Indivisible casts players as an audacious young girl named Ajna who sees every obstacles as a solution best solved with a few swift punches. Her journey begins with a familiar opening that sees the destruction of a village and death of her father, and upon learning about the evil warlord responsible, our young hero eagerly sets out on a journey to defeat him. The story eventually expands into the cliche “ancient evil” plot we’ve all come to know and love in JRPGs, but smart writing and story sequences that don’t overstay their welcome help keep Indivisible from becoming a bore.

Ajna is joined by an ever-expanding cast of likable characters along the way, all of whom she absorbs into her mind with a newly-awakened power that allows her to trap them inside and subsequently use them for combat. I was always excited to meet and recruit the many quirky tag-a-longs since the writing itself typically made good use of them through funny and colorful dialogue. It’s just a shame that developer Lab Zero Games made some poor casting choices for the voice work – some characters (Ajna included) gain and drop accents throughout the game, and the overall quality of the voice acting ranges from emotionless to cringe-inducing. Because of this, I usually opted to just read the conversations and skip over the sometimes grating voices.

The combat in Indivisible may remind genre fans of the beloved Valkyrie Profile series, adopting a similar battle layout that maps each of your playable characters’ attacks and blocks to one of the four face buttons. There’s a high learning curve involved if you want to get the most out of the combat mechanics, and the game’s tutorials don’t do the greatest job of properly explaining everything, leaving you to test things out with some trial and error. This can be frustrating when you’re thrown into earlier fights with so many inputs to remember in a short window of time. Considering the fact that each of the over 20 playable characters possess a collection of additional direction-based moves, Indivisible quickly turns into a game of rapid button combo memorization that takes time to get used to but eventually feels rewarding to master.

Frantically pressing all of the face buttons to get everyone to use a normal attack is easy enough, but trying to juggle multiple characters’ directional inputs to set up combos while also consistently blocking on time can be tricky. You can opt to use L1 to have your entire party block and take out some of the micromanagement of using face buttons to have an individual character shield themselves, but this can drain your special attack meter. This system of tradeoffs makes Indivisible feel fair and balanced for both casual button mashers and more experienced gamers who may be seeking to get the most out of each encounter.

To make fights even easier, you can fill up a special meter and use R1 to unleash special moves that range from a flurry of attacks to helpful party-wide healing spells depending on which character you choose for it. Additionally, holding the trigger allows you to slow combat down drastically to give you ample time to form strategies or just glance over your characters’ health and attack stores. If you find that the game moves a little quickly for you in general, save points are plentifully scattered around the levels to make the occasional defeat feel less disappointing.

When you’re not whaling away on Indivisible’s enemies, you’ll be platforming through its gorgeous 2D world full of captivating locales and charismatic characters, and it’s all brought to life with meticulously hand-drawn animation that just begs to be admired. In a time where so many RPGs have moved towards realism, Indivisible embraces the visual style of a bygone era while bringing the fidelity up to modern standards – from its expressive character models to its lush, vivid backdrops, there’s an attention to detail here that has to be seen to be believed.

You’ll spend most of your time with the game exploring these resplendent environments, and how much you enjoy them depends entirely on your patience with Metroidvania games in general. As one would expect, there’s copious amounts of backtracking required as you find new items to open pathways you passed earlier in the game. And despite the best of efforts of the map, there’s always the chance you’ll get turned around a bit as you try to navigate to and from the various areas. That said, while backtracking through the same spots over and over can get tiresome, I appreciated that the items found throughout your journey serve multiple purposes and therefore usually grant fun new gameplay elements to use.

This multi-purpose item system was apparent early on when I found an axe that allowed me to cut through wooden blockades and scale tall walls. This opened up access to new areas in two totally unique ways, getting a lot more utility out of a single item and giving me a more substantial feeling of progression. Throughout the 25 hour journey, these types of helpful items lend much-needed freshness to the otherwise standard navigation elements of Indivisible. Genre typical movements like wall jumping and air dashing can be cool, but pole vaulting with a spear is cooler.

But as fun as it might be to string together all of these unique moves and items, navigating the treacherous levels can also sometimes feel cumbersome when Indivisible decides it just doesn’t want to work with you. From time to time the game wouldn’t register my inputs, and I periodically ran across irritating bugs that had me falling through the map or getting stuck in the game’s environments. These were rare occasions, but they still forced me to restart and lose progress, and I’m hopeful to see them ironed out with future updates.

