Transformers Devastation Review: These ARE your Daddy’s Tranformers
Transformers Devastation is a 2015 melee hack and slash game developed by Platinum Games of Bayonetta fame. I picked up this game for one reason: it’s bright and lovingly recreated G1 art style.
The game focuses on the original G1 Transformers Universe from the mid 1980s and at its best it plays like a love letter to fans. Not only is the art design a solid call back to the original cartoon but the developers had enough love for the fans to bring back the original voice talent. This includes Frank Welker as Megatron, Michael Bell as Scavenger and the always awesome Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime himself.
They even got Stan Bush, who composed the music to the 1987 Transformers movie to compose the soundtrack. It’s an awesome blast from the past. The Transformers look just like the toys I played with as a child. The visual style is engaging composed mainly of 1980s cheese with lots of lens flare and posing when new characters are introduce. The Constructicons and Insecticons get large roles in the story which is welcome because they are popular characters. However none of the Autobots except Optimus Prime have much of consequence to do. I love how they included Grimlock but he’s basically just there to smash stuff with a few corny lines thrown in.
The game is a welcome buy for any fan of the franchise, probably the best Transformer game yet. For those without a connection to the original source material the game is more iffy. The combat is intense and works as a reflex check/rhythm game. Higher levels of difficulty are available and the game gets cruel on some of them. On moderate difficulty the game is satisfyingly awesome with intense action and campy humor.
The camera just sucks. You will frequently die because the camera reorients your perspective just as you’re trying to dodge.
The PC port should be avoided. The Steam version of this game was poorly ported to the point where just maximizing the screen can be difficult and even crash the game. This is a serious problem given just how busy the screen can get on higher difficulties when you are fighting swarms of monsters and trying to dodge them all at once. I often lost track of where my character was.
The story is a huge disappointment with numerous plot holes and things that just don’t make sense. The plot objectives are simply paper thin excuses to run around and beat on giant robots. At one point you go through the SpaceBridge to Cybertron to fight the Decepticons then a few scenes later you find yourself back on Earth with no explanation how (or even when) this happened. The story does show some interest in the large and well developed Transformers mythos however none of this material ever really matters. The main campaign is lamentably short with a lot of repetitive scenes and repeated fights. There aren’t really any alternate modes to explore.
The game is genuinely fun but there’s a sense of a cut deadline or lack of finding that reduced what could have been a really awesome game to a solid B game.
If you like hack and slash brawlers with a healthy amount of camp, this one is worth checking out. If you remember fondly the old G1 Transformers cartoon, definitely check it out.
Final Score: 7/10