The world has been taken over by the Mechanoids and its future rests in the hands of our lady hero Exton. The name is the most unique part about the game. The story is only interesting to start with as there is not much significance with the gameplay as you move forward simply funny looking half monster half drones. The game is a simple, artistic, 2D side scrolling platformer trying to keep players entertained by collecting coins, killing mechanoids, gliding, unlocking levels and moving through four different worlds with ten levels each, much like many others out there in the app stores. The theme stays true to the story as the made up world is very much steampunk inspired, as the developers say.
Coming to our hero, Lady Exton; dressed in a 19th century gown and armed with an umbrella (to glide) and a pistol, is not an ideal character to play with. The hero is very stiff and feels boring due to lack of any animation, the most realistic part is the gliding as it requires the hero to remain still. Not to take anything away from the developers, they have still done a decent job in making the gameplay smooth and buttery with such a stiff hero. Also, she comes equipped with a non-continuous firing pistol, which is ok as the enemies also comes or fires after certain intervals. The only hero ability is the jump and glide part, tap once to jump (faster the tap, higher the jump) and hold to glide, hero can gradually or immediately come back to normal by releasing the hold. Gliding is the easy part, the difficulty comes in when you are required to scale walls using jump and glide continuously. Killing enemies can be done in two ways, shooting them or by jumping on them, each enemy dies by either of the two methods.
Gameplay is again decent and keeps one involved, but is quite repetitive. The backgrounds are absorbing in nature, but the platforms, spikes, enemies all seem to merge with the background, making it difficult to spot them sometimes. The levels have an easy to medium difficulty level and get harder as one progresses, but sadly there is no concept of a checkpoint anywhere in the game. There is no real creation in terms of level design apart from the background. The coins don’t really seem to have a purpose, just for the rating of each level. The punch lines when a player dies are quite cheeky and keep the fun element up.
Background music is calm and goes well with the overall gameplay. In games like these usually music is not a big attraction or a disappointment, won’t be a let down even if played in silent mode. A major downer is no social interaction of any kind, a little bit of high-score battles amongst friends keeps the popularity up. (I still play Fruit Ninja after so many years if someone I know beats my high score)
To conclude it all, Vanquish is a brave effort from the developer and definitely is a one time play, not being both easy and difficult should appeal to most of the people trying their hands on it. With over 7,00,000 apps in the play store and many like this one, the options are unlimited in a way for us, but at the same time everyone likes to try new and attractive games and this just about falls in that category.
Smartphone and Tablet gaming have scope for everyone and anyone. being a good platform for developers to showcase their talent, like Vanquish: The Adventures of Lady Exton.
The game is a first try and then buy if you like kind of an app, so Google Play store is the right place to start with the free version. Though it is available for Rs 55 (Ad Free) on both iOS and Android. The game is also available in Windows through Desura for Rs 166, along with a free trial version.
