Possessor(s) PC review — Toxicity

As a long-time fan of Metroidvanias, it’s rare for me to find ones where I actually care about the story or dialogue. “Enough of this, I just want to explore” sums up my general attitude, although the genre isn’t exactly known for its writing to begin with. Possessor(s) is one of the rare times where I didn’t audibly groan each time a new story sequence reared its head. I was actually looking forward to the next one, although the trade-off is that the game’s other elements also weren’t quite up to that same level of quality, even if this is a fine genre entry all around.

Possessor(s) has a pretty intriguing setup. Luca and her friend Kaz are citizens of Sanzu City, which has found itself going to hell. Demons have escaped containment and are possessing everyone, with one in particular killing Kaz and leaving Luca legless and waiting to bleed out. But then a demon named Rhem appears and offers her a choice: allow him to possess her body and help him get home, and he’ll give her new legs along with the power to survive. The human and demon begrudgingly work together, all while learning about each other and why events have gone the way they have.

The backstory here is honestly very good, as it takes a nuanced approach with the humans and demons. A major theme is human complicity and acceptance of unethical behaviour by corporations, but the game also has a lot to say about the mental gymnastics the recipients of toxicity tend to do to excuse the behaviour of their undeserving loved ones. It’s all delivered with a lot of endearing dialogue (Luca actually convincingly comes across as a teenager) and some memorable characters. This absolutely isn’t a narrative game, but the writing still really helps carry the experience.

Possessor(s) is somewhat of a Souls-like on top of being a Metroidvania, but this is deceptive out of context. You’ll receive Chroma from defeated enemies and crates, which you’ll use to purchase items and upgrades. If Luca dies, she respawns at the last-used checkpoint, sans all of your Chroma, which is, naturally, located at the site of your last death. Dying also resets your flasks that you use to heal, but these are mostly where the Souls-like elements stop. There’s no levelling up, no stat distribution, no stamina, and no gear aside from weapons, so it’s difficult to argue that the game is an actual Souls-like.

Importantly, it’s not particularly difficult. At the onset, you can choose between easy and normal difficulties, but normal is a very middle-of-the-road experience that isn’t typically all that difficult. I will say that it takes a few hours before you unlock the NPC that allows you to increase your number of healing flasks and how much health you have. Possessor(s) is actually pretty open in terms of progression in a lot of ways, too, so you could end up exploring other areas before meeting this NPC, which will actually make the game seem quite difficult, as it’s balanced around going into their area first.

If you don’t do this, though, you’ll likely find yourself with tons of healing and plenty of health most of the time. Suffice to say, anyone who’s worried by the possibility of the game being a Souls-like should be able to rest easy, unless they’re just really against playing games with the whole “dropped currency on death” thing. Enemies can often deplete your health bar in short order, but as long as you get out of the way and heal, even most of the game’s bosses should be simple enough to defeat on your first try. The final boss, who is obviously one of the toughest in the game, isn’t too hard to get through on your first or second try, even.

Possessor(s) mostly plays out in typical Metroidvania fashion. You explore the different areas, find new abilities, and use them to reach places you couldn’t before. The game’s pacing flows quite well, and there are usually multiple places you can go. You’ll find four different weapons as you progress in the form of kitchen knives, a baseball bat, a guitar, and a hockey stick. The knives, for instance, are the fastest, least-damaging weapon, while the guitar is so slow and heavy that you can only get a single hit in with it, as it’s the only main weapon without a combo. It can, however, be charged up.

I mostly stuck with the guitar through the whole game, although all of the weapons are perfectly usable. As for Luca’s other combat abilities, she’s got an incredibly useful dodge that grants plenty of invincibility frames (which can be used as many times as you want in a row with no negative consequences), plus there’s a parry. The parry has a fairly small window, but pulling it off does a lot of damage to enemy poise. Do enough poise damage, and enemies will be vulnerable for a time. Parrying most projectiles will return them to enemies, which is indispensable when being shot at by turrets and other projectile-based foes.

You can also put up to three affixes on each weapon (both main and sub) that can add various functionalities. For instance, one makes you sprint faster, another gives you more health, and one lets you attack faster at the cost of doing less poise damage. You have to pay to add slots to each weapon, and the most common item you find is needed to accomplish this, but there’s no upgrading your weapons otherwise. In addition to your main weapon, you can equip three subweapons that use up charges that you generate by landing main weapon hits. These come in both melee and ranged varieties, but I honestly didn’t feel the need to use them that much.

There are a couple of issues here and there. For instance, I occasionally got stunlocked by multiple simultaneous enemy attacks. If Luca gets hit in mid-air, she enters a fall state that doesn’t reset until she hits the ground. But there are certain objects, such as air currents or even landing atop enemies, that will keep her locked in her fall state. Enemies can also kind of trap you at the edge of an area or hit you as soon as you enter a screen if you’d aggroed them before. These could all use some polishing.

Occasionally, some enemies will be standing in a position where there’s just no good way to fight them, but this is rare. The strangest aspect of the game, however, is that melee combos lock you into your initial direction and don’t let you switch in the middle. This is part of the reason that I stuck with the guitar, as it having just one hit makes it so you don’t have to deal with this at all. There’s a reason most sidescrollers let you reorient during a combo, and I don’t quite understand why Possessor(s) forces you to get locked into this, as it only serves to make things feel clunkier. Enemy variety is also too low, as you’ll have met every kind of enemy long before you reach the end.

The game’s biomes are decently varied, although the muted 3D areas can feel a little bland and samey at times. Despite this, Possessor(s) has a lot of visual flair, especially in the characters who are rendered with excellent vector artwork. There are a good number of fast travel locations that make getting around fairly snappy, too, although more than one area will only have one near its entrance, making running back through them necessary when returning.

Possessor(s) took me about 11.5 hours to get through. The game has a decent amount of side content, with the largest being a bounty list where you’ll fight tougher versions of certain bosses or waves of enemies. Others mostly task you with tracking down specific items. I only did the main story and the bounty list, so doing everything would probably take another couple of hours, but it’s just really not all that necessary. Therefore, this is more of a middle-length game that I felt did actually end a bit too soon, but seeing as how thinly stretched the bestiary is, this is probably for the best.

Possessor(s) won’t blow anyone away, but it’s a highly enjoyable Metroidvania with a very strong narrative that I really resonated with in some ways. Combined with strong art direction, a decent length, and impactful combat, it’s well worth picking up for anyone who enjoys the genre or who was drawn in by the plot, characters, or art direction. Or even if they just want to use an electric guitar to smash enemies into walls.

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