Flawed maybe but not bad, hopefully the next installment will feel more finished.
Controls – From the start the game boasts glorious controls and they stay close to the same. It isn't until later in the game (mostly bosses) that the controls have their moments of throwing a fit. Combat is smooth and fast, the dynamic combat system the game uses creates a feeling of rich and dynamic combat while using a very simple point and click system. For veteran fans of Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry this will certainly be a draw back, from the days of complicated button mashing and timing to holding the right stick in the direction of what you want to see die. Of course combat isn't entirely that simple, Ruiner attack, weapon powers and class specific specials add to the variety. Luckily your character combined with the assortment of weapons in the game means that even the basic combat never really gets tiresome, while games like Devil May Cry or especially the Dynasty Warrior series suffer from repetition of cookie cutter scripted attacks that get tiresome, for some reason the variety in Too Human and the pace seem to wash over this fact and keep a entertaining pace.
Graphics – Without a doubt below par, while the game is no where near ugly and still easily surpasses even some of the best Wii titles the game truly feels as if it could have reached higher. This is only enhanced or reduced (depending on how you look at it) by the games beautiful texture and artwork design. The textures in the game make up for the at times jagged level design and foliage. While trees and bushes are two dimensional textures crossed over one another the detail and coloration draw away from that fact. The cybernetic reality mixed with the naturalistic cyber world does mix quite nicely and tend to try to make a point, if you think about it. The real world is all cybernetic and high tech while the cybernetic world, or the internet if you want to call it, is all nature like and filled with trees. A reversal that may slip past some I'm sure, characters are the most detailed and well designed, though facial animations are rather poor by today's standards. It's too bad this game wasn't put on a better engine, like the Unreal 3 engine or something like that. The game truly could have been awe inspiring is its beautiful art design would have been complimented by a powerful enough engine.
Story – The story is not as nearly complicated as many have been saying, while it is based on Norse Mythology, one does not need to understand it to get the base of the story. Now I myself have played games like Rune Viking and Marvel Ultimate Alliance, as well as having read things like the Thor comic books. The fact is any serious Marvel fan should be rather well versed in Norse myth or at least has a hand hold on it. As long as you know who Loki is the rest is pretty much self standing. You are a member of a group which protects man kind; most of the members use pretty standard Norse names like Odin, Thor, Balder and Loki. If you truly feel the need to be deep into the story you could read up, but the fact comes down to this is a world of honor in death. Many men live the lives of Warriors, if you need an example of what honor, respect and the warrior mind is like watch 300. If you can't grasp the basic concept of what's going on, you're trying to hard to grasp the Norse story. If you just take the events for what they are, it's pretty obvious that you protect man, the group you're a part of does as well, you do missions and a bad guy has an evil plan that you must stop. The end.
Mechanics – Too human has probably one of the most puzzling arrangements of mechanics I've ever seen. While most of the game makes sense with how it works and such, other pieces feel as if they were meant to be removed before sale or something. Primarily are two things, healing and death. When you die you get picked up and lifted to Valhalla (which is Norse Viking heaven, yay) and then instantly resurrect back onto the field for more combat. Death it's self has little of a penalty, no game over, no loss of a life leading to a game over, just a little item damage and if you have upgraded any of your items with the "Item Quality" upgrade you won't even see the items damaged much, but it doesn't matter much because this game has SO many items that you'll be switching to new items about ever half hour or so. The real penalty in Too Human for dying is the incredibly long and annoying death scene of what you could call the angel of death coming to get you, if you die every once and awhile it's fine I suppose, but some areas in the game are horribly unbalanced and you will die 2, 3, 4 or 5 times before passing an area. This is a pain as you have to restart from the entrance of the area, run back to the fight and then die a moment later just to watch the 30 second death scene and restart at the beginning of the area, run back, die, do it all over. It's a pain and can really become an annoyance really quickly, after playing for a few hours dying once in the heat of combat is expected and the long sequence is a breather but anything more than that just becomes a kick in the pants. The other part is healing, now if dying wasn't such a nuisance then this wouldn't be an issue. But depending on your class you may only be able to heal by picking up Health Orbs dropped by slain baddies; this becomes a serious issue later in the game. Health drops can never be predicted and as you level up they fill less and less of your health bar. For classes like the Champion, which is probably the most balanced class in the game for combat, you'll end up dying simply because you couldn't heal between fights. While some objects in the game that can be broken do hold health, it tends to feel like you never find health when you need it. You fight 50 bad guys and get left with a sliver of health and you find nothing, fight 10 weaklings and you have full health and suddenly every crate you pass has health in it. Some kind of potion, med kit or healing system of SOME kind would have really helped vamp up the games speed and would have helped keep a feeling of continuity. The most annoying thing in the game (other than dying repeatedly in the same place and having to watch that death sequence) is getting poisoned or some such and after fighting a huge battle and ending it with a little less than half health, watching the poison slowly drain you of life and kill you anyway. It's slightly depressing and really ruins that feeling of victory over a mighty foe. Still though the combat system and item system really makes up for those two issues, as long as you can put up with those two nagging problems the rest of the game is beautiful.
Overall – When it comes down to it, problems and successes combined, too human is a really good game. Great for those RPG fans and for the Action fans, the fast paced combat combined with the deep RPG inventory creates a game that should be fun for veterans and recreational players alike. The combat is simple enough to get but don't think you can just hold the right stick and walk away, as you progress into the game a combination of fighting and special attacks will without doubt be needed to survive. One thing that could tend to overwhelm players is the MASSIVE weapon and armor selection, not only are there a ton of weapons and armor, but they can be upgraded with Runes, which add effects, increase damage, armor and a whole array of other things. As I said before weapons and armor do take damage which can be repaired, but I've rarely had a piece or armor or a weapon which I didn't replace within a half hour at this point. The Charms in which you can make are rather interesting, they require you to meet a quest, something like kill 200 enemies in melee combat, find 3 wells or most common is kill x amount of enemies while you have a hit count higher than 20 or 50. After completing that requirement you also have to insert other runes into the charm to activate it, the bonus with charms is they stay active as long as you equip them and DO not get put into items. From my experience though Charms are something that are a nice bonus if you want to put the effort in them but are not required to play. Finally, bosses. The bosses tend to be grossly misaligned with the game, boss battles and lengthy due to your weapons tend to always be weak against them. To top it off bosses will most likely kill you a few times because of the fact that you can't 'juggle' bosses; the most notable is the boss at the end of the 3rd mission, an upgraded troll. He requires that multiple parts be destroyed to beat him, this is a hassle though since with melee you can only attack a target generally and can't aim for parts of them, with ranged weapons you can target his arms and legs BUT he has MASSIVE armor and it takes a very long time to kill him. Still, with beautiful combat and a deep inventory system that is sure to keep even the most detail hungry RPG fans busy mixing and matching items. Not to mention you can custom color your armor and weapons piece by piece, adding a nice detail.
Final Note – Just perplexing, at later levels Helmets disappear. I can't pinpoint an exact level but eventually end up without one, you'll still pick up items that go into the helmet or 'head' armor slot so don't worry but you won't get full helms that cover your face. You just end up getting little glowing things on the back of your head if anything…