Four years ago a little game called Golem was announced for the Playstation VR at the Playstation Experience. The trailer didn’t explain much at all, but has had me and many other PSVR fans interested to see how it would turn out. For most of the four years we’ve been in the dark about Golem’s development. It had several delays but eventually was announced to be releasing in November, and published by Perp Games physically. I was excited to play it, especially because it took so long to come out, but I never expected it to be like this.
Golem is a PSVR game that has you playing as Twine, a girl who gets injured in an accident and learns how to control giant creatures called Golems. The story in this game is one of its best aspects, so I won’t spoil anything else. I’ll just say that the animations, voice acting, and unique concept, all come together to make a high quality and special story.
The gameplay in Golem is where the game really shines, you play as a Golem and have to explore a giant abandoned city. The city has several locked doors that can only be opened with masks, so you’ll need to explore different parts of the city to find masks so that you can progress to new areas. It kind of reminded me of the Metroid Prime games, except that the masks you collect aren’t permanent. The main way you collect masks are by defeating Golems. And when you collect that mask you have one of that item, you don’t keep it forever. And the same applies for the tools and equipment, which are gemstones and weapons. You also collect these items by killing Golems, and each of them have special perks and abilities. The gemstones can increase things such as health or strength, and the weapons vary in range and damage amounts. But if you die you will lose the equipment you are wearing. Each time your Golem dies you return to a workshop where you can change out your Golem’s equipment and return to the city. You can also return to the workshop at any time through the menu. But each time you return to the workshop your items also get discarded.
The other major part of the gameplay is the combat. The combat has you using, swords, spears, axes, and other weapons to defeat skeletons and other golems. The skeletons only take one hit to defeat but like to attack you at a distance with their spears, which they are very accurate with. When fighting Golems you’ll have to block and attack the Golems at their weak points, it’s a simple concept but can take a while to master. Not all Golems have the same moves, and some of them move a lot faster than others. The blocking mechanic can take a while to get used to, and might seem like it’s broken at first, but after playing for hours I don’t think it is. It’s all about where you position your weapon, you’ll have to consider the angle and how far away from your body you’ll have to put your weapon. Because you’re a huge golem you’re a lot bigger and easier to hit, so you can’t just hold your sword right next to you, you’ll have to move it further away. The combat works really well and is really satisfying when you get good at it. It plays unlike anything else I’ve tried in VR and I love it!
Another fantastic part of this game is the world it has built up. The city itself looks beautiful and the texture quality is really high. And this is also massively enhanced by the quality of the graphics, there wasn’t any noticeable blur during my play through and it was stunning. I am playing on the PS4 Pro, so I can’t say how well the game looks on the original PS4, but it’s one of the best looking games I’ve ever seen. Each room and area is filled to the brim with detail, and you can tell that the developers put a lot of effort into it. The environments are enhanced even further with the beautiful soundtrack, each track is amazing and make exploring and fighting even more impactful.
One part of Golem that I have to mention are the controls. You can use either two moves controllers or one move controller combined with the dualshock 4. The move controllers use a brand new leaning system of movement, which I personally didn’t enjoy. I commend the developers for trying something new, but the leaning was just really annoying and made me tired because I found myself leaning too far forward and resetting my position often. After trying the move controllers I ended up playing the rest of the game with the dualshock 4 and move controller combination. Which has you wielding the sword in one hand, while using the other to move with the dualshock. It might sound weird, but this setup felt surprisingly natural and a lot more enjoyable to play. But even though this setup was better, it isn’t without its issues. I found myself having to reset often because I wasn’t moving in the correct direction or wasn’t moving fast enough. This can be especially annoying while in the middle of combat, and messed me up a few times. The controls aren’t unplayable, but it would be great to have a few more options, or at least a few fixes to the current options.
One other issue I had with the game is that a few hours into the game it was a little too confusing and slow for my taste. I found myself wandering around the same places over and over trying to find the next mask, and had to ask another person for help because I got so lost. It can be very easy to forget where each of the doors are, and can drag down the pace a little bit. But this only really happened once or twice during my play through and didn’t hinder my experience very much. I do think there should be an option to turn on hints, or maybe even an easy mode in the game. Because Golem is actually a pretty challenging game, it doesn’t hold your hand and just drops you into this new city with only a few mechanics explained. The challenge is part of the reason I love Golem, but for some players I’m afraid it won’t be as enjoyable.
So overall, Golem is a fantastic game! It brings one of the most beautiful, polished, exciting, challenging, and awesome experiences I’ve had in Virtual Reality. And part of the reason it was so awesome is because the developers really haven’t shown much within the past few years. Golem takes around 6 hours to beat, and has a bunch of extra content after you finish the game. It was awesome to hop into a big new game only knowing a few small details. The combat and exploration is amazing, the soundtrack and visuals are jaw dropping, and the story is high in quality and has several great moments. In my mind, Golem was worth waiting 4 years for, and I look forward to seeing what Highwire Games does next.
