(Ultra) Age May Cry

Ultra Age is a 3rd person action-adventure game developed by the indie studios Visual Dart and Next Stage. In it the player will hack and slash there way through various futuristic locales, fighting all types of enemies ranging from robots to feral beasts. Given a quest by his people; Age has to find a mysterious relic.

The colony where Age resides the Orbital Arc, as sent him out for a relic that will provide immortality. While they promised to share the gift with him of course a gift this valuable is bound to have others seeking it. And so, it is that Age ends up ambushed by a mysterious woman who steals the relic from him; barely escaping with his life the new quest becomes finding a spaceship and getting off this planet before Age dies in 7 days.

MSRP: $29.99
Platforms: PlayStation, PC, Switch
Price I’d Pay: $29.99

The combat in Ultra Age is a love letter to the Devil May Cry’s and Ninja Gaiden’s that have come before it. Age moves through the environments, brandishing his blade with all the grace and purpose of Dante. Using the standard light attack & heavy attack button, Age is able to mix them up and perform devastatingly brutal combos. The catch is that Age will need to collect crystals to create and maintain his blades with the help of his robot sidekick Helvis. As Age navigates the environment he’ll find outcroppings of crystals in various colors. These colors indicate the use of the crystals as there are ones who will create blades that are better against machines, others that give you a damage buff to the biological beasts, etc. As the charges run out of a given blade, Age can pull off a powerful and flashy attack that deals a large amount of damage to a foe. The risk vs reward system with the blades is far more than a gimmick, it works extremely well and at no time did my Age want for a blade.

As fast and as frantic as the combat can be with the changing blades and juggling multiple foes sadly Ultra Age doesn’t utilize its strengths in its boss fights. While Age will be able to use any blade to damage bosses, the game doesn’t lean on the excellent mechanic it spent the entire game building up. Instead boss fights are the run of the mill attack, dodge, attack, dodge fights that are common in the genre. Helvis has his own abilities that can aid Age in combat. For one Helvis is able to heal, as well as move time in order to allow Age to harvest from crystals immediately instead of waiting for the 12-hour cool down. He also has other abilities that will work to augment Age’s combat abilities slightly as the player progresses through the story.

My major problem with Ultra Age is the abysmal English voice acting, the delivery is all wooden and very flat even when Age is making an exclamation. I recommend using the Japanese voice track as it is excellent and honestly fit the game way more than the English voices.

Ultra Age is anything but ‘Ultra”, and that’s alright. While its not the best example of a modern-day Devil May Cry it is however an excellent example of Devil May Cry from the PS2 era. Whether on accident or on purpose the game felt just cheesy enough that it could be an homage to DMC’s heyday or maybe it is just a cheesy story about a kid looking to find the secret to immortality. Whatever side of the line you land on, the constant will be that Ultra Age is a lot of fun to play. While its systems might not be deep; the enjoyment of juggling combos/blades and enemies is worth the 7 hour length.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.