Elden Ring, make way for the new king of difficulty: Clash: Artifacts of Chaos
This game, Clash: Artifacts of Chaos, is absolutely stellar. This is coming from a reviewer of Team Ninja’s Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, a game that is extremely effective at turning its enemies into paste. I’m not trying to boast; in fact, I’m trying to be as honest as possible with you. My mood swings during sessions of Clash’s third-person action-adventure have me feeling somewhere between elated and slumped against a wall, giving me a case of the Ben Affleck blues.
Artifacts of Chaos
The parts of Clash that I’ve played have been challenging, but beyond that, I’m still not sure what I think of it. It’s beautiful to look at and has some clever twists on combat, but grinding levels is tedious and exploring can be a bit confusing. You can have a great time and be incredibly irritated at the same time. Actually, Zenozoik isn’t all rainbows and turkey men. However, there are plenty of male turkeys.
For some background, developer ACE Team’s first two games, Zeno Clash and Zeno Clash 2, were first-person fighting games in which you right-hooked gangly-toed opponents. Clash: Artifacts Of Chaos is a spiritual successor to these titles. In Clash: AoC, you play as a man named Pseudo, who has returned to the vibrant world of Zenozoik. He is not only a gifted martial artist, but also looks like a vacuum-packed Earthworm Jim or a man who just barely fits into a ballsack onesie.
An aptitude for pummeling things is an asset in Pseudo, as the plot revolves around defending a sooty barn owl named — his name cracks me up, because I am a child — The Boy from thugs who want to pinch him for his mysterious powers. It’s the kind of story where nothing makes sense at first, so you’re left wondering what’s going on. You’re just a Pepperami with four limbs that takes it upon itself to guard a flock of birds because… you feel like it? So far as I’ve played, the stakes become more apparent as you travel the world and discover towns where important characters live.
Despite my initial confusion, I really like the way the story develops. It’s reminiscent of God of War (2018) in that you play as a protective adult who must fight through a hostile environment to reach and rescue a child. Only the crunch of your feet or the crunch of your fists will accompany you on this rather solitary journey, making this world much quieter than the one in God of War. It’s not often that you get to have a conversation with a screwed up little guy like The Boy, so when you do, you savour it. Yet again, I believe the relative calm of the world complements Clash’s dreamlike, asymmetrical setting.
Just phwoar, that Zenozoik is. Sure enough, it has the right look for the job. What I’ve seen so far suggests that it’s frequently beautiful, a riot of bright yellows and greens, stone and bones. The developers call it “punk-fantasy style,” and that’s exactly what it has. I mean, it’s like the Earth has been turned upside down and shaken, then glued together with a strange herbal glue made from berries and mugwort, like in Star Wars. The crosshatch shading gives the characters and backgrounds a wonderful textured appearance, as if they had been etched.
the enjoyment of adventuring in Zenozoik’s various environments varies widely. From what I’ve seen, it’s a large, semi-open world with loading screens that transport you to different “levels” (sections of the map) and campfires that serve as save points. Getting around has a Metroidvania-like feel to it, as you’ll have to follow paths with multiple routes and remember which ones you can’t yet pass through. Some paths will suddenly wind you back to views of earlier sections, while others will require you to kick down boulders to access them.
In Clash, you won’t find a compass or a yellow blip to indicate your location; instead, you’ll have to rely on your own sense of direction or consult a map, neither of which will be particularly useful because they are both extremely zoomed-out. I like that you’re not told where to go next, but it can be frustrating if you’re truly lost. Some places have a tendency to blend together, making certain paths nearly invisible at times, and you often need to backtrack through what can be a confusing tangle.
