 Immortals Phoenix Rising. By or not! Immortals Phoenix Rising is a new open world RPG puzzle solving game by Ubisoft. Thank you so much for the review code. This game is now out for all consoles and I had a mixed first experience with the game. I have to admit, which is kind of funny. Actually I had a great first impression the first few hours into the game and then I made my first impression video. Then I got so stuck at the four hour mark into the game that I left the game and went to some other games. But then I crawled back to the game and I'm very happy that I did. I think I left the game just because I found it to be hard to navigate and the puzzles were hard. This was also around Christmas times and I already felt oversaturated with several other games at the time. But then I went back to the game and boom! Something pulled me in as I gave the game some time and got familiar with how everything works and how I control my character and how pretty much everything works. I found myself loving the game. What I'm trying to say is that this game can actually grow on you the more and more you play it. If you give it a chance. Because this game is actually heavily focused on puzzle solving. It can be very much compared to the Zelda series. Whereas you push blocks, push orbs, climb and fly. And light torches with arrows. All sorts of puzzles just like that. And I don't think I really realized that this was a puzzle solving game the first time I went into it. Oh yes, the king who I strapped to a fiery will for all eternity because he tried to seduce my wife. Meanwhile I had my... Story. You play as Phoenix who arrives at the Golden Isle where the game takes place. And all residents of this island has been turned to stone by a bad guy called Typhon. Also the four gods of the land has lost their powers so you have to help them to get restored to their former selves. You have Aphrodite who lost her passion and turned into a tree. You have the god of war who has lost his pride and turned into a chicken. Hephaistos, which is a cool name, has turned into an atomatron. And Athena is turned into a child. All the while during your adventure the events of Phoenix are being narrated by Zeus and Prometheus. Always adding a funny twist to everything. The storytelling is easy. The small cutscenes are entertaining. And I really like and appreciate the simplicity of this story. The character that you play as is called Phoenix and you can choose this character to be either a male or female. And also do a bit of customizing with hair, skin color, face paint, stuff like that. Gameplay. You run, you glide and you climb and you can go anywhere you want. This is an open world and you can do your quests in whichever order that you want to, which I love. And the game doesn't really force you to do anything specific. So you have the freedom to do whatever you want in whichever order that you want to do it. Like for example, what I didn't know at first, is that I didn't have to do the super hard vault that I entered at my four hour mark, which made me go stuck in the game. I thought I had to do all vaults or something. But they are actually quite optional. So if you find any puzzle to be too difficult to complete, just leave it. Go and do something else and come back to it later, maybe. These puzzle-like challenges are found all over the huge and awesome map. I really enjoy this map. This is all I'm asking for. A big colorful map with a lot of things to do on. And you unlock the map by climbing the statue in every single region. And you discover all the map objectives by scouting the area and revealing each smaller location. And you can even do this through walls. I actually found this game mechanic to be incredibly satisfying. Just finding everything through that scope thing. There are just tons of chests scattered all around this island. Small bow and arrow challenges. Actual puzzle-like challenges that I like. Guarded chests where you have to fight in order to get the chest. And a whole bunch of vaults that you can jump into, which act much like Zelda Breath of the Wild shrines. Like super mini dungeons with a chest at the end. And from doing all of these things, you get upgrade materials that you can spend at the Hall of the Gods. Now this is the main hub of the game. Get over to the Hall of the Gods. With Seuss Lightning, you can upgrade your stamina. Which is important for climbing, gliding and all sorts of things. Including attacks and skills and stuff. With the Ambrosia Crystals, you can upgrade your health. Which is self-explanatory. You need a lot of health. With a bunch of mushrooms and such, you can upgrade your four types of potions. Which are potions for health, stamina, defense and increased attack. But maybe most importantly, with Coins of Charon, you can acquire and upgrade your skills. Making you more powerful and giving you every useful abilities. Like for example leaping while climbing or picking up several items at once. Stronger attacks and even one very useful skill of making a duplicate statue of yourself. To make puzzles easier. I recommend putting your skill points into those that I mentioned. Also the Berg skills. Like yeah. Lastly, you can also do basic upgrades to armor and weapons with the crystal materials collected. In the Hall of the Gods, you can also change your appearance and check the quest board. Which is fun. There are small quests on there and you can also do dailies and a weekly. So in other words, this game is quite the collect-a-thon. You can collect armor pieces, cosmetics, which are called visuals, head pieces. And you