Like other Souls fans, I’m very used to the process of dying over and over again until I mastered the tough section, but playing the limits of AI was the first time I’d felt the repetitive feeling I learned before I died. It’s apart from an anime-inspired art style and some minor abilities to unlock throughout the story, this numbered adventure is definitely the most mirquetoast and imaginative game I’ve played in this genre. It hugged me against a boring, poor enemy, a weak boss with a laugh. To be fair, it’s not too bad what AI restrictions do (with the exception of normal crashes and bugs, you’ll be fighting boss fights on the floor), but there’s very little to praise for this unforgettable journey.
AI restrictions are set in a vague science fiction universe where society has collapsed Mysterious situation And now you’re overrun with both the strange black mud toxic to all life and the delicious meals you eat to regain your health. As an Android called Blader, you created for your sole purpose to bring the world back to balance. It runs unquestionably through civilization ruins that used genre ratio books as a blueprint, with sewers that act as tutorials and a swamp level of poison that is mandatory in accordance with the 2011 Miyazaki Agreement. The robotic nature of the Blader also offers a handy excuse that they never exhibit mild character traits, as they speak in monotonous voices throughout the 30-hour adventure. Having a hazy setting and an unforgettable protagonist is not accurate for this type of game, but in a non-fantasy setting, if you’ve been hoping that this is one of the ways that its limitations breaks its molding.
Actual action is the impression of a better soul like that of the main. Explore dark and dangerous places, and divide time into dodging small enemies as you move towards the next bonfire-like checkpoint (in this case buds from the ground and branches off), and then split time into facing the big, majestic boss with long health bars and deadly attacks. But its familiar structure is quickly overwhelmed here thanks to enemy diversity, lack of levels of the same and sky, and overly simple and challenging combat. You swing melee weapons several times larger than your body, loose spells that shoot fire, lightning and more with your enemies, and of course, dodge rolls and parries to keep yourself alive. However, there’s nothing very unique about AI Limit combat, but I hope that some new things it tries will require more risk.
The biggest of these mechanics is the synchronous rate bar. This will fill you up when you deal damage and will be expelled when you use a spell or get injured. The higher the sync rate, the greater the damage. However, if you have too many hits or too many spells, you will be debilitated and you will not be able to use many abilities until you have hit them. It rewards careful play and if you can push the attack and avoid damage, you can get through boss battles more quickly. It’s also great to know how often you can use your spells based on how well you play, rather than being limited by a manameter or something like that. AI limits completely throw away the stamina bar (the genre staples make me most of the trouble). As long as you pay attention to the synchronization rate, you can attack without fear of running out of steam.
There is also a very neat system that allows you to unlock four special powers that you can freely exchange during battle, such as turning one of your arms into a shield or turning on the ability to make short dashes from place to place. Unfortunately, the beginning of these abilities will allow you to receive enemy attacks. Also, almost everything can wrestled fairly reliably and completely destroy the enemy, so there is little reason to switch to one of the other powers. So switching between these to do some interesting things in the middle of a battle is a great concept, but battles rarely unfold that way.
Most often you will encounter the same handful of aliens who look like the rest of the costumes from Stranger Things monsters or common robots with the same attack pattern. Plus, they almost always come to you at once. The boss fights are also almost simple, with very telegraphed moves that can easily be paralyzed (again) and forgetting that they were doing it for a few seconds while slashing half of their health, stopping those big bads on the truck. Also, bosses have very rarely any interesting designs that are flight versions of the same strange monsters you’re already fighting for. And many are unfortunately recycled when they are almost immediately reintroduced as a common foot soldier or later reused in another boss battle.
The AI limit is because AI limits can clearly indicate promise, as is the case when a common, slow-moving boss makes a very occasional path to attract fights with fellow Bladers. Their movesets are more interesting and challenging, and they have their own sync rate bar that requires them to drain off attacks and parries to reduce the amount of damage they deal and spread them into destructive finishing moves. There is also one or two encounters that attempt something new, like the battle with a giant robot sitting at the edge of the room, when AI Limit attempts to blow you up with a deadly laser. But these fights are rare. Most of the time, you’ll start slap the less interesting, big, ugly, slow moving enemies that make up most of the boss battle.
Another thing that brings back the AI limits quite a bit is how buggy it is. I had at least 12 crashes, staying in the environment, oddly twitching, running around the floor during boss battles, once again and again with savepoints that went to the PlayStation dashboard and throwing maps until I closed the app. Some of these crashes happened when I was exploring the area and was far from the checkpoint, forced me to start over through my own fault and lose material in the process. In fact, most of my most annoying deaths came from straight glitches rather than fighting the bad guys. That’s not the hardest I’d like to have.
