It’s impossible to isolate any one piece of a game as the most important element, because a great work is the product of so many parts working in tandem. That being said, there is arguably nothing more essential, on a core level, than control. Control is the conduit by which the player connects to the game, it’s the bridge between our world and that of the game, and without it, we wouldn’t be playing at all. It’s that interactivity that separates video games from every other medium.

Consider that one level of a game’s artistry is the way it’s consumed. Films, for example, vary in any number of ways but the way you watch them does not. In a video game, the creator needs to consider what means they give to the player to play. For many games, the holy grail of control is a scheme so finely tuned to the playstyle, that after a little bit of experience, it feels like a natural extension of the player’s thoughts to such a degree the controller ceases to be a barrier. Where a player is capable of all kinds of various actions without needing to think too much. Mario games are perhaps the most famous example. More recently, MGS V. However, in other games, controls are more purposely obtuse and actively wrestle with the player, ala the Resident Evil series, where control is slow and cumbersome, making the player always a little uneasy and just short of ready to handle what’s thrown at them, reinforcing the tense, scary atmosphere that the game attempts to convey. In any case, a great, noteable control scheme is the result of a conscious choice.

It can be risky. A control scheme too bold can distract from an otherwise great game, getting in the way. For this reason, it can be a toss up when a game decides to try something particularly experimental.

Severed is a shining example of an experimental control scheme done right. It’s a first person dungeon crawler built entirely around the vita’s touch screen, where combat is controlled by slashing at enemies with your finger. Hitting weak points, and swiping to parry attacks as they come in. I have to admit, when I first heard that, I was deterred. For how novel and powerful touch screens are, it’s remarkably rare that a game makes proper use of them in any way a traditional button set couldn’t. More often than not, it’s more cumbersome and imprecise than intuitive. But from the first fight in this game, it’s apparent that Drinkbox knew what they were doing.

“Take control of a one-armed warrior named Sasha, wielding a living sword on her journey through a nightmare world in search of her family.”

That’s the marketing blurb. It sounds pretty unremarkable until I realized just how important Sasha’s having only one arm is. See, from a plot standpoint, it’s touched on relatively little. It’s never explained how Sasha lost her arm. But in combat, the control scheme demands one hand gripping the left side of the vita, tightly clutching the d-pad to handle Sasha’s direction, while the other, the player’s right hand, is raised off the vita prepared to slash and strike at the touch screen mimicking the swinging of the sword. You don’t have a shield, you don’t have two hands to use in combat, you only have one input. Your right hand, while your left stays down at your side and doesn’t move. It’s a brilliant way for Drinkbox to immediately connect you to Sasha without needing to tell you to be connected to her with the story. As battles become more difficult, the game becomes physically demanding, requiring you to slash at ridiculous speeds while also managing multiple enemies and parrying attacks without missing a beat. When I finished a truly challenging fight, I found myself shaking the tension out of my right hand, wiping it on my leg, or even giving it a little rest before moving on. It gave a very tangible realism to the otherwise abstract combat, and made the game’s big fights feel like tests of my own dexterity as a player in a very intuitive way. It’s an RPG that isn’t about experience points or how powerful your character is but how good you are at controlling her.

It extends outside the combat as well. Instead of an “interact” button, the touch screen is used to pull levers, turn dials, pick up objects, and activate upgrades and skills, keeping your right hand always raised off the device, ready to take action while your left stays down, mirroring Sasha herself.

Drinkbox made a clever choice in doing away with too much direct storytelling in favor of a focused tone which relies more on implication and the player’s own imagination than it does on dialogue. The game has maybe only 3 cutscenes, and handful of scenes including short dialogues, but they never get in the way of the more immediate gameplay. What Severed does have in abundance, however, is focused atmosphere and tone. It tends to show you it’s meaning instead of writing it out. The small bit of story that Severed does have is about coming to terms with one’s own actions. Quite cleverly, Drinkbox integrates this message into the gameplay rather than the writing. In Severed, upgrades are gained via the severing, and collection of enemy limbs. During combat, if enough consecutive strikes are made without being stunned or hit, a focus meter is filled. When an enemy is killed at full focus, their defeated is body is flung into it’s most vulnerable pose where the player has a few seconds to cut at it’s weak points and isolate limbs, which then fall to the ground and litter the floor. The parts are then collected, and directly translate into upgrade currency. 30 wings for extra sword damage, 20 hands for a buff, an eyeball for a more efficient focus meter etc. etc. What makes this interesting is two things:

The first reason is that the enemy is defenseless during this, and if the player neglects to do any actual severing, the enemy will just disappear, posing no threat at all. Because of that, it really represents kicking the monsters while down, striking them the hardest while they are completely defenseless, in an act that is purely aggressive instead of defensive. Similarly, the enemies don’t aggro the player, or give chase, but only attack when the player steps into their clearly defined territory. It is as though, were Sasha not to mess with them, they wouldn’t mess with her.

