Obey Me Review – A Slow Burn That Can Be Rewarding with Patience

Represented from a top-down gameplay perspective, developer Error 404 Games Studios has introduced their latest interactive experience, Obey Me. Blending a slice of adventure laced with frantic 3D brawler action, Obey Me aims to entertain with humorous dialogue and a progressive combative skill tree. Yet, the true test of this experience seems to fall on whether you can stomach it all to its conclusion.

Obey Me, revolves around the games tag-team duo of misfit demons as they fight hordes of mutants, hellish fiends, and angelical contraptions throughout the game’s wave of chapters. Featuring lead character Vanessa Held, as well as her sidekick and Hellhound companion, Monty, Obey Me is presented in a time and age much like our own, however, according to the narrative, Heaven and Hell are locked in an eternal conflict where the souls of mankind are at stake.

From the start, Obey Me makes it quite apparent that the games’ narrative design is where the lion share of the game’s production was spent, or so it seems. Not that the game’s writing is remotely brilliant, yet it can be quite entertaining and humorous, enabling you to play the game long enough to experience the combat progression system, which can somewhat hold your attention.

Players are dropped into a retro setting of an overran Earth as demons have laid waste to the games linear setting. For the duration, players are tasked with running errands for Master Ammon, who with his assistant Anna, are placing you and Monty in harm’s way for the masters diabolical master plan. A plan that you dare not question or abandon. As much as the game may charm you with its bantering dialogue between Vanessa and Monty, as well as with many of the games boss encounters, Obey Me leaves much to be desired when it comes to the games’ visual aesthetics.

Obey Me is all about traversing the games varied locales, filled with increasingly challenging obstacles and enemy confrontations. Some of which may seem pointless, yet in this way it certainly keeps players on their toes. These obstacles can lean on the side of being frustrating due to the games rather loose or lack of responsiveness within the controls. However, the better your understanding of Vanessa’s abilities, the player’s confidence is increased.

As players progress through the story both Vanessa and Monty increase in their abilities and weapon upgrades. As mentioned before the combat is integrated with a sizable skill tree for both characters, and impressively the pair’s abilities can also be linked for maximum destruction. While the skills tree offers more than enough ability variations, sometimes pulling off the longer sequenced executions will oftentimes put the player in harm’s way due to the games area spacing and enemy traps.

Again, many areas will throw an abundance of area obstacles your way, and when you least expect it here comes a demon attack from all sides while you’re attempting to avoid nearby obstacles. I enjoyed this curveball juggling difficulty, unfortunately, there are missed fun factors when the combat begins to heat up. All too often I found myself pulling off a sequence of attacks to only end up with my finishing move punching in the opposite direction of the enemy, and this occurred quite a bit. Even when you point the toggle in the direction of the enemy upon reaching the end of an attack sequence this could happen. While this was not always the result, it happened too much.

Making up for this, the weapon and attack variations though somewhat uninspiring, players will appreciate the balancing act of maneuvering between light and heavy attacks while incorporating Monty’s unique abilities to even the playing field. Upon finishing off enemies and or taking your rage out on the games platform-like boxes, players will harvest currency and souls of fallen enemies, which can be used to upgrade your weapons and Monty’s transformations, allowing your tandem to be even deadlier.

Similar to the Devil May Cry’s of the world, at the successful conclusion of enemy confrontations, players receive a performance evaluation consisting of player efficiency, the time it takes to dispatch the enemies, and the damage you the player took during the altercation. Each standard, Efficiency, Time, and Damage receives a word grade of Great, Good or Bad, concluding with letter grade and phrase.

Early on I loved those A’s for Assassin, however, as the games challenge meter picks up those other letters and phrases were reminders that I needed to step my game up. And to make matters worse, Monty does not bite his tongue if your combative performance is lacking, and Vanessa never fails to tell Monty where to put his comments. I enjoyed this aspect of the game.

In many ways, Obey Me is quite reminiscent of those ole’ school Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle interactive games with less responsive controls. Though the level designs here are dull lacking polish, what is on tap can begin to leave an impression the longer you go down this demon hunting rabbit hole. You will like Vanessa and Monty and you may want to learn more about the origin of this hilarious talking dog.

While I would have liked the games skill tree to possess more pronounce abilities for Vanessa and Monty, what you discover is more than enough to keep players around until the credits are rolling.

Mixed with a layered combat system to balance the games entertaining mini-boss and boss encounters, charming narrative design, and loads of challenging obstacles, Obey Me is a slow burn that eventually reveals its more promising side if you give it a chance.