Metroid on the NES was an influential title back in 1987 and it's still being shown after 30 years. Improvements to the formula like Super Metroid on the SNES and Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night on the PlayStation 1 but never really a true throwback to the original. Enter Axiom Verge, a great throwback to Metroid but with its own narrative spin to it.
You are Trace, a young man isolated on a desolated alien planet. You have no memory of how you got there and what a mysterious set of voices is guiding him around but you have to get to the bottom of things. And this is the highlight of Axiom Verge. Its narrative is very well done and written all the way to the final twist at the end. Usually the story for Metroidvania is "blah blah blah, save the world, blah blah blah." Axiom Verge does have that, but with a greater narrative with twists and turns along the way to the end.
The world of Axiom Verge, as with many of the Metroidvania variety, is MASSIVE. No joke. And scattered throughout are over 60 collectibles to obtain. You start with an alien weapon with weak firing power and that starts to grow as you collect more weapon types (and there's over a dozen of them to find) in order to fit your style of gameplay. Also are items to unleash your true abilities (jump higher for example), collecting health packs to increase your HP, upgrades to increase the firing power of your weapon, etc. There's even a grappling hook (Bionic Commando) to get to unreachable areas and a phase dash to 'glitch' through walls and upgrades to the phase dash to break them as well. Speaking of glitch, that's one of the key buys behind Axiom Verge and it all comes down to this particular item that is required to complete the game: The Address Disruptor. This sends a wave of energy that disrupts the format of the enemies that it touches which causes them to glitch and behave in unique ways. Some act like platforms to get across the terrain, some that were unbeatable become vulnerable for attacks while others can be used to access areas that can't be reached by other methods. There is a lot to acquire and explore throughout Axiom Verge. And the variety of the collectibles will be more than enough to get you engaged.
Axiom Verge is a throwback, a great one at that, to the Metroid franchise. Especially the NES version. Everything from the gameplay, music and graphical designs greatly resembles the 8-bit games of old. With some dashes of Bionic Commando and Contra to boot, this has to be one of the best homages to the 8-bit era in quite some time.
With a massive world to explore and numerous weapons to obtain, Axiom Verge is a one-of-a-kind Metroidvania game that must be played. Whether it be on the PS4 or Wii-U, you need to give this game a shot.