Tides of Annihilation is a very stylish, combo-heavy, Simon Says game. It’s a mishmash of mythologies and action game tropes, and while I feel as though its teeters on the edge of messiness, it proved quite the thrill on the Gamescom show floor.
Tides is, most apparently, a strange and enamouring game to look at. It’s the Homer Simpson makeup shotgun of aesthetics. I found myself wandering around a ruined museum, assailed by giant knights and Egyptian beasts. My mentor is a Chinese saint of martial prowess. My character is a British lady called Gwendolyn with a gaggle of Arthurian knights she can summon to her aid. The buffet approach to worldbuilding is a bold choice, but it allows for truly absurd visual clashes that if nothing else sets the game apart from its contemporaries.
The demo I played was split into four parts: a basic tutorial, a slice of an early-game level, a boss fight, and a supposedly challenging bonus boss battle. Plenty to do, though I was heavily encouraged to put the game on the “story” difficulty, which I fear prevented me from seeing the game’s true fangs.
The combat system itself is a rich blend of fast, punchy attack strings that chain into each other pleasingly. It’s the best part of the game hands-down. The twist with Tides is your available suite of summonable knights, each providing their own unique blows that blend together for extensive, VFX-heavy combofests. I found myself often surprised by how easily I could chain together different attacks. Tides at it best felt like a toybox I could play around with.
One knight I really liked was Geraint, a winged avian-looking bloke whose gimmick is a buildable resource you gain through performing combos. When you collect enough, you can cash this resource in for an explosive aerial launcher. Geraint doesn’t quite have the same punch as Dante’s Stinger from the Devil May Cry series, but I felt as though similar feats of melee wizardry. Also, and this is quite a nerdy aside, these knights felt a bit like Stands from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure in the way they rush in from behind you to do their attacks. That, at least for me, counts for something.
There is a catch though, one I don’t particularly like. As with Stellar Blade, Tides of Annihilation has enemies (usually bosses) with attacks that flash a certain colour, heavily encouraging you to react a certain way. This is why I described it like Simon Says – you’ll be pulling off some flashy combo and then a big red light will glow from your opponent’s big hammer. So you stop, press the counter button, get a big hit, then continue. Alternatively, an attack will glow yellow, and you’ll have to jump. The more action games I play with this reactive element in combat, the more I tire of it.
What of the characters? How are they? I quite like Gwendolyn, who had wit and an occasional quirkiness. You are joined by Ninine, a girl who can morph into a bird and acts as your Atreus equivalent. The vast majority of her lines in the level I played were vocalised handholding that came on a bit too strong. “Hey you should try shooting that”, the moment you look up at a little puzzle in the environment. This game also had yellow paint to help guide you along, as well as a built-in critical path sense that would highlight the direction you need to take or objects you could climb on. As you can probably tell, Tides of Annihilation felt very hand-holdy, when it really had no reason to be.
As the final 15 minutes of my demo time approached, I threw myself at two boss battles. The first was a clash against Mordred, who is a white-haired lady nicking your style a bit. Not only does she have a fancy sword, she can summon knights too, resulting in an explosive battle where you’re dodging past incoming spectral goons to get a few hits in on the actual boss. It was a flashy affair, the arena warped with each phase and the attacks ramped up in absurdity, creating an organic climax that was undeniably cool.
That optional final boss I mentioned earlier kind of wraps up the game for me. Called Geraint, he was this demonic looking Samurai with a big electric katana. He hits hard and fast, but if you keep a look out for those yellow and red flashes, he’s quickly surmountable. In his next phase he ditches his clothes and becomes this big dragon lad, and things continue to ramp up from there in both difficulty and pomp.
All in all I came away from Tides of Annihilation quite surprised. I think there’s some gold in these hills, there’s something to this game I want to dig into. I want to play around with the swordplay more – specifically I want to see how I can combine knights to create wacky, exhilarating combo chains. In the hands of an action game fan I firmly believe its merits quickly present themselves, that hand-holding aside. Fingers crossed the mishmashy nature of the game’s presentation turns out to be a boon for Tides of Annihilation, and not its bane.
