I thought we’d all decided during the Xbox 360 days that checkpoints just before boss fights that kicked off with reams of unskippable dialogue were very annoying indeed. No one in their right mind wants to hear the same voice lines repeated over and over again each time you restart a fight, especially fights that are as tough as those in Behemoth. But I guess developer Skydance wasn’t paying attention during that era because this game features some of the worst checkpointing I’ve experienced in a long time.
Skydance’s Behemoth reviewDeveloper: Skydance GamesPublisher: Skydance GamesPlatform: Played on PS VR2Availability: Out now on PC (Steam), PS VR2 and Meta Quest 2/3/3S/Pro
The checkpoints were so frustrating at times that I literally had to stop playing in order to calm down, dragging down my enjoyment of the game that otherwise succeeds in many other areas. I have nothing against challenging battles and hardcore gameplay, which Behemoth has by the bucket load. But the irritations of having to walk or climb or grapple your way back along a linear path to then listen to the same pre-fight chatter and intro animation after every, , death had me letting out Behemoth-sized sighs on multiple occasions.
This isn’t just a problem before the brutal mini-boss fights or towering Behemoth set pieces either. It also happens with challenge towers and secret areas, too. Challenge towers often need to be climbed to reach the riches within, something that can take a fair amount of time and physical effort to do as the climbing is mainly motion controlled and there are puzzles to work out along the way too. Since the collectibles and upgrade resources you gain from these towers are stashed away near the top, though, this means that if you slip off an edge and fall to your death on your way back down, you’ll lose everything and will have to climb all the way back up solve all the puzzles all over again if you want those collectibles and upgrades back.
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On one occasion I explored a winding side dungeon that featured some epic grapples across a bottomless chasm and I was rewarded with some cool collectibles along the way. Fun! After that though, I continued along the main route only to die to an archer and then find myself back at a checkpoint that started I’d completed the side dungeon. This meant that once more all of my hard earned collectibles had been lost. Fury! This kind of checkpointing would be annoying in a normal, flat game, but to have this happen in a VR game where you can’t just sit back and sulkily restart makes having to redo even smaller sections a gigantic pain in the arse. Suffice to say, I never bothered going back to get a lot of these collectibles a second time around, which ultimately meant I wasn’t able to upgrade my characters and weapons as much as I probably could have done had the checkpoints been a bit more forgiving.