So by now most everyone has already made up their mind about Too Human. You either hate it, or you figured out how to actually play the game properly and enjoy it (or, potentially, still hate it for whatever baby-kicking reason). The unfortunate truth to the game is that, despite Silicon Knights making it common knowledge that the right thumbstick is used for attacks for over a year, people still went in expecting you to mash buttons. The first instinct from just about everyone, once you discover the thumbstick’s functionality, is to instead mash and click the thumbstick in every which direction as if it were trying to be a Wiimote.

This is, in fact, wrong wrong wrong.

Too Human’s melee combat is actually a relatively smooth process, though it did require me two playthroughs of the demo to figure this out. Fortunately it is kind enough that you’re able to play it incorrectly and still beat it, and when you play it correctly you laugh at the Gremlin’s foolish attempts to take you down. You simply hold the right thumbstick in the direction of your enemy. You can “double click” in a direction, which will send your foes in the air, or simultaneously point both left and right sticks at an enemy to send a pulse attack, and I’m sure more abilities in the full game. However, the basic ideas is you point in the direction of your enemy, and Baldur will go there and slaughter them.

Some may wonder where the fun is in that, but considering how quickly you knock foes down you’ll find yourself frequently switching targets. What they effectively did was take a traditional PC RPG system of constantly clicking an enemy to attack, and replaced it with “holding a click down”. This makes the appendage much happier, and probably helps the overall lifespan of the controller device itself.

Of course, despite being smooth after all, the combat can still be rather clunky. Sometimes Baldur will just kind of stand there, as if waiting for orders, when you are quite actively pointing at an enemy. Aiming with the guns is also a bit poor, and I can’t imagine it being more than a secondary attack option to juggle enemies in the air or blast apart charging enemies from a distance. These issues may be smoothed out in the final version, but I’m not going to keep my hopes up.

There’s certainly more to this game than the combat, though. Typically I get bored of looting games quickly, and in fact am not much of a Diablo fan. However, Too Human has excellent execution of this game style. You will frequently be collecting new equipment, and the demo level is designed in such a way that, unless you keep upgrading your weapons and armor, it’s going to be difficult to get through. If you keep switching in your new armor and weapons, then you will find yourself tearing through your opponents with ease. There are wells/pillars in the world that, when you activate them, often drop important items. In some cases they are easy to find, while in others they are more hidden. It is beneficial to explore and get as many of these as possible, as they will provide Runes and Charms. Charms are sort of sub-objectives or goals for you, such as “get 20-hit combos a total of twenty times” (which actually isn’t very hard). These will ultimately benefit your character, and you can insert runes into these charms as well to increase statistics and other combat effects.

You don’t get much opportunity to use the skill tree, but as you insert skill points into different slots, you begin to notice a big difference in combat.

I refuse to comment on the story for now, as there simply isn’t enough to comment on. However, the writing seems to be over the top in some places, though it doesn’t feel as if it is done on purpose. It’s one of those “tries to be good writing, but fails” issues. Kind of disappointing for the team that developed Eternal Darkness.

In the end, I urge folks that played the demo once and hated it to give it a second try. There’s a lot here that is pleasant, and I myself am finding that it is a title worth waiting for. It’s a day one purchase from me for sure.