Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Almost, but not quite"

Too Human is a linear third person RPG that mixes Norse mythology and cybernetic superhumans. You have your choice of different classes at the start. They are the exact same classes as every other RPG - warrior, defender, balanced, ranged, magic, etc. Your have the opportunity to customize a skill tree with points earned when leveling up, with each class having a different tree. This was a neat feature, but I didn't realize there was a secondary tree accessed with L2/R2 until I was beyond level 20. Hey, nobody told me!

There is also a weapon modification system using runes, which are dropped by defeated enemies. The entire rune system is confusing, and most of the weapons gathered later in the game don't have any empty slots to install them anyway. There are runes that you can add to other runes, there are blue ones, green ones, and white ones. There are runes that require you to complete mini-tasks like "defeat 300 enemies while combo meter is at 25 or higher." When you do, it shows complete, and it lets you add runes to it, but there's no sense of accomplishment. They could have at least had a counter on the HUD as you play to show you it is completed. Instead, all of that felt like an afterthought.

Game play is pretty satisfying. You use the left control stick to move and the right control stick to attack. R2 shoots the guns, and you have a "spider" on your back that can do different things depending on your class.

The biggest problem is the camera. It has a freaking mind of it's own.

Me: Hey camera, can you please look forward while I walk forward?
Camera: F*** you. If you want to look forward, press RB. I'm going to look at this wall over here, then spin around and look at that pit. It's got lava.
Me: But wouldn't it make sense if you followed me so I could see where the bad guys are spawning?
Camera: Look, I like you, but I don't *like* like you. Have fun getting shot in the face, dying, and having to watch the Valkrye come down and drag your carcass back to the last checkpoint.
Me: I hate you. (Then I died from getting shot in the face)

That brings me to the next skid mark: every time you die (which for me, was over 100 times...don't laugh, I got an achievement for it, so it must be pretty common) this nice looking angel woman comes down, slowly, hovers behind your dead body for a while, and then drags you up to Valhalla. This sequence takes approximately 15-20 seconds. I died approximately 120 times. On the conservative end, that means I sat through over 30 minutes of this animation during my playing time (approximately 25 hours) WHICH YOU CAN NOT SKIP. Boo, sirs. Boo.

Another aspect of the game is Cyberspace, which is accessed through wells that you find throughout the levels. While inside cyberspace you are accessing a database by running around in a "virtual reality." If you knock down a certain tree in cyberspace, a bridge extends in the level. There are lots of bonuses found in these levels, but other than that, it seemed completely pointless to have this in the game. If they had left it out, along with the characters you find there (Weird sisters, I'm talkin' 'bout you), I would have found the game just as enjoyable.

I know I complained a lot about it, but when I was actually fighting and upgrading my character, the game was actually pretty fun. There comes a point, though, where there are so many things to keep track of, that it requires you to manage your inventory so often to make sure you've got the best weapon, or that you probably should maybe use the runes, even though you don't want to.

Look, it was just good enough for me to play all the way through the story (which ended abruptly, BTW), and if a second game is produced, as was the plan (Too Human 2? 2 Human? Too Human Twice Revered?), they can fix some of this stuff that bogged it down, and it could be quite enjoyable.

If you're like me and actually like linear RPG's instead of wandering around the f***ing forest for 10 hours looking for some f***ing rare herb while the universe laughs at your futility, then you can pick this game up on EBay for pretty cheap, and it is certainly worth the money.

Maybe you are smarter than me and can figure out the rune system. Maybe the camera won't hate you as much as it hated me, and perhaps you won't die as often. Worth a look if you have the time.