Ultra Age – Review

OUR SCORE: 8/10

Ultra Age by Nextage and Visual DART is a game that is bombastic, explosive, and stupid fun. From the first look itself, you can just see how over the top the game looks and feels.

This is an indie title but you can’t really tell that. Ultra Age is a character action game. Stylish combat, combos, and feeling like an absolute badass, is what this game is all about.

Gameplay and Story

Ultra Age takes place in the future, in a post-apocalyptic world where you control Age. Your job is to fight to prevent the extinction of the human race.  Anyone who has played the Devil May Cry or Nier games will immediately see where this game gets its inspiration from.

One of the things I enjoyed about the game is its absurdity. It has that absurd Yakuza/ Deadly Premonition feel to it. For some, they might not enjoy it but I was all for it. It’s something that really separates this game from its contemporaries and helps it stand on its own. It gives the game very unique and lovable charm.

The combat is the main highlight of this game. It’s tight, it’s robust and it is satisfying. The game features a weapon durability system that for once isn’t annoying or obtrusive.

When a weapon is about to break, you can do a cool move that deals extra damage. And now that it’s broken, you can immediately switch to a different weapon and continue your combo. Yeah, you can fluidly do all that without your combo breaking.

The combat is further exemplified and made way more fun thanks to the enemy variety and boss designs. The sheer variety on display here is incredible for an indie game. The bosses especially have such fun encounters that when you succeed, you feel so incredibly satisfied with yourself and the set-piece that just took place.

Look and Feel

Ultra Age is an indie game but that doesn’t stop it from embracing its visual identity. Given how over the top everything else in the game is, the visuals do a perfect job to push that feeling. It’s a clean-looking game with a great presentation. I was surprised by some of the level designs and boss stages because they are breathtaking.

There’s also a lot of particle effects on screen when in combat. This helps add so much flair and oomph to the fights. Again, this is an indie title so I didn’t expect this quality from the visuals. I can only imagine how crazy they can make the game look if they get a sequel and a bigger budget. Maybe something to rival DMC V?

Final Conclusion

Ultra Age is an impressive character action game that punches way above its weight. It’s got an incredibly fun combat system, cool enemy designs and boss fights and, some really fun character interactions. You shouldn’t sleep on this game because it might just become a cult classic. Ultra Age feels like a game where a sequel will just take things even further while improving upon it so much and to be honest, we hope that happens.

Ultra Age is out now on the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch.