Developed by:Â Drinkbox Studios
Published by: Drinkbox Studios
Reviewed on: PlayStation Vita
As the years go by with the PlayStation Vita, it would seem as developer are supporting the platform less these days. This makes it hard to come by good titles for hardcore Vita gamers, especially if you’ve already played most of the early catalog of games. Just as there gamers still out there that believe in the Vita, there  are still developers that feel just as strongly as the player do with bringing games to the portable device. Since day one Drinkbox Studio has supported the Vita with game such as Tales from Space Mutant Blobs Attack. Drinkbox later released  another super successful Vita game called Guacamelee!. Once again Drinkbox Studios is back and ready to release their next title called Severed.  I first got to experience this game back at the PlayStation Experience 2015 and it instantly became one of my most anticipated games of 2016.
In Severed you play as a one-armed warrior named Sasha, who wakes up in a surreal new world after a catastrophic event. After obtaining a living sword from a mysterious cloaked creature, Sasha sets off on an epic journey in search of her missing family. By using gesture based combat mechanics to defeat enemies in  this first person adventure, players will unlock new abilities, discover secrets areas, and perfect offensive and defensive techniques. Sasha’s story is very straightforward and there isn’t a deep storyline. As mentioned above, Severed starts off with Sasha losing her family to some tragedy but doesn’t go into too much detail as to why. As you make your way to your destroyed home set in this surreal world, inside you find a mirror and see that the tragedy has left Sasha with one arm. After discover your arm is missing the cloaked creature appears to inform Sasha she can save her family and gives her a living weapon as a gift. From that point Sasha sets off looking for her family. The plot’s progression feels just right, leaving you wondering what happened to her family and wanting to explore the world to find answers; it does a good job keeping the player engaged to the very end to find why her family is missing.  Along the way Sasha meets characters that will help her along the way. One key reason why Severed is so enjoyable is that the dialogue between characters keeps it short and is straight  to the point.
Being on Vita, the gameplay utilizes the touch screen for your offensive attacks and defensive attacks as well to active your special abilities and upgrade menu too. Like most people, hearing that that game relies heavily on touch based controls was a turn off. I am not a big fan touchscreen based gameplay, but I loved every minute of combat: swiping the screen left and right, up and down, trying to defeat my enemies and feeling the satisfaction of victory. Not only were a lot of the battles fun, they were also challenging. As Sasha grows in power, your enemies powers increases, too, making you use strategy instead of entering a battle to swipe carefree and expect to win. For instance if you want to do more damage to your enemies you can do long swipes across the screen. If you want do quick attack for less damage you swipe short length across the screen. If you want to inflict heavy damage, you hold the screen for a short period of time and then swipe. Everything combat wise throughout the game is nice and executed very well. Never had any problems with the game not picking up my swipes it was very responsive to my touches. Makes me believe that with the right developers  behind it, touch games can be great for not only casual gamers but for the hardcore gamer as well.
Going through the game should take you anywhere from seven to ten hours to fully complete the game, including discovering all the series. Playing Severed is a wonderful experience with nice visuals with a great art style and is very fun to play. However,  if you fully complete the game, there isn’t much of a reason to ever pick it up again aside from earning trophies. I was able to get all trophies within ten hours of gameplay as most trophies are  unlocked as you play. If you own a Vita, you should not miss out on this title. Severed is easily one of the best Vita titles to come out this year and is worth your time and money.
