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Too Human came out in 2008, roughly ten years after it was originally announced for the first PlayStation. Of course, the game wasn’t in development that whole time, and the final result is very different from the original plan, but Too Human took a lot of punches at launch for not being what people imagined a ten year dev cycle would produce… whatever that would be. We can revive the debate as to who takes the blame for the beating the game got, but I’d rather do what every reviewer should have done, and many did not: ignore the environment the game launched in, ignore the history, and ask if Too Human is a good game.

The Too Human universe

Too Human is a fantasy/sci-fi hybrid action RPG from developer Silicon Knights (Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes). Let me try to explain that. Imagine if the Norse pantheon (Odin, Thor, Loki and friends) were Aesir: generally human, except instead of having godlike powers, they are partly (and in some cases, mostly) cybernetic. In order to make themselves stronger and more able, they make further enhancements to themselves. These Aesir live in a futuristic shopping mall, also called Aesir, and commit themselves to protecting regular folks, including the somewhat significant number of humans who are walking around in Aesir  gossiping amongst themselves, from the various ills that abound.

When they go to war, these Aesir don armor, hop into shuttles and armored personnel carriers with teams of military type humans as their squadmates, and do battle using swords, maces, spears, and an assortment of firearms. You play as Baldur, one of the Aesir who has recently recovered from some significant injury, but you begin the game with no memory of what happened.

I like the Norse theme. It feels very original. The pompous attitudes the gods have about their mission and goals gets tiresome, but I don’t feel like Norse gods have been done to death in video games. The tech aspect of it makes it very unique.

How does it play?

Too Human, as I said, is an action RPG. You select from five classes at the beginning of the game for your god, Baldur. You are assigned a mission, then you head for the shuttles and fly off to battle. The mission amounts to a massive dungeon which will take hours to work your way through, and is capped by at least one major boss fight. Generally, you’re fighting hordes and hordes of very similar robots, some of which are a different color and some of which can do different things like shoot missiles.

Combat in Too Human is very unusual. Melee attacks are performed by tilting the right stick in the direction of the enemy. When you do so, Baldur will target an enemy that’s in range, slide at him across the floor and swipe as long as the stick is held down. If there’s no enemy in range, he’ll simply slash in that direction. You can use the dashing/attacking mechanic to mow down hordes of weaker enemies very quickly.

Missile attacks work similarly. By holding the right trigger and aiming the right stick, you can fire your primary gun in any direction you like, but if you’re pointing in the direction of an enemy, you will target that enemy and continue to shoot until you need to reload. Bullets never run out, so the balance becomes all about making sure you don’t need to reload when you’re being charged, unless you’re prepared to go toe-to-toe or run like hell.

More infrequently, there are very large robots or other large things, which have multiple targeting points. You’ll have to target these points and damage each one enough to break it (each arm, each leg, etc) in order to destroy the enemy. The left trigger will fire your secondary gun, which tends to be a rifle. Sometimes this will fire exploding rounds, which is a great way to clear a room of small enemies, and becomes absolutely essential with some of the stronger, faster enemies.

Each class of weapon and armor comes in many, many varieties. These generally take the Diablo style of naming and capability: you’ll find a sword that’s the (adjective) (property) (weapon type) of (verb). For example, the shinetacular shiny sword of shining, which has the ability to shine. In addition, these random drops will have slots in them, into which you can insert the runes you’ve found, which do the same thing stones and runes do in Diablo II: modify your abilities a little bit here, a little bit there. Your character also has slots in which to insert charms, another modifier you can find.

Another similarity to Diablo is a pair of skill trees. One is based around your abilities and the other is based around attributes that are class-dependent. When you level up, you’re given two skill points to spend wherever you like, provided you’ve met any possible requirements. Some of the more pleasant abilities relate to your spider, which is a mechanical device that rides on your back and occasionally hops off to do particular tasks. One ability you can get turns your spider into a turret which stands where you leave it and peppers the enemies with rounds noisily until its time runs out.

