Let’s face it: we all had our hearts racing when Capcom was developing a new dinosaur game. The most nostalgic immediately thought of something new Dino Crisis, which populated the days and nightmares of us growing up in the 90s. And instead Capcom introduced us Exoprimal which, as we will see in our review, shattered our expectations with Tyrannosaurus tail blows.
Plot holes the size of a Triceratops head
The game takes us to a 2040 in which hordes of dinosaurs, through mysterious time portals (here again Dino Crisis), have invaded the human world. Civilization therefore had to reorganize itself militarily through the project Aibiusan organization governed by an artificial intelligence called Leviathan. Our character, discreetly customizable through a small editor, will decide to join the fight by enlisting spontaneously. And he seems happy to do it too. We, on the other hand, much less.
Already because Leviathan, despite our status as happy volunteers who face certain death, will decide to force us to fight in Simulate War. We will thus start a series of battles (PvP or PvE) in teams of 5 against hordes of cute bloodthirsty dinosaurs. Our character, as mentioned, will be thrilled. Accomplices plot holes as big as the head of a Triceratops, it is never clear to us why Leviathan forces us to these simulations. The matter is quickly dealt with under the guise of “collect information on the nature of portals”. It seems ridiculous to us, but our character, once again, nods assertively.
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Luckily Aibius doesn’t send us to war with bare hands. The fighters are indeed equipped with exocraceswhich gives the game the right to call characters exocombatants. Ok.
The fact is that these exocombatants, like puppets in the hands of Leviathan, find themselves in frenetic battles without the slightest logical sense for the purposes of plot development. In short, a shooter yes, but also quite random.
The Exoprimal review: the fights
Exoprimal is currently still in its early stages, so the only mode currently available is Survival. An essential not to say meager launch, covered by Capcom’s promise to introduce new modes and seasonal events in the near future. Despite the absolutely random hordes of dinosaurs, the combat mechanics are made a little interesting by the exocraces, which grant unique abilities (such as shields, grenade launchers and medical support to allies). From this point of view, multiplayer battles benefit from the strategic component, which consists in choosing the most suitable exocorazza to help the team.
The fights themselves are not particularly problematic from an animation point of view, everything works well, but for a good part of the game we had to wonder: why are we doing this? In fact, those time portals that will continue to spout absolutely random velociraptors remain the greatest source of perplexity. Our protagonist, once again, will smile.
The bigger they are, the louder they make when they fall – The Exoprimal review
As if that weren’t enough, the game allows us to impersonate a huge T-Rex to annoy the opposing team (whose job is to complete the mission objectives before ours). But why? We should all be fighting AGAINST the dinosaurs together, right? Let’s admit, however, that wearing the wrinkled skin of a Tyrannosaurus and trampling exocombatants like skittles is fun. Totally nonsensical, but fun.
To give the final thrust to the game are the dialogues, half in Italian and half in English. At this point, however, we have already stopped asking ourselves questions. “The bigger they are, the louder they make when they fall,” someone said. And in fact Exoprimal falls disastrously with a roaring thud. After trying this for a long time Jurassic-sized gaming disasterwe turned off our Xbox (the game is included in Game Pass from day one).
Only when the game was turned off, for the first time, did our mood match that of the character: we smiled, before uninstalling everything, hoping to quickly forget about it.
PRO
- Free on Game Pass
- Interesting exocorazze
- Fluid fights
AGAINST
- Nothing really makes sense
- Why do we fight other humans?
- inconsistent plot
- Incomplete voice acting
- Animations to review