Poison Control

Poison Control is a fun ARPG as you descend through the circles of hell. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, and neither should you. Get to it dood.

Poison Control offers a mix of different gameplay mechanics with an intriguing story that results in a simple but addictive title.

Poison Control is visually stylish and I enjoyed the writing. Unfortunately, the combat aspects –which make up most of the experience! — need more polish and variety. This trip through a variety of mental hell isn’t hellish, but it could have been better.

Although the fun in traversing through Belles’ Hells and beating a variety of Kleshas will keep you engrossed in the game, it will start feeling a bit repetitive after a while. It lacks engagement in some areas where I expected a bit more. This unique storyline of various girls and your precious bond with your soulmate Ms. Poisonette put this game ahead of certain RPGs.

Poison Control has some good ideas, but executed very superficially. An appealing but extremely simple game, its best merits are a good art direction and the hilarious writing. The rest is quite forgettable.

A quite bizarre mixture of Qix-like elements and awkward anime shooter.

Poison Control is only partially successful.

Poison Control shows how good ideas and a huge potential can be ruined by bad gameplay decisions and broken structure, and even though some parts of the game like story and writing will keep you eager to carry on, eventually the final package fails to deliver.

In the end, it is a slick looking, great sounding little game that is never overly offensive with its issues, but still has a decent amount of them. The gameplay revolves around a simple mechanic that players will see the majority of before getting halfway through it, but it was never something that I didn’t like playing. It is most certainly unconventional, and I think that’s what gave it enough charm to keep me playing. It’s a strange one to recommend, but I still recommend it if this sounds like something up your alley.

Sometimes a game becomes a bit too ambitious for its own good. Poison Control is one of these games, as the anime-inspired story and musical accompaniment are well worth being held in high regard. Those can only take a game so far, however, and are brought down by the clunky gameplay and copy-and-paste visuals accompanying them. Depending on which aspects the player values more it can either be a fun and engaging romp through a wonderful world with unique characters that grow, or it can feel like a slog repeating the same thing over and over ad nauseam until the energy drains out of the player and the game is shut off. Ultimately it balances out to an average game with a few unique mechanics, an entertaining if niche story, and a stellar soundtrack.

Poison Control will not be to everybody’s tastes, but its strange mix of combat and poison neutralisation antics does at least make it unique. Also, while its gameplay does suffer due to repetition, the somewhat bite-sized nature of its dungeons means it can be offset by playing little but often. Ultimately, no element of Poison Control particularly stands out as impressive, but it also does little to actively put players off getting a controller in their hands and cleansing a hell or two.

If Poison Control smoothed out its combat and performance issues while adding more interesting complexity to its gameplay then it could be quite a fun quirky little game. As it is, it's certainly charming but definitely difficult to recommend.

Poison Control is overall a tedious experience, not worthy of your time.

Poison Control has some of my favourite art and character designs from any game this year, but that isn't anywhere near enough to carry the entire experience. The dual-character combat system is a fresh and stylish idea, but it isn't executed very well. Clunky movement and repetitive combat end up holding back this otherwise stylish and unique new game from Nippon Ichi Software.

When it comes down to it, Poison Control fails to do anything interesting in any manner. There's nothing about the game that is outright broken, but there is just no substance to anything at all. A forgettable nothing story, forgettable gameplay, tedious maps, all lead to an experience that is an easy skip.