Warning this will be a long review please take as many breaks as inhumanly possible.
The first review you're getting right now. The last review will be posted not long after the game's last update. It's so tedious to keep making follow up reviews or thoughts on a game that's getting updates. I figured the best way around that problem was by doing it this way. You get an review on the first version with a more completed version for a later review at some point in the future.
Exoprimal (2023)
Let's get this out the way, despite having dinosaurs. No this game is not connected to Dino Crisis series. Even if it were in the same timeline, Dino Crisis 3 happened a few decades after this game. It would've bagged too many questions with not enough answers. Which is exactly why Capcom chose to simply make the game it's own thing.
Such was the case of the original Devil May Cry game. At one point, that was originally going to be an Resident Evil game. Then the game changed too much, they chosen to go into a different direction. The rest was history, it's virtually what happened here. Some rumors claimed this was suppose to be an Dino Crisis game.
I felt that might not be the case here. The same team responsible for Monster Hunter series made this. Another big money earning franchise Capcom has. It's actually among the top 3 for them currently, quite impressive. I also noticed in videos as well as people's streams, a couple games gets thrown around. Exoprimal is a difficult game to describe on it's own.
It doesn't mean I don't have games in some way to compare it to here. Some compared it to Overwatch, I personally never played it so I can't directly compare. Some felt it's more like Warframe, again I never played that either. The big one I actually could judge to a degree is a particular game series. In fact, last year this franchise received a new successful entry.
I am talking about Earth Defense Force series. Parts of the game play are somewhat similar. Both have stories that's difficult to believe. In other words, both were meant to be ridiculous or rather give you an cheap excuse. Hey because this happened you're facing hordes of creatures. A major difference is in Exoprimal, you're mostly facing dinosaurs while in EDF series it's giant insects.
Exoprimal does have a weird story even for an Capcom game. To my best understanding, an experiment lead to parts of reality like dimensions getting warped. This caused people in mechs as well as dinosaurs get stuck in time loops that strangely plays out like digital simulations. It's kinda confusing stuff, not the best story to say.
A man named Durban plans to use this strange situation to his advantage. He's one of those god concept villain characters. He's also the second boss fight in the game. He arranged most the major story missions to a degree. He isn't working alone, an AI called Leviathan. Leviathan runs these wargames, yes a major aspect that kept getting to Warframe.
Also due to the fact, the games looks somewhat similar with some of the animations being nearly identical. I hope you love dinosaurs because this game is literately filled with so many of them. I'm used to a lot of zombies for a couple games but even those doesn't compare to the dinos. If I learned one thing about Capcom from this game, they sure love Raptors!!!
Then again who doesn't love Raptors? They're awesome, among the smartest dinosaurs. Virtually one of the scariest among them despite not form of poison at all. They usually attack people in packs too to better their chances. Hell the Jurassic Park movies shows you what they could do if left unchecked. Exoprimal also similar to a lot of multiplayer games.
In terms of each mech has a particular arsenal as well as fighting style. It's so easy to say it's similar in some ways to games like Overwatch, Paladins, Team Fortress and a couple more. If I had to pick my favorite mech currently in the game, Musamune. Musamune wields a Sephiroth length sword with some awesome moves.
The game heavily plays on randomness factor. Sadly, also get used to a lot of repeated objectives as well as locations. You may be spending hours among hours doing those. You do unlock files to unlock more of the story as you process in the game. You aren't able to choose which missions you get either. Yes you can customize your mech but it comes off being a little too limited.
The game itself isn't much different from the closed beta I took part in. Maybe someone at Capcom reads this review who really knows. I never figured out how to report my experience of that beta to them. There's a handful of bosses in this game. The story kinda felt rushed as well as forced in within the matches you played.
I strongly felt if they would've made an single player mode. They would've taken more time to work on that. Also the story likely would've been told better too. It could've caused a delay in it's release but if it's improved more than it's current state I'll wait for it. By the way, guess how many times I fought the first boss fully?
If you guessed five times then you are correct. Five times I faced the same exact boss fight. Also some of these bigger scale missions has unskippable cutscenes. No you aren't allowed to skip em if you previously played em either. All the boss fights are done differently, I can respect that. The first two bosses have breaks facing more dinos.
