The little PSVita isn’t doing very well in game releases, but nothing is lost yet. There are still developers who support Sony’s handheld console, and give us quality games, in this case, it’s DrinkBox Studios, the devs that brought us Guacamelee and Mutant Blobs Attack, now are releasing Severed.

Severed is a first-person dungeon-crawler, in which we are playing as Sasha, a young girl, who lost her family and an arm. Our goal in this game is to save Sasha’s family by exploring the dungeons, by solving puzzles, and by dismembering our enemies. The game has a well-made upgrade system. By dismembering the enemies, we get body parts, parts we can use to upgrade different abilities for Sasha, such as more damage, higher chance to give critical damage, etc. We also have a transmutation system, where we can transform body parts to the desired ones, if we are lacking in number (required for upgrades).

The game is not easy, that I can tell you starting now. I replayed some fights 5-10x till I beat the enemies, and found their weakness. The sheer number of enemies is big, each enemy can have a magical ability, regenerating health, more damage, better defense.

The game starts slow, it takes a while to get used to it, and be able to sever stronger enemies, you need to revisit the dungeons a couple of times to find health and mana upgrades. You are slightly underpowered at start, but once you get into the rhythm and learn the enemy’s techniques, you’ll have lots of fun.

Severed is full of puzzles, and portals, which you can only access after you get a certain ability. All the locations can be revisited at any time, so you can explore entire map and enjoy the games beauty.

The graphics are very polished, it looks stunning on the OLED PSVita, it has awesome scenery, and well-made characters.

The sound effects are top-notch, it gives you a sense of calm, even when you fight with 4 enemies at once, and you don’t know which to attack, so he won’t attack you first.

The game is huge for a handheld game, and that is awesome. It has lots of locations, many which are well hidden.

I say that the story is a sad one, without giving any spoilers. We observe Sasha’s transformation from a young innocent girl, to a fearless and powerful warrior, who despite missing an arm , manages to save her family, but in order to do that, she must overcome many obstacles.

Getting back to difficulty, I must say that the game is not that very hard, but it’s not easy either, you can’t pass certain areas without upgrading first.

I highly recommend giving this game a chance, because I had lots of fun with it, and the guys and gals from DrinkBox Studios deserve your support, because they made an excellent job, and are the few developers who still make games for the PSVita.

Pros :

Great story

Huge map

Tons of puzzles

Cons :

Slow start, and under-powered at first

You can easily get lost at the beginning of the game, and don’t know where to go to progress the story

Some enemies are way overpowered, you can’t beat them until you are well upgraded

The game is priced at $15 for North America and £12 in the UK, with an additional 10% off for PS+ members (£10.79)

Final Score : 9/10

The review code was received from DrinkBox Studios for review purposes.

Thank you for your attention.