Archangel VR review: Okay, I really am in a giant robot
By Just Lunning
I only boot up a game such as Archangel VR in an attempt to understand what feels like to pilot a towering, kaiju-sized, six-story giant robot.
Developer: Skydance Media
Publisher: Skydance Media
Platform: PSVR (Version reviewed), Oculus, HTC Vive
Release Date: July 18th, 2017
Choosing to play a game in VR is all about a desire to heighten your own experience, especially in relation the level of immersion you’d like to obtain. When I play a game such as Rocksteady’s Batman VR, I do so in an attempt to emulate what it feels like to be Batman. I only boot up a game such as Archangel VR in an attempt to understand what feels like to pilot a towering, kaiju-sized, six story giant robot. Great VR games allow me to walk away from a game feeling disoriented as if I just shared a Freaky Friday experience with a virtual character. Archangel VR easily hits that expectation but unfortunately flounders elsewhere.
Your giant mech is immediately an awe-inspiring machine. When you first encounter your mech, it’s towering over your minuscule human body, emitting a feeling of power like no other. That feeling doesn’t go away once you start piloting the machine either; instead, you feel as if you’re wielding that power.
After climbing into your mech, Archangel VR becomes an on-rails shooter. You’re still able to control the upper body of your mech using a pair of PlayStation Move controllers, but walking is done automatically. You can aim the duo of move controllers to fire from your arsenal of weapons, or to just target for a punch. When available, I always went for the latter option of those two.
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There’s an incredibly satisfying feeling when you punch an enemy in the mech. You have to physically punch with the PlayStation Move wand and then the enemy goes flying. This is what driving a mech should feel like: having an immense amount of physical power to feel as though you’re an absurdly intimidating force of nature. Skydance Interactive did a really great job on this aspect; I never felt more like a giant robot pilot than when I punched an enemy in this manner.
The shooting found in Archangel VR fails to evoke a similar feeling. You have four weapons, two on either arm, but each one of them feels incredibly generic. Enemies don’t really diversify combat in normal shootouts. I found myself bored during many of Archangel VR’s straight fire fights. They often just consist of small threats with the only dangers coming from missiles that were unblockable by your mech’s usable shields. Normal fights felt dissatisfying and nondescript for a game that captured the physical nature of giant robots so well.
I enjoyed my time with Archangel VR, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone at its current price.
Although, a surprising respite during the excruciatingly long shoot-outs is found in the form of flashbacks. Your character, Gabe Walker (or Gabby Walker if you decided to play as a woman) often experiences short flashbacks during combat segments of Archangel VR. These flashbacks contain some of the best high emotion acting in recent memory. Each snippet expands on Gabe’s personal narrative quite well. You also get to understand various other people who died around Gabe. By seeing their deaths, you gain some empathy for what Gabe is fighting for, and as to why he needs to win. Gabe is a ball of destructive, reckless, vengeful anger, and he wears it well.
The rest of Archangel VR’s cast has some decent acting chops as well. After each mission is completed you’re able to have little chats with each member of your team. These brief chats let you check in on how your crewmates are feeling. In them, each member of your team reveals bits of their own emotional arcs. Watching each one will really help you find more meaning in your missions.
Despite their overall value, the way these chats are presented is a bit frustrating. Watching each one after a mission could take anywhere from 5 minutes to 20 minutes each time. That’s just unacceptable. The information they hold is at times, crucial for enjoying the story, but their overwhelming length usually just slows down the normally fast paced Archangel VR. Not to mention how jarring it is to have their dialogue sloppily mismatched with visuals. In the chats, their lips will often move when no dialogue is being spoken, making it frustrating to watch.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with Archangel VR, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone at its current price. Archangel VR current costs $40 dollars, which is far too much for this three-hour experience. While it does have some surprisingly great acting and emulates giant robot combat quite well, I would wait just a bit. Neither of those features is impressive enough to make up for Archangel VR’s boring gunfights and somewhat tedious characters.
Archangel. 6.5. While fun when you feel like a giant robot, Archangel can get very boring for long stretches of time. The game’s plot is also rather shallow outside of some scant character interactions after a mission. Even then, those interactions are tedious to follow. Some might even take you the same amount of time to follow as beating a level. Nonetheless, the acting is all-around superb, especially for a VR game.. Skydance Interactive.
A copy of this game was provided to App Trigger for the purpose of this review. All scores are ranked out of 10, with .5 increments. Click here to learn more about our Review Policy.