear to skip cutscenes, even on chapter replays. I additionally had bizarre checkpoint issues the place I’d die in the course of an goal, then load into one other space previous the place I used to be. Once more, it’s minor stuff, however it provides up.
Vivid Reminiscence Infinite will get in its personal approach, and infrequently takes the main focus off of its strongest high quality: the core mechanics. I want that Infinite was only a full extension of the action-packed prologue and was a little bit extra polished, as it could be simpler to advocate. Should you can take care of that headache, you would possibly prefer it.

[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]

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