Malicious (PSN) Review

In a world where demons are running amuck, you’re called to help cleanse the land and save the world? Sounds familiar? I‘m afraid not. Alvion have extended this over-used background story with their first PlayStation 3 title, Malicious. While you are armed with only a cloak of ash and whatever powers you obtain along the way, ridding the world of demonic Malicious became an epic quest of glory, and a quick journey of excitement. This is no ordinary save the world game, this is the Malicious.

So Lets kick off the HOTs and NOTs.

Hot

Graphics

The presentation in malicious is one of the biggest draws; combining unique design and water color/pastel colors, the player gets a unique feel that some games lack. Playing through, you are greeted with several elements which fully show off these features: beautiful loading screens, vivid cut scenes introducing the bosses first and second forms and of the players own character as well. In addition, as players take damage they will notice there is a “Clothing Rip” damage system. This happens where the character takes damage causing the player to lose limbs and some clothing. This system is very dynamic in this aspect as the player’s character can lose most of their clothing; but still looks realistic and not overly sharpened.

Combat

The graphics flow amazingly well with the combat system. Players can use their cape in various forms including: a sword, fists, bullets, shield, wings and a lance. Players can use these as tools in various ways, opening up the door to various methods used to beat each boss.  This allows players several tries to get the most out of their tools and can make one boss’s world a piece of cake or hell on earth. Besides bosses, time will be spent fighting waves of malicious that can easily make or break your fight!

Lag Free

As players go from world to world they will notice increasingly more malicious join to fight them. This figure easily can go up to 300 malicious moving at once! While there is no data install, there is very little lag to the point it’s almost nonexistent. While I did experience some light slowdowns with extreme activity, it was extremely fluid while never having graphic quality drop.

Not

Tutorial

Combat can be very enjoyable, to the point several aspects of the game are glossed over. While they did this mostly so players can find a method that works for them, a lot of the levels will leave them confused at what to do. When players fight the first boss they might not have a clear understanding of what to do. While tearing into him with the fists is the best approach, it just isn’t clear that the starting demon bullet weapon won’t work as well. Players might also not know how to damage some bosses, as half of the bosses players will fight have unique elements to them. It might be great to have these unique elements but it can leave people confused as to how to fight the bosses. Combined with the time limit given on every level and the sheer amount of minions, players many find it hard understanding what is going on.

Difficulty

Since the game is rather short only 6 bosses in total and it doesn’t really inform players, they can find themselves very aggravated at some of the tasks. For instance, looking at the last boss briefly; he requires players to do a task prior to even attacking him. Since the time limit given to kill him is 30 minutes plus additional 5 minutes per continue used this can be rather hard to gain a good statistic from the battle. This fight in particular has a lot more going on; rarely will players not be avoiding something or another. Alongside that, the boss also has an automatic kill move. This is before players even try to damage him, when he and around 20 minions will constantly be attacking the player.

My statistic from the final battle showed that I had over 800 kills. Most of this is from just trying to damage parts of the final boss, none of which was ever directed at any of the minions. However, if you like very intense battles this will not be a problem for you.

Camera and Targeting

Because players will be fighting so many things at once, they’re bound to be using the targeting system. The only problem with the targeting system is that it can really mess up the player’s line of sight for many of the bosses. This can cause you to not see attacks that could have avoided and or give the player slight motion sickness from the crazy camera turns. While it could be better, unlocking can be slightly annoying too sometimes leaving you in the exactly the same place you started.

Length

There are only there 6 bosses and each has a time limit of 30 minutes. To do a perfect run without going back to menu, the game shouldn’t take longer than 3 hours 20 minutes. While there is a postgame it adds very little. One mode players will gain is time attack mode where the goal is to beat the whole game in 1 hour, which is sadly, not too hard to do. Another disappointing aspect is that male or female has no impact on what happens, players will get the same story and nothing special happens.

Verdict

While this is Alvions first Playstation 3 title, and one of their first overall titles it’s not that bad. While it’s coded and plays very well, it could without a doubt be a little longer or add a little more. The lack of explaining or understanding of half the bosses can leave a more casual gamer annoyed and can easily turn them off completing the game. Not to mention the intense learning curve can leave many people annoyed with no option but restart or continue.