After an extended six-year wait, Axiom Verge 2 is out and is surprisingly different in many fundamental ways from its predecessor. Still, despite that, Axiom Verge 2 offers many deep, exciting mechanics that will make fans of the original feel at home.
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While many things have changed in Axiom Verge 2, it retains most of its identity through level design, unique enemy encounters, and tons of abilities and gadgets. Metroidvanias can be daunting to pick up or see through to the end, but there are typically many ways to approach the game's world and persevere even the most formidable monsters.
Melee Is Now Your Primary
One of the most significant changes to Axiom Verge 2's combat is that you no longer have guns as your primary weapon. Instead, your primary weapon is a Pickaxe, which serves as your melee weapon and primary source of damage.
While you do have access to a ranged weapon, it is drastically weaker than the Pickaxe, essentially forcing you to engage with enemies in close-quarter combat. Furthermore, you will upgrade your arsenal throughout the game, gaining new and better melee weapons that give you more than a fighting chance against the enemy.
Get Familiar With The Boomerang
As briefly touched upon in the topic above, you have a ranged weapon in Axiom Verge 2 but will have to put in a lot of effort to make it threatening. While significantly weaker than the Pickaxe, the Boomerang has its strengths if you know when to use it.
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In the early going of Axiom Verge 2, you will encounter many flying enemies that can be a drag to take down via your Pickaxe, letting the Boomerang take the spotlight for just a moment. With the Boomerang, you can throw it directly in front of you, above you, and diagonally, allowing you to hit enemies from just about any position. While it may take several hits to take enemies down with the Boomerang – around seven or nine hits – it is a much better option than trying to jump-attack the opposition multiple times, putting yourself at risk.
No Punishment For Dying
Axiom Verge 2 can be a pretty brutal challenge, meaning you will likely die a bunch of times throughout your journey. However, the game does not punish you for failing, allowing you to ease up when the inevitable happens.
The only downside to dying in Axiom Verge 2 is you will automatically get warped to the last checkpoint you rested at, which could be a ways back if you went off the beaten path. However, that is a breath of fresh air as you do not have to worry about going back to the exact spot you died to reclaim lost experience or something of the sort.
Keep An Eye On The Compass
The Compass is one of the first items you receive in Axiom Verge 2 and is easily one of the more essential items in the game. Especially early on.
The Compass will always be in the bottom left corner of your screen and will occasionally have a flashing blue light pointing you in the direction of an Urn. Urns are an essential part of Axiom Verge 2 and are the primary way of unlocking new abilities and upgrading your weapons and skills. It can be easy to ignore your Compass, but we suggest following its guidance whenever possible.
Explore Everything
Exploring Metroidvania games tends to be tricky because you don't have all the tools available to access certain areas. While that is still present in Axiom Verge 2, the world is more open than most games in the genre, with more extensive areas that contain a wide variety of secrets.
Exploring every area to the best of your ability will reward you with tons of stuff early on. Things such as upgrading your max health, obtaining new skills, and gathering upgrade points are all found via exploring the world. While it may seem obvious to explore, the game seems to push you in a linear direction at first, but taking the time to stop and explore is rewarding and almost necessary.
No Experience System
In Axiom Verge 2, there are tons of unique enemies that you will encounter that can be daunting or flat-out annoying to deal with early on. However, you don't earn much for defeating enemies as there is no experience system in the game. Instead, enemies will essentially drop nothing on death aside from a little bit of health or energy from time to time.
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The only enemies you need to defeat in Axiom Verge 2 are the game's mini-bosses and main bosses, which will drop Skill Points. Bosses are easily identifiable due to their enormous size and insane design, which standard enemies don't have. So, ultimately, if normal enemies – and even some bosses – are giving you too much trouble and you know where the exit is, don't sweat trying to defeat it. Make a break for the exit.
How To Heal
There isn't a healing item in Axiom Verge 2, making each enemy encounter a severe risk and ultimately making you have to plan your attacks meticulously. At least in the early goings.
However, there are ways to heal that tie into the game's risk and reward system as you can obtain health via killing enemies, cutting down bushes, and destroying boxes. However, these methods do not guarantee a health drop, just a mere chance of doing so. Additionally, resting at a checkpoint will replenish your health.
How To Get Stronger
As briefly mentioned above, Axiom Verge 2 does not have a traditional leveling system, and enemies don't grant you any experience when defeated. However, getting stronger requires you to find Skill Point Urns scattered around the world.
These Urns are obtained by finding secret areas, solving puzzles, and defeating mini-bosses and bosses. There are tons of Skill Points to acquire in Axiom Verge 2 as each Tool and Ability found are upgradable, and require many Skill Points to do so.
Be Mindful Of Your Energy
Early on in Axiom Verge 2, you will obtain a hacking device of sorts that requires energy to use. A blue bar will appear below your health, tracking the total amount of energy you have to spare.
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However, you will receive the Gud An-Na early in your adventure that also uses your Energy meter. The Gud An-Na gives you the ability to smash through breakable walls, which almost always contain secret areas, items, etc. Being mindful of your Energy Consumption will be a crucial aspect to your early going in the game, as no one wants to run out of energy and find a breakable wall, having to backtrack just to break it.
Study Enemy Patterns
Due to the lack of a powerful arsenal of guns in Axiom Verge 2, most of your combat encounters will be close-quarters. However, many formidable foes in the game will annihilate you the moment they see you, making things wholly more complicated than they should be.
To make matters worse, once an enemy spots you, they can track you for what seems like an eternity and are smart enough to overcome obstacles in their way to reach you. However, the good part is that each enemy has its distinct patrol pattern, allowing you to get a drop on them before they spot you. Stealth is seemingly an essential part of the early going of Axiom Verge 2, so studying the patterns of your enemies will get you very far in the grand scheme of things.
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