Indivisible Xbox One X Review

Indivisible has taken years to finally release and it was well worth the wait. The incredible graphics, amazing characters, and terrific gameplay combine for an excellent adventure. Ajna's journey from village girl to humanity's savior is a gripping tale full of character-defining moments and outstanding boss fights. It does lack the in-depth customization that RPG fans enjoy and the upgrade system is shallow as well. But these shortcomings rarely hamper what is one of the best games of 2019. Indivisible delights and challenges the player with a beautiful journey that will keep you hooked to the very end.
 

Indivisible has you in control of Ajna, a village girl who is more than meets the eye. After her village is attacked and her father killed she sets forth to take revenge against the people responsible. Quickly Ajna realizes she's not normal the second someone gets sucked into her head. This inner realm allows Ajna to call and store her allies. In addition to taking revenge for the death of her people, Ajna must discover who she truly is.

The adventure is teeming with colorful characters and areas. Each one with diverse backgrounds and their own personal purpose. For example, Dhar is the first person who joins your party. A seasoned soldier and loyal to his nation Dhar's entire life gets destroyed and he must find a new purpose. This has Dhar questioning every action and sometimes having to make critical decisions that define his new place in life. However, the extensive selection of characters, both playable and non-playable, oversaturates the narrative. Pushing some of the characters to the background to the point they don't say or do anything for most of the journey.

Ajna remains the center focus, always taking the spotlight to contradict argue with her allies. She clearly has favorites in her group and expresses that without issue. Despite Ajna's brash and often violent decisions she has a good heart and wants to help those around her. But often enforces her own sense of justice. This aggressive tone adds to the emotional weight during profound moments in the story as Ajna must face the reality of her actions. Leading up to a satisfying ending against a challenging final boss.
 

Indivisible combines dynamic RPG battles with platforming and Metroidvania systems. Ajna travels through a series of environments that contain environmental challenges. Using the skills given to Ajna throughout the adventure you tackle these environmental hazards such as ice blocks, lava pools, bouncy slime, and much more. The areas are mostly linear with some branching paths that house hidden shards.

These shards serve as the primary form of upgrading your party. In Indivisible, there are no shops or custom gear. In fact, Ajna makes a note multiple times that she hates money for some reason. Instead, the shards are used to increase the number of attacks you can perform and how much damage you can absorb when defending or parrying. There are no skill trees or new combat attacks to obtain.

Combat plays out with the player pushing a face button linked to the character. Players can take 3 allies, 1 of which has to be Ajna, into battles. Fights are dynamic with you inputting the button linked to the character to perform 1 of 3 attacks. Each character has their own unique attacks with some having access to ranged, healing, or defensive abilities. Each character also has an ultimate ability that can be accessed and charged depending on how much of the iddhi is needed; which is shown as a meter on screen. Since combat plays like a fighting game, you'll need to link together combos to maximize damage. Such as hitting down a flying enemy using Thorani's ranged water cannon and following up with Tungar for strong melee attacks.
 

Defense plays a massive role in Indivisible. Since you have no access to items and if an ally is killed only Ajna can revive the ally using a full meter. Instead, players must time their defensives to either parry or block attacks. Parrying minimizing damage to the absolute lowest and blocking reduces damage enough that it won't be fatal. If hit, chances to recover and block following attacks are even less as enemies' can juggle and cause massive damage. Parrying also serves as the best way to build up meter. Because of this, you can to constantly be aware of the enemy's attacking pattern, with their animations showing what attack will be performed.

Of course, you'll gain experience when defeating enemies but most of Indivisible's combat focuses on active actions. You can grind to become more powerful but the game's combat is more about timing your defensives and maximizing your combos to cause the most damage. Even at a high level, not using the parrying system will make the adventure much harder.

Outside of combat, you'll be exploring various environments. Each one is beautifull decorated and varied. You'll venture into forests, cities, and deserts in your journey. The game does tease you in larger cities with these incredible locations housing many interesting characters. Unfortunately, you'll be limited to exploring only in a straight line. There are plenty of characters that make the world lived in but seeing such a large city but only able to see a tiny portion is vexing.
 

There are plenty of platforming challenges and Metroidvania-like tools. The platforming challenges take full advantage of Ajna's abilities, with your abilities growing over the course of the adventure. You start off sliding and using an Ax to climb high ledges to running through boulders. Not all the challenges have 1 solution and you can return to older areas with new abilities for more creative solutions. The developers even put plenty of save points, each one after a major platforming challenge. The save system is amazing, tracking every save file within that slot. Meaning you can replay an entire section by simply reloading a previous file within the file.

These platforming systems extend into the boss fights, with most fights requiring not only fighting them in the combat system but also within the platforming system. Making the battles much more dynamic. If you're powerful enough you can even run through lesser enemies but it won't grant you experience.

The only thing that Indivisible is lacking in is customization. Since you cannot customize gear loadouts and there are no skill trees you're given little creative options. You can change the skin cosmetics but it's not the same.
 

Indivisible's graphics and musical score are absolutely brilliant. The visuals use a variety of colors and to properly convey the environment's emotional setting. And the character models are stellar, with smooth animations during combat and the non-playable NPCs sharing similar high-quality. The voice-acting complements this high-quality animation, with each character being well-voiced.

What brought it all together was the amazing soundtrack. While every OST was amazing and complimented the setting the final boss soundtrack is one of my favorites. I'm a sucker for a good boss theme and Indivisible has one of the best I've heard this year.

Indivisible is an absolute thrill to play through. The emotionally charged journey and thrilling gameplay system help create a dynamic journey full of memorable moments. The lack of customization will bother more hardcore RPG fans but the outstanding boss fights will likely overshadow this complaint this issue as it did for me. Indivisible has few shortcomings and excels at delivering an extraordinarily crafted adventure visually, narratively, and gameplay-wise.
 

Adam Siddiqui,
Senior Editor, NoobFeed
Twitter | YouTube | Facebook