The final mission itself, a big recommendation go on with a friend or an family member whose a high rank. Also hope the rest of your huge team is decent enough. I'll talk more details on that mission later. First I still gotta explain how the game actually plays. Which by itself is a strange beast concept too. Both teams are randomly given objectives.
The first major goal is which teams finishes those objectives first goes to the final portion. Which is randomized what you do there. Then the last goal in standard matches is win the match. Most of these final objectives towards the end allows you to face the enemy teams. For most of the match, both teams are playing on their plain of existence.
Luckily, I do have an Capcom comparison for this. If you were played Onslaught in Resident Evil 6, a similar concept. It's an alternate take on The Mercenaries. But the combos adds more additional enemies for either side to face. Thus, making it more difficult for either to win the match. I kinda wish this mode would return in the future.
It might not be the most fun Capcom mech game. I say both Armored Warriors and it's spin off Cyberbots is more fun than this. I will say Exoprimal is a rather unique experience in it's own right. I do wish they would allow more in depth customization of your mechs. Right now it's partly bare bone customization wise.
The game is very kind about the rate you rank up as well as earn in game money. Although, Capcom tried getting people to buy some stuff that's unlockables in the game again. They don't even hide it either, as you fully start the game following the training portion. The only real difference if you had bought those mechs was your rank process would've been increased.
Considering it's normal rate, I felt that's faster than a lot of it's competition. I should point out next Friday is a new mode. By beating the game, you become qualified to play it. So when the mode comes out, I can try it right off the bat. At a later date, I'll discuss everything else in a likely long future blog post.
Exoprimal has a good variety of dinosaurs with some original variations as well. This game not only has Crossplay but also an Xbox Anywhere title too. Two great things the Xbox versions has it because if you bought it digitally. You automatically have it on PC sharing your save game as well as your overall progress too.
Honestly, I didn't even considered Capcom would do those plus make it available on Game Pass. When I took part in it's beta testing period. Sometimes, you got to rely on your team mates. Other times, you may have to play differently because some of your team mates aren't great. This is a very notable in the bigger scale story missions.
Now I'm going to talk more in depth about all the bosses starting with the Neo T-Rex. This is the biggest, ugliest T-Rex in the game. This mutated dinosaur has glowing purplish bumps. They act as weak points to deal more damage. Be careful, this dinosaur fires powerful beams that can one shot you. I also thankful most missions except one has respawns up to a point.
I also need to point out all the boss fights or other similar scaled story missions has a time limit. There's also a limit on the amount of respawns too. Thankfully, other players can revive you preventing using those up. I quickly wanna talk about that one mission before discussing the second boss fight. It starts like normal until both teams gets teleported.
Among the stuff Leviathan says, he confirms for this one mission respawns are disable. You better hope your team mates are decent here or you're screwed. These missions has a lot more dinos than normal too. Now onto the second boss fight, Durban comes almost off like an Devil May Cry boss. No joke, he's floating a little off the ground just slightly higher than a few DMC bosses.
He has a good variety of attacks while moving faster than expected. This is the closest it felt like another Capcom game's boss fight honestly. For these bigger scaled missions, both teams works together. It took a lot of effort to bring him down too. I would even say he's more difficult than the Neo T-Rex.
Funny enough, I also say he was the game's best boss fight. This boss mission was well thought in my opinion. I know some may disagree that's fine I guess. His weak point is the device on his back that connects to these additional pieces floating close by him. This guy also so full of himself within his own dialogue too.
He kinda reminds me, a weird comparison I'm about to make too. Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, no really. If you compare some stuff they say maybe you see it too. The final mission is almost perfect I say. It's the most ambitious mission in the entire game. The most insane amount of dinos. The most variety what you need to do that comes off strangely refreshing after a long while.
There's a major twist, I think by now a lot of people already knows this. Leviathan betrays Durban by killing him then steals his new, improved exosuit for his plan. Yes, this AI you see at the beginning of every single match is the game's true main antagonist. All of a sudden, parts of it's originality is gone. No really, stuff like Terminator and The Matrix quickly comes to mind here.
