Possessors Review
For the past decade fans have been sitting, waiting and wishing for a return to form for Heart Machine to meet the expectations they bestowed upon themselves as a result of creating one of the best indie games of the past decade with Hyper Light Drifter.
Solar Ash was very good, but it was a large departure from their debut in many ways. Hyper Light Breaker was too ambitious for the studio and moved even farther away from what fans wanted, which is ironic since it wore the Hyper Light brand.
This brings us to Possessors, a metroidvania created by Heart Machine, which in theory should pair together perfectly, but the combination somehow fails to formulate into anything more than just the sum of its parts. Sadly, Possessors is not the next Hyper Light Drifter from the studio or their next iconic title. There are good ideas and bright spots throughout the experience including the art style, soundtrack and unique world, all things Heart Machine have shown to be adept at, but for everything else, Possessors fails to execute on them in meaningful ways that would take their fourth game beyond an average metroidvania.
Possessor(s) Review
Possessors is the first collaboration between Devolver Digital and Heart Machine. You are immediately taken aback as Possessors wastes no time setting the tone as you drag yourself across the floor leaving a blood trail behind you as all that remains is your upper torso. You either make a deal with a demon or die and upon deciding against death, a pact is made. It doesn’t stop as you are quickly informed that the only way to get what you need and what will be your overarching goal for the game is to collect four eyeballs around the world to use on the vaults retinal scanner to get where you need to be.
After Hyper Light Drifter, Solar Ash, and now Possessors, Heart Machine have clearly demonstrated that they are masters at crafting bleak and dismal worlds. The year is 1992 and you play as Luca who finds herself at the heart of Sanzu, a city that blends east and west and in a method that felt reminiscent of San Fransokyo in Big Hero 6. However, the situation in Sanzu is more much dire as the whole mega-city is built around the corporate ideals of Agradyne, which puts the needs of the corporation over the needs of the citizens.
Agradadyne is only concerned with their pursuit of the next wave of energy designed to make the company more profitable than ever. As it turns out, the energy source comes from creating a rift to another dimension and prisoning demons to harness there energy. Something catastrophic has happened at Agradyne and now the whole city has been forced to evacuate before the walls go up and things get worse
On her last breath, Luca makes a deal with Rhem, a demon in an equally grim situation and now the two become one. Rhem will give Luca back her legs and provide her another lease on life, giving her the ability to find her friends and family. In exchange, Luca will help Rhem find the people he is looking for and make his way back to his world.
Possessors is referred to as an action adventure, but make no mistake, it’s a metroidvania that mixes a world full of melancholy with combat that takes inspiration from fighting games with patience, timing, and juggling with everything you already know from metroidvanias. The catastrophic inter-dimensional event at the heart of Agradyne has unleashed demons upon the city of Sanzu and as a result, you find yourself at odds with possessed items that would otherwise be mundane in 1992. Everything from file cabinets, books, copiers, security cameras and vending machines. Weapons also use this originality as they range from everyday items including an electric guitar, kitchen knives, and a wired computer mouse that is very deadly.
As an action exploration title, you will explore the desolate city of Sanzu that has been evacuated from the school campus to the zooquarium. The experience is very familiar if you’ve played any metroidvania. The melancholic tone of Possessors is conveyed through the constant downpour of rain, the desolate nature of the world, the infinite sadness of the narrative, but mostly through another great score. The score excels not because it is evocative of the synth based soundtracks they have created before, but because it evokes the time period and grim tone. Some areas like the streets feel reminiscent of early 90’s Nine Inch Nails with a more industrial feel, while other others like the campus are jazz centric. The soundtrack and its variety give the world a sense of time and place.
CRITICISMS
The underlying issue with Possessors is that everything that is great about it also comes with caveats.
The visuals are stunning, but the animations can be clunky at times, like when you are fighting a boss, climbing or swimming. The combat is satisfying with a system built around parries, dodges and Super Smash style juggles, but boss encounters felt uninspired, combat encounters are frustrating due to the placement or number of enemies and making matters worse, the controls didn’t feel natural. Trying to execute secondary attacks during hectic moments always feels awkward due to the weird layout.
The world is original as expected from the studio that gave us Solar Ash and Hyper Light Drifter, but with the exception of a few standout locations, the best of which came near the end, the environments feel too similar, especially with the amount of backtracking you need to do. The litmus test of any good metroidvania is how often are you looking at your map, and you will be looking at your map a lot because most of the areas lacked memorability.
Enemies are extremely unique, but don’t offer enough variety, feel overused and often felt out of place when they should’ve been biome specific to increase immersion, not hinder it. Why would there be a globe from school in a top secret lab when the whole world has the potential to be possessed?
Possessors is a metroidvania or an action exploration game, which means that you are going to find abilities and gated areas as you explore. There have been some incredible experiences in the genre and releasing just months after Silksong highlights a lot what makes a great game.
The pacing in Possessors is too inconsistent, which goes for both the abilities Luca acquires as well as story beats. There are some elements that make the exploration of Sanzu fun, but from a studio that made Solar Ash, a game that was built on speed and transitions, you often lose all of your momentum at times due to a grapple not connecting when it should or being completely soft locked by a projectile of which there are many.
One of the best things about Heart Machine was their ability to craft strong narratives with little or even no words. This is a major reason why Hyper Light Drifter and to a lesser degree Solar Ash were powerful experiences. These narratives were a bit cryptic leaving a lot open to player interpretation. Possessors goes in the complete opposite direction with an over abundance of dialogue, heavy handed explanations and constant reminders about all of the meanings within and the emotions it wanted you to feel.
Is Possessor(s) Machine Worth it?
There are plenty of signature elements of Heart Machine within Possessors that made Hyper Light Drifter iconic a decade ago including a unique art direction, immersive soundtrack and a highly original universe that might resonate with fans of the studio. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough supporting elements to lift up this experience into something special.
Measuring against expectations the studio have created for themselves with their early works and for what you should expect of a metroidvania in 2025, Possessors doesn't measure up.