Despite its faults, Indivisible is a one-of-a-kind game. I would’ve loved to see some better voice work and a bit less backtracking, but mastering the initially chaotic combat and finding new navigational items was a rewarding experience and well worth the time spent exploring the game’s utterly stunning world. It’s a fascinating experiment to behold, and if you’re willing to overlook its flaws, you may find that this genre-bender rewards you with a bounty of engaging gameplay.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

Lab Zero Games’ Indivisible has had a long road of development. The hand-drawn action RPG from the Skullgirls developer was delayed to this year due to its scale. If the recent gameplay videos from PAX East are any indication though, it’s going well. Check them out below courtesy of Josh Knowles on YouTube.

The first clip showcases the platforming, which is pretty straightforward. Protagonist Ajna can jump and use an axe to climb up platforms along with sliding under tight spaces. The combat is perhaps more intriguing as it allows players to chain together different party members’ attacks into strings of combos.

If the combat of Square Enix’s Valkyrie Profile was even remotely interesting, then Indivisible may be worth keeping an eye on. As of now, Lab Zero Games hasn’t offered an update on the release date. Indivisible is currently in development for Xbox One, PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

No Faith – Mirror’s Edge

In a game that’s primarily about parkour, what happens when the protagonist can’t effectively rim? Such was the anti-piracy measure introduced in Mirror’s Edge. Every time Faith is close to a jump, she’ll slow down. This makes it impossible to go anywhere past the opening rooftop in the first stage. At least there’s the gorgeous view to admire.

In the midst of so many games being delayed, add another one to the list with Lab Zero’s Indivisible. The plucky developer is best known for its 2D fighting game Skullgirls which received critical acclaim for its art-style. Indivisible goes with a similar hand-draw approach but on a larger scale with its action RPG mechanics and vast world.

Unfortunately, that scale takes time to properly polish and thus Indivisible will be releasing in the first half of 2019. As per the developer on Steam, “While we did everything we could to prevent this from happening, the simple reality is that Indivisible ended up being a much larger project than we could have anticipated when the game was conceived way back in 2015.

“A number of other issues related to shipping a product of this size contributed to this decision, but the main issue is just the sheer number of assets this game requires and the time needed to deliver them at the quality you expect from a Lab Zero game.”

Though more money was also necessary for additional polish, publisher 505 Games will be helping out while Lab Zero also uses its royalties from Skullgirls. A new lead level designer and lead writer have also been hired to reach the new ship date.

That being said, even with all the delays, Lab Zero isn’t cutting any content. “What we have not done is cut down on the amount of content we promised. Not only do we want to deliver the game we said we would, the game’s structure and story made it virtually impossible to cut levels or make other kinds of ‘easy’ cuts to reduce the scope of the game.”

More information will be shared in the coming months and in the meantime, Lab Zero is going to hunker down to make Indivisible “the best game we can”. “We wouldn’t be here without your support, financial and otherwise. And we’re committed to making Indivisible the best game we can, and appreciate your patience while we get it there.”

What are your thoughts on the delay? Let us know in the comments below.

A spokesperson from Lab Zero Games the developer of Skullgirls has twitted earlier today that Skullgirls is most likely not going to be happening due to the fact that Wii U’s current presence is weak. Skullgirls is a 2D brawler that came out last year for the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network and now it looks like the game will not be release for the Nintendo’s eShop.

Here is the exact twitter quote from Lab Zero Games regarding the Wii U version of the game: “right now a Wii-U release isn’t looking likely. If sales pick up and they establish a digital presence it’s possible, though.”

It seems that Nintendo has lately been getting bad vibes from different developers. Nintendo’s only hope right now is E3. However, after Nintendo has confirmed they won’t be having a press conference things might start looking quite grim for the company.

Will Nintendo prevail at E3 2013 and prove its worth? Let us know your thoughts on this in the comments below. Check back on GamingBolt for future Nintendo updates and E3 2013.

Fighting games had a resurgence this generation, thanks to Capcom’s Street Fighter IV, the game that made fighting games cool again. And while Capcom lost no time in quickly capitalizing on this new (again) craze- bringing us Super Street Fighter IV, Super Street Fighter IV 3D, Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition, Marvel vs Capcom 3, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, and Street Fighter x Tekken- other companies jumped on the bandwagon too, and we’ve had more quality fighting games this generation than in a very long time. A Mortal Kombat reboot, two Soul Calibur games, two Dead or Alive games, and Tekken 6, just to name a few.

In this crowded arena, a new combatant enters. Skullgirls is a downloadable, stylized 2D fighter, that sexualizes its (entirely female) characters heavily to attract immediate attention, but also hides underneath all that eye candy a really well done battle system.