The second reason this is interesting is because, in a very numerical way, this brutal, extra violence is directly equated to good things. It makes the player stronger, it’s satisfying to do, it’s in the title of the game, and it’s highly encouraged. At the end of boss fights, Sasha even takes a piece of their body and wears it on her own, granting a new ability. Without any abundance of actual written prose, Severed bakes this moral question of whether Sasha’s violence and meddling is justified into it’s premise using the actual gameplay. The hacking and slashing itself is a piece of the dilemma. The control scheme of all things ends up being the most prominent way that Severed discusses it’s central question. For that, I think it deserves attention alone. For being a piece of art in a way only a game can, instead of emulating another medium.

Because Severed’s plot hinges around Sasha recovering the lost bodies of her wrongfully murdered family and possibly reviving them, because the game begins in her home, destroyed and empty, devoid of life that once was, there is always the promise that this brutality is for good, that the ends justify the means because the main character’s purpose is noble. And of course, as a player, we are inclined to buy into that because we are controlling Sasha. Especially in the case of Severed where, as I mentioned before, the game builds the player character relationship and then so intrinsically enforces it through it’s controls. But the few characters that are present seem to doubt this. There is the mysterious, pained wanderer in the wilds who warns Sasha that she should stop, that it won’t matter how hard she tries, she’ll only end up hurt. The crows who offer Sasha help early in the game later watch her fight and comment on the brutality. But as a player, we brush it off because this is a story about saving the day.

Throughout the game world there are mirrors scattered. When the player looks into them, the question is wordlessly posed – the innocent determined Sasha who steps in front of a mirror for the player in the very beginning of the game gradually, in the subsequent mirrors, becomes the frighteningly dead eyed, hate filled, battle worn Sasha who wears parts of her enemies bodies as a trophy. Who begins to look more and more like a product of the dead, broken world around her rather than a force acting against it.

In the very poignant finale, Sasha does successfully defeat the evil in the land, and recovers her family’s bodies. But… nothing comes of it. She can’t revive them, she can’t bring them back to her home and give them a proper burial. She creates a makeshift hole with her one arm, pushes them in, and marks the graves with unassuming sticks before leaving, and the end of the game abruptly follows. It’s harsh, and unexpected, and in it’s own way, very beautiful. The player is left to consider what they think of Sasha’s actions, without the game telling them how to feel.

And it works because it’s short. You get in, you get maybe 8 hours with that excellent combat system and world, and then the game ends just at it’s best, without overstaying it’s welcome. It’s a lesson many other games could learn, that kind of brevity.

Unfortunately, Severed didn’t make a big splash. It was pushed hardest for Vita, and aimed at western audiences in a time where the Vita, in the western market, is just about dead for all but the most devoted. Because of it’s touch screen dependent support, it won’t work on the PC, so it can’t get that steam release boost so many others get. And though there is an iOS and Android release, those markets are both unsuitable for a game like severed for reasons this topic won’t cover. So, I don’t think Severed will go down as much more than a cult hit, and it’s not so perfect that people will go buy a vita just to play it, but I can firmly say I’m glad I stumbled upon it. It has become the second game I’ve ever achieved a platinum trophy on for 100% completion. And let me tell you, I don’t feel a wasted a minute getting there.

Drinkbox made a bold move with Severed, to push a game based around an experimental, polarizing control scheme on a dying platform, and to top it all off, in an unpopular genre. But it paid off. It’s a game that knows exactly what it excels at, how to use that strength to enhance every aspect of it’s design, and stands as a shining example of the power of control in video games as an artistic tool. On top of that, it effectively makes use of art and sound design to turn a collection of narrow corridors into what feels like a small part of a larger world. It manages to be poignant while also being direct and, more importantly than anything, a lot of damn fun to play.

And that is why Severed is easily one of my favorite games of 2016.