The game also reminds me of Raid Mode from Resident Evil: Revelations 2. Personally, I felt that mini game was way more. Sure, it partly plays on randomness factor in a different way. Some creatures may have one or more effects up to three maximum they could have. Also that too plays mostly like an digital simulation too.
Also you can play that coop as well, kinda underrated among the Resident Evil minigames I felt. Back to Exoprimal, you can upgrade particular actions or the effectives of your weapons. After awhile you'll be given war chests, open these you may get something good or even great eventually. I will confess something that might come as a shock.
I actually never partied up with anyone the entire time playing out it's story portion. Currently all my Exoprimal streams are up on Twitch. I also taken every match I won off those streams to make em into videos to put on YouTube. Don't worry I'll be linking it down below here. I do wanna say the final boss doesn't actually do much.
In fact, if you do everything the games asks of your huge team. You are virtually given a notable period of time to deal as much damage as possible. To sum it up, the actual challenge isn't facing the final boss. But rather completing every objective for those opportunities to heavy damage the Behemoth. Yes the Behemoth does attack once in a blue moon with a powerful team.
It actually could ko all ten players. Mostly, you got to deal with a lot of dinos. If that wasn't bad enough, they throw in some of the harder to kill dinos too. This is where the true difficulty of the final boss comes in as the final mission goes on. I don't wanna say the final boss was a pushover. But in a sense, he kinda is technically speaking.
I just wish they changed it a little where it fights back with a slightly weaker arsenal. In order to make it feel more like an actual boss fight. As stated before, you unlock files to get more of the complex, wacky story. I already gotten that section an 100% yesterday. You also can level up mechs, I don't know what the max level is though.
Exoprimal does look amazing with some great animations. I'm even surprised people seem to be enjoying it for the most part. The game does a good job keeping you not wanna mess around. You gotta always be serious to get further without dying. I also wished they had more of an interesting variety among the unlockable skins.
Don't get me wrong, there's a couple I really like. Most of them are mostly recolored of their usual designs. I would say this game is just different enough to stand out a bit. I don't think in it's current state it could rival the likes of Paladins. I confessed Paladins has a lot over this game despite being online since 2018, I know not fair to compare here.
Not only that, the game can be very repetitive at times. I could even say among all the Capcom games I played, a lot of them. This easily cracks the Top 5 Most Repetitive Capcom games I ever played!!! Exoprimal is a fun time for anyone wanting to play. If I could rate it where the game stands it's around 6.5.
The game needs some notable huge improvements to survive such a repetitive gaming market. Multiplayer gaming market alone is really repetitive alone. I'll even list a few changes I strongly felt would notably improve it's chances even by a slight possibility. I also wanna point out Exoprimal has a few planned crossovers on the way, again I'll discuss those later too.
1. A more in depth mech customization
2. More objective variety
3. Mission selection screen
4. A separate single player mode for story
5. Making Durban's exosuit playable
6. More Modules variety
7. More Dominator variety
8. More bosses
9. A more balancing match making system
10. Allowing the players to swap backgrounds for the main menu
11. Customize the game's soundtrack with songs from other Capcom games
12. More weapon variety
13. More location variety
14. More dinosaur species added
15. Please add in an Neo Triceratops
16. Add in another mech class
17. Add in more reference emotes
18. Add in a mode with more than ten players working together in a boss rush
19. Better online stability
20. Add in Devil May Cry theme exosuits
Any of these could go a long way for Exoprimal. I'll try to stay on top of the major changes it goes through. It really depends on future plans on my end. I'm still thankful Capcom gave me an opportunity to test the game out. I do see the potential it could have if they listen to the fans. Especially those becoming deeply passionate towards this game, I'm sure they got some great ideas.
I can't recommend the game at this time but that could easily change in the near future. Right now, it's doing better than Saints Row reboot. Honestly, it's a fun excuse to be let out your wild side. Killing as many dinosaurs as possible even when parts of the story doesn't make much sense. I guess that's a joke, we don't care how it's possible, we're still going to kill us some dinos!!!
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