I’m fond of a good Metroidvania, and I love a great one. Paradox Soul‘s take on Metroidvanias adds cover-based shooting to the mix and a sci-fi base to explore. Does it work? Kinda.
You start out with nothing but a jump in your arsenal, but quickly find a gun and a map. Unless you’re like me and miss the map entirely, having to back-track for it later. Whoops. But hey, back-tracking is typical of Metroidvanias and Paradox Soul does a good job of keeping distances short so it’s not a slog. Granted, you could also attribute that to the game’s short play-time though. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Once you’ve got your map and gun, where you go is up to you. But there’s always a “right way” to go, making certain routes feel like a complete waste of time. What makes it worse is that the map comes completed from the beginning, so there’s no point to exploring cause you can already figure out the right way to go. It just turns the game into a straight line from A to B instead of a winding path where you stumble across things as you poke around the place.
Thankfully, there are still some nifty secrets to find but they are few and far between, albeit useful. I discovered gun upgrades and shield power-ups as I played, as well as required upgrades for progression such as bombs, electro-powers and ID cards. The gun upgrade was the coolest thing in the game, adding a massive blast to my, well, blaster, making enemies a breeze.
Sadly, said enemies are boring and rarely a threat (except for the damn dogs). They go down with a few quick shots, unless they’re one which requires stunning followed by bombing which I quite liked. About mid-way through the game I gave up killing them and wherever possible just sped past with the roll ability.
Cause one thing I will give to Paradox Soul is that I enjoyed the movement. You can slide or roll to quickly get around or into cover to wait out enemy gunfire, and chaining your slides is really cathartic. Going fast, feels good. Slowing down cause of cover mechanics, does not though. Honestly, focus more on the movement and you might be onto something here. A fast-paced exploration-based metroidvania is something I would love to play.
Only thing else worth mentioning is that Paradox Soul provides nothing in the way of challenge, even with its boss battles. You get a checkpoint at the start of literally every room, so death is just a nuisance. You have two hit points on normal, and four on easy, so you can tank a shot with no trouble. And the enemies are all slow (except for the damn dogs, again) and melt before your blaster. The bosses have easy patterns to learn and avoid, and can be hit for tonnes of damage when they’re exposed.
The game isn’t really much to look at either. Environments are bland and grey, enemies all look the same and every room is surrounded by nothing but black. The sound design isn’t awful, but really I only remember liking the big “fwoom” noise from the blaster. And if there’s a soundtrack, it sure wasn’t memorable enough for me to tell you anything about it.
Really, it’s pretty obvious that Paradox Soul is a game being sold for its platinum trophy. It took me all of 45 minutes to get the platinum, and what’s worse, is that you receive it two thirds into the game, in room 33 out of 50. True completion isn’t even required. The fact that it’s cross-buy with Vita but the trophies are unique to both platforms further strengthens this theory. “Two easy plats for the price of one” is a great sales pitch for trophy hunters.
So basically, Paradox Soul doesn’t really offer anything that exciting. The exploration is lacking cause it just gifts you a completed map, the enemies pose little threat, and the visuals remind me of literally nothing – they’re so bland. Unless you desperately want another platinum or two for your digital trophy cabinet, I’d say give this one a miss.
A digital copy of Paradox Soul for PS4/Vita was provided by the developer.
Find Paradox Soul on PS4/Vita here: https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP0891-CUSA15807_00-RATGAPARADOXSOUL