The thing that catches your eye before anything else at all are Skullgirls’ characters. These fighters are all suggestively dressed in skin tight clothing, that reveals more than it hides, with busty chests and perfect cleavages, long legs, and all the right curves in all the right places, in just the right quantities. They all look pretty attractive, and the game’s graphical style, which is that of a highly stylized cartoon, does wonders in adding to their appeal.

Of course, all this visual oomph is there to catch your attention immediately, and to keep it. But style can only sustain a game for so long, and Skullgirls backs up its stylish and sexualized look with some substance- an incredibly deep fighting system that sticks to the norm, but tweaks conventions to present an entirely new take on a genre that is otherwise quite static.

For instance, let’s take a look at how this game handles tag team fighting. Skullgirls lets you take one, two, or three fighters with you into the arena. However, your opponent is not bound to bring in the same number of fighters into the ring as you, meaning that it is entirely possible that you bring in just one fighter, while your opponent brings in a full roster of three.

Why then would you choose to bring in any less than your full roster strength? Because the game balances this out expertly. Selecting just one fighter means that your one fighter is more powerful than any of the three fighters on the opponent’s team are individually, meaning that you can take more damage than they can, and your blows will also be more powerful. On the other hand, selecting two or three fighters means you can perform powerful linked hyper combos, and assist attacks. It also means that your fighters can recover health while they are tagged out.

It’s a neat little system of balance, that naturally provides incentives to go with either of the options available to you, and it ensures that fights are always fair, always even. It encourages players to try out different strategies and combinations to see what works best, and considering the sheer number of different characters, it opens up a mind boggling amount of options for the player; just because a two player tag team didn’t work with a certain set of characters doesn’t mean that it won’t work if you mix up your roster a bit. The game incentivizes experimentation and encourages it. The fact that fights aren’t locked or determined by roster strength per person- you can bring in three fighters into the arena, while your opponent might bring in only one- keeps things interesting too. All in all, the game’s take on tag team fighting is certainly one of its more compelling mechanisms.

Fights are also incredibly fast paced, focused, and slick. Getting rid of regular fighting game annoyances, like infinite chains and unblockable attacks by context sensitive abilities that are activated only if your opponent attempts to use either of those, the game concentrates on the actual fighting between the two characters on screen, rather than degenerating into a race to the bottom with both you and your opponent trying to activate some sort of infinite one hit combo to finish the fight quickly. This means that even relative novices can enjoy the game- even though they will always lose to more skilled players (this isn’t Super Smash Bros., after all), it will never appear to them as if they were hopelessly dominated, and psychologically, the game remains inviting to all players, while still remaining appealing to the experts and pros who will inevitably practice this game for hours at end, getting to know all its ins and outs.

Like all other fighters, Skullgirls features a story mode. Also like all other fighters, it isn’t anything to write home about, with the politest thing that I can say about it being that it breaks the player into the intricacies of the game pretty well. The dialog is pretty bad, and the story, which centers on every character out to gain a supreme power called the Skull Heart. It’s contrived and banal, and all in all, if you’re playing Skullgirls for the story, you’re doing something wrong.

With some great mechanics, slick graphics, a busty cast that will put a smile on your face, and a setup tailor made for competitive fighting, Skullgirls is a game that is highly recommended to all fighting game enthusiasts. It’s definitely one of the better entries in the genre out there, and is a game that, at its current price, every fighting fan should check out; I mean, at $15, you really don’t have much of an excuse to not at least give it a shot. Especially not when it’s so packed with content, and unique takes on established fighting game conventions.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

***Please note this walkthrough was not uploaded by GamingBolt.com

Special thanks to Youtube users underlordtico, theosguy, LordXieon and BloodBurger1 for uploading these videos walkthrough.

Check out more video game walkthroughs here.

Without further ado, let’s begin!

Filia’s Story

Parasoul’s Story

Ms. Fortune’s story

Cerebella’s Story

Skullgirls is a new 2D fighting game that puts players in control of fierce warriors in an extraordinary Dark Deco world. The team is led by renowned fighting game champion Mike “Mike Z” Zaimont and artist Alex “o_8” Ahad, whose work has been featured in many publications, including Lava Punch and Girls of Gaming. Using advanced graphical technology never before achieved in a game of its type.

For more on Skullgirls please click here

Meet Peacock, a murderous cybernetic weapon designed with one function: to destroy the Skullgirl.

Skullgirls is a downloadable 2D fighting game coming to PSN and XBLA, currently due out in 2011. It’s developed by Reverge Labs and published by Autumn Games.