The spider also lets you access wells. Wells are placed in very specific locations throughout the dungeons. When you access them, the screen ripples and you find yourself in cyberspace, a kind of alternate dimension that appears lush and green. Often you’ll enter a well just to do something figurative, like open a pair of ancient doors with a push ability you’ve just learned from a monument there, which will then unlock doors back in the dungeon, in the other dimension, allowing you to progress.

In addition to the spider abilities, there are ruiners, which are a special attack that damages multiple enemies. By hitting enemies in sequence, you build a combo meter. Each time you fill a level in the meter, you gain the ability to execute a ruiner. It’s worth executing right away when you earn it, because you can lose it by dying. You can also use a combo meter level to execute a shout, which has a variety of effects on your allies or enemies for a time. All these abilities depend on skill points in the skill trees.

Eventually, you’ll die. Death is pretty different in Too Human as well. When you run out of health, you collapse, and a cybernetic valkyrie descends slowly, picks you up, and carries you to an unseen valhalla. The whole process takes about 25 seconds, and is not skippable. The game continues without you in this time, so if you’re doing multiplayer, your friend needs to continue without you. Once you’ve been carried off, you respawn at the most recent checkpoint, no penalty for death save for the damage sustained by your weapons and armor. That spawn point could be a few feet from where you died, or you may need to run for a minute to pull your buddy’s fat out of the fryer.

At any time, you can bring up a submenu and head for Aesir. You appear in Aesir, where you can go to the various shops to repair or upgrade your weapons or, if you choose the cybernetic path earlier in the game, the upgrades apply directly to your body. Weapons and armor that sustain too much damage will be disabled until they are repaired. You can also use blueprints that you find in the game to craft new weapons and armor, but it’s generally not as necessary as it is expensive. When you’re done in Aesir, you simply return to your mission, reappearing at the most recent spawn point. Saving and exiting the game is just as forgiving.

How does it look and sound?

Too Human looks better standing still than it does in motion, but not by a large margin. The incredibly detailed and beautiful graphics were taken to such an extreme that it doesn’t take more than a dozen enemies and a couple of explosions to show things down a lot. That may sound OK, but you’ll see dozens of enemies at a time, plus missiles flying through the air and closing on you, plus field effects emanating from huge hammers than just hit the ground nearby, plus clouds of various colors from status effects… it looks amazing, but it’s a bit too much for the engine to handle. Heck, you’d need an incredible gaming PC to get something that looks this good to do that much all at once without taking a hit.

The sound is another standout aspect. You’ll want to crank the sound to really get the full effect of all the voice work you’ll hear between your squadmates and the other gods you go on missions with (though you’ll wish some of these had more things to say). This isn’t a game you can play with the sound up while the kids are sleeping, because the dialog is very low and the explosions are very loud. The voice work is a pretty mixed bag, but overall is very high quality. There were only a few lines that bothered me, and I could easily attribute that to the writing in the dialog, which isn’t always great. The music is suitably epic, and it’s somewhat dynamic as well, providing a sense of urgency based on what’s happening in-game.

How’s the replay value?

Too Human took me about 12 hours from start to finish. The ending was abrupt, as this is intended to be the first part of a trilogy which will likely never come to be. While there were some small hidden optional areas with treasure in them, there did not seem to be any sidequests. The various skill tree options, along with the choices in classes and in path (cybernetic or human) keep things interesting, and I expect the variations here could be great. Multiplayer is fun, and is obviously how this game is meant to be played. I understand the original plan was for this to support four players in co-op, which could have been awesome, but two players was fun for me as is.

Is it worth it?

Right now, Too Human can be had for about $20. It’s a great RPG for fans of games like Diablo and its many imitators, but the fact that it’s the first part of a trilogy that will likely never happen could be discouraging to some.

I give Too Human a four out of five. I had a lot of fun with this game, and there’s a lot of potential for sequels… if they ever come to be.