can collect a whole bunch of different mounts that you have to sneak up to and tame. And they are found all over the island, etc. The most fun gameplay loop is to complete sections of the map. And then to return to the Hall of the Gods and do all your upgrades. Then go back and continue clearing the map. Occasionally also do some of the main quests. Rinse and repeat. The main quest is to help the four gods and getting the three blessings from each of them. As you can see here. Some of the dungeons belonging to some of these quests are bigger dungeons. Like even super more harder. You may also actually have to... Sometimes look up on YouTube to see the solutions to some of these puzzles. But it's funny the way. Make sure you do the bird quest as soon as possible to get the bird companion. Who also can help you out in combat. I use him all the time. Combat feels good. With light and heavy attacks and some additional simple skills. Combat is simple, but good. Controls are also good but the button layout is somewhat unusual. I mean to glide fast you will have to hit B to jump. A to glide and Y to glide fast. That is three individual button presses that you find yourself to be using a lot. When you're jumping off a cliff, opening your wings and you want to glide fast. That is actually just weird and unusual. Because you're doing it so much. Maybe you're also messing that up a lot like I did falling to my death. So all in all the gameplay is fun because of the freedom that you are given. It also reminds me a lot of the Zelda series like I said. Warning though. Some of the late game vaults has very challenging puzzles. You may get frustrated and you may get stuck. The graphics are very colorful. Sort of simplistic but still beautiful. Facial animations are fine but they could have been worked more on menus are fine also. But I'm the most happy to see the great map. A good looking map in an open world game like this is incredibly important for me. I've already taken a lot of beautiful scenery pictures with the photo mode. So this game is definitely very pleasant on the eyes. Performance is fine on the Switch. I have only gotten one game crash so far. I'm happy with the general art direction of the game and the diversity of the regions from lush green fields to the wintery mountainside and the Greek mythology theme. I love it. There is a hint of Switch blurriness in this game. I've talked about that before. The Switch blurriness in handheld. And some graphical quality has been cut to make this work on the Switch obviously. So I feel like the graphics are gonna look a lot better on a PS5. I mean I know. But this game runs really smooth on the Switch. There is no problem per se. The sky is beautiful always. But the shadow quality of your character is bad. And I also have to mention that I missed having a traditional mini-map in this game. You only have the compass that is on the top of the screen. And it was kind of confusing at times. But I got used to it after a while. Now for a few weeks I have found myself to have this music stuck on my head. Like when I'm going to bed. When I'm going to work. When I'm in the kitchen. The music has really gone to my head. And that is a good sign. Whenever that happens that is a good sign. That is when you know that the music from the game you're playing is memorable. There is voice acting. Great sound effects. Everything in the sound and music department is stellar. And definitely on par with a triple A game. Sound effects from the wildlife and waterfalls and such creates an immersive experience. And I think the game has done really well with this. This is headset worthy. I mean have a listen. You need the determination to make a new plan. That's what we'll do. Take this armor as a token of my gratitude. I can say that I highly recommend Immortals Phoenix Rising to everyone that is a fan of the Legend of Zelda series. Everyone that is a fan of Assassin's Creed actually. Because it's very Assassin's Creed-y. Very Zelda-y. It's a highly entertaining game. I've been watching my cousin play this game and he has been watching me play this game. So it's like it's fun for several people to watch while someone plays. Because in the living room you will end up all working together to solving some of the puzzles. So it's very watch worthy. Also if that makes sense. The puzzles can range from obvious and easy to YouTube tutorials searchable. I want the game to be bigger or I want a sequel to come sometime down the line. Because I am actually hungry for more. This game may not be suitable for people who dislike puzzle solving. Or just people that don't have patience. And if you didn't like Breath of the Wild you may not like this game. But if you loved Breath of the Wild you will love this game as well. I'm even planning on replaying this game on APS 5 in the future. I have a feeling that this is gonna be a classic that people will continue to talk about in years to come. That is the impression that I get from Immortals Phoenix Rising. The loading screens are acceptable in length and when you jump into a vault you get a tiny bit of a minigame in the loading screen. I give this game a 9 out of 10 because it is so solid. And it is one of the best open world games on the Nintendo Switch. Now that was my review of Immortals Phoenix Rising. I hope you enjoyed this video. Please hit like on my video that helps me tremendously out. I also have a lot of other Bionaut reviews up on my channel. Link to the playlist with all the reviews is down below. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you later. Gameplay. Gameplay.