For developer Heart Machine, it can be difficult to keep up a reputation for creating great games. After the release of both Hyper Light Drifter and Solar Ash – two stunning games that offered a bold take on their respective genres – you may not be able to picture lightning striking twice, let alone a third time, but after spending time with Possessor(s), I’m starting to suspect Heart Machine may be hiding a lightning rod in their offices.
On its surface, Possessor(s) is a stylish Metroidvania about an evil corporation doing their usual evil corporation stuff, resulting in hell being somewhat literally let loose – demons pour over the city and possess people and objects, wreaking havoc and making for a series of challenging obstacles along the way. After an incident involving a large slab of ceiling and the tragic loss of a leg or two, you are offered a devil’s bargain – let a demon possess you so they can hitch a ride home, and you will get a glorious new pair of legs; what could possibly go wrong?
Utilising a fairly heavy combat system, the game forces players to adopt an aggressive, rhythmic approach to battle, requiring you to read attacks carefully and respond without hesitation – enemies can be stunned mid-attack, and you will quickly come to learn which attacks to face head-on and which to dodge. My first impressions when coming up against many unique types of enemies were its similarities to Guacamelee – albeit omitting the luchadores and skeleton hordes – in which your abilities play a major part in how combat grows.
Through the course of the game you will gain the usual assortment of tools and abilities to progress, but each of these also provides different use cases in combat. One of the first you will unlock is a whip, which allows you to grapple, swing and climb at certain points throughout the world – it’s a handy utility on its own but also becomes necessary for pulling flying enemies closer or removing the guard of a shielded enemy. Combined with the special attacks that can be swapped and changed at will, there’s a definite need to approach each combat situation with both force and proper planning.
It’s not just the way the game plays that lends credence to its strength, but also its style. With a strong soundtrack pumping behind the bright and bold colour palette, Possessor(s) is a prime example of how a bold design can really lead a game – the fact that weapons and abilities are generally just household items (with your first weapon and ability being a set of kitchen knives and a computer mouse, respectively) also offers a slightly surreal take on the tropes of swords, spears and other stereotypical weapons – there’s something obscenely satisfying about ploughing through a crowd of demons with an electric guitar.
Despite my constant praise of the Metroidvania genre as a whole (just check out my Silksong review if you don’t believe me!), it definitely warrants talking about how stories are delivered to the player. A strong cast of characters leads the charge in Possessor(s), with the dynamic between the protagonist and the demon possessing them offering a slow but steady feed of story beats. Most games in the genre suffer from the same issues, with the depth of the story being hidden behind optional challenges, littered around in logs or clippings, or worst of all, placed within the descriptions of items.
There isn’t anything inherently bad about these nested stories and their weight in world-building; there has always been a long-running joke about Resident Evil diary entries famously being two pages, the first saying, “We have invented a monster that steals lungs; I hope it doesn’t escape!” Followed by a second page informing the reader “it escaped and stole Terry’s lungs”, but even as short as they may be, you feel invested in what they have to say. Possessor(s) utilises the best of both worlds, featuring small stories embedded throughout the game in the form of emails and environmental storytelling, but not at the expense of its main narrative – having a deuteragonist delve into the broader points of the story for your benefit means you never miss out on the core experience.
Even with a compelling story and some strong visuals, there are still a number of points where the game falls short of expectations, particularly in the way progress is handled. Early on you are given objective markers pointing you to four main points of interest, in which you need to remove the eyeballs of four former employees in order to open a big door – you know, classic video game stuff. As you can expect, you will hit certain obstacles that prevent you from moving forwards, all of which can be overcome with a magical mcguffin – often presenting itself in the form of either a special key card or unique ability.
On the face of it, this seems fairly normal – make progress, increase your abilities by collecting them at certain monuments (that, for a nice change, aren’t a callback to the infamous Metroid Chozo statues), rinse and repeat. Where this falters is in the order abilities are gained, because no matter the combat potential or the singular use-case scenarios you may find, most of the essential traversal abilities aren’t gained until very late on – the air dash and wall run in particular being some of the latest to join your roster.
Add all of this to the heavy-handed combat that forces you to follow through on your attacks without being able to effectively cancel them out, and there are parts of Possessor(s), particularly early on, that can feel almost tiresome at times. There isn’t any kind of excessive difficulty spike or needless over-complication of the game mechanics to push players away, but the initial hours can prove tedious if you’re not invested in the story.
Even if the game has difficulties with substance at times, fans of the genre would be remiss to pass up on the opportunity to play through the game, if not for the compelling story, then at least for the sheer style on show.
