Half-Assed Hyboria
Conan borrows liberally from God of War's playbook, but it forgot to ape the most important thing: fun.
Published: November 18, 2007
There is one other new addition to the God of War combat formula: a Heavenly Sword-style reversal system. Block just as an attack comes in and you can counter with an instant kill. Unlike, Nariko, however, Conan must hit a specific button to do a finishing counter, which leads to a lot of frustrating missed opportunities to thin the herd of approaching enemies. I wouldn't have minded it during, say, a boss fight (though, puzzlingly, I don't think parries work against bosses -- who mainly deal in block-breaking or unblockable attacks anyway -- or at least I never did get the timing right), but with normal enemies, it makes things needlessly complex. Something more akin to Heavenly Sword where the enemy is stunned or otherwise taken out of commission for a second for less-than-perfect parries would have worked far better.
All of these issues come to a head during the final parts of the game. Whether it's the insanely tough trudge through the final levels or the absolutely disc-breakingly hard final fight (I never did finish it, and I never will; it's filled with so much rule-breaking bullshit that I'm surprised the screen didn't go completely brown), what were little faults in the game's combat basics all start to break down and it becomes an absolute chore to see it through to the end (or, uh, the near-end if you value your blood pressure).
It's a basic level of polish and play testing that seems to echo throughout the game's presentation. The graphics look hardly better than an HD Xbox game (and I'm loath to use such a far-reaching comparison normally), with sloppy, ugly self-shadowing, some questionable textures and models that look decent from afar but downright ugly up close, and tons of popping animations and jittery transitions. The game's bombastic, percussion-heavy music is actually quite decent, but the grunts and clangs feel a little limp and the normally awesome Ron Pearlman's turn as Conan may well have been done when the guy was drugged up on muscle relaxers. You can hear the boredom in his voice with nearly every line.
Conan started off with a good template, but for the few things they added like mastering moves or multiple weapons and their subsequent attacks, another core part of the combat was left unpatched. Letting enemies beat on you while your block window is closed until you're a bloody pulp or laying endless unblockable attacks onto a character that lacks neither the agility nor the grace to combat enemies that seem built only to make players cuss like drunken sailors. Crom is not pleased.
