Poison Control is a title by Nippon Ichi Software and published by NIS America in which we will live an adventure halfway between one third person shooter and a JRPG; yet, between the two genders we see even a little bit of roguelike. Released on April 16, 2021 for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, the title manages to take us a little back in time, but not in the way many want. Yes, we are talking about some technical defects that unfortunately make the experience, already not the top you could want from a game released for eighth generation console, even more "retro". But without getting lost in more frills, here is our review.
Clean up hell ...
First of all, let's talk about the Poison Control plot. The publisher of the title described it as "a dark story about redemption," and that's the sentence that actually sums it all up. But how does the story begin? Well, we will lose our body. Yes, there will be stolen from Poisonette, a nice creature who decides to take away our body and let us stay with our skeleton. Still, something is wrong as our apparent enemy thought. In fact, we will become "Soul Mates", two entities that share a single soul. In short, we will not be able to exist without her and vice versa. With this forced sharing of our body, we will begin to cleanse the world of poison.
The game world is divided into "Hells". As we are told by two radio speakers, the whole world is invaded by a kind of purple liquid that it slowly kills whoever tramples on it. Here we come in. Yes, because we will have the ability to use Poisonette to clean up the chaos created by these Hells, which appear to be created by a single person. Let's find out now what the Poison Control gameplay, which we have already anticipated being a hybrid.
… With 2001 gameplay
Poison Control is a title that unites some JRPG mechanics and others from third person shooters, where no mechanics dominate the other. Our goal will be to clean up hell, but how? The maps we will find ourselves in are very empty and the enemies will spawn when we reach certain areas. When that happens, we will see our goal - such as clearing a certain percentage of poison or eliminating some enemies - and finally, once our goal is completed, we will be given a vote (great, fantastic, good) and we will mark the time it took us. These aspects closely resemble what has already been seen in many roguelikes and, at the end of the day, we can say that precisely these components identify themselves as one of the funniest parts of the entire game. To clean the various rooms you have to press a button (on PlayStation 4 it is L1) so as to have our skeleton stationary in one point while we will take control of Poisonette, who will simply have to run around the poison pool until reunited with the skeleton.
But our avatar will also be able to shoot thanks to a cannon attached to the right arm, and here comes a big problem: the aiming system. While it is possible to aim with the right stick, it is very difficult to do it diagonally. In a nutshell, it will be much more convenient to move and direct the crosshairs on the cardinal axes. Since Poison Control has some elements taken from JRPGs, the our avatar will be slightly customizable, with changes regarding name, gender and voice (for the latter there will be only three types). But not only that, since some features will also be present in-game fundamental for Poison Control and that, unlike the usual role-playing games, in this case they can be leveled based on the answers we will give to Poisonette during the dialogues.
Furthermore, the features in this case they are not attack, defense, agility and more, but synergy, empathy, knowledge, toxicity and trust. Simply put, they will be about the relationship between us and the strange character who will follow us everywhere. Ultimately, when you think about it, it is your bond that will increase the potency and the time you can stay out of the body. The mechanics "stolen" from the JRPG genre is certainly the most interesting, precisely because the choice to level one's avatar through the dialogues is a small innovation that makes Poison Control replayable, since it ignites the desire to experiment ... just a pity that the shooting does not shine.
The technical sector also has the same problem
Poison Control has not only gameplay problems, but also the technical sector it doesn't take full advantage of the hardware on which we tried it. Sure, we didn't find any bugs or errors whatsoever, but we could define it an unwanted jump into the past. The graphic style is very similar to the Japanese one, as we can expect from NIS America. Well done, in short, but when walking inside the various environments it's all very empty. Furthermore, even the enemies are simply reskins, although behind the whole there is a plot motivation, but surely something more could have been done in this sense, given that the monotony risk is very high already after a few hours of play.
One element that is very catchy within the title is the soundtrack, capable of perfectly accompanying the player in his adventure. Furthermore the various OSTs manage to give soul to the title, which unfortunately appears too flat for the rest. Poison Control is therefore worth buying? As often happens, the answer is not absolute and definitive, but basically we feel we advise against it. Although it is not a badly created title and although there are no defects so serious as to irreparably destroy the experience, the plot does not offer the right bite while the gameplay has proved so repetitive that in the end it goes on just for the sake of discovering. the dialogues with Poisonette.
