Imagine a Kingdom game like that but with non-wonky real combat system and realistic vibe. A grand open-world of all 7 states and free will to join any.
@Elder Lee Hung @Owl Ki @SakazOuki @TheKnightOfTheSea @God Buggy
@Elder Lee Hung @Owl Ki @SakazOuki @TheKnightOfTheSea @God Buggy
Was bored and gave Ben 10 Power Trip a whirl, stuck with it all the way towards the end. Platinum Trophy to boot.
After 38hrs I can officially say with confidence. Ben 10 Power Trip is not a good game lmao, but I didn’t completely hate it. The passion was definitely there, they had the ambition for a great game. The overworld itself is very big and there are good concepts, but the real villain of this game is the budget. The game is a very janky and broken mess. You can clip through buildings, character models will randomly T-pose if the game loads in too fast. The budget definitely went to the paying the voice actors and making the aliens look good and it shows lol. Too many times I was nearly softlocked because I either managed to get into an area I wasn’t supposed to be in yet, or an area the player is never meant to be in, and I had to abuse game mechanics to try and wiggle my way out of it. For example: there’s a boat in the City level where a collectable is located and you can get to the boat as soon as you get Shockrock, but you’re supposed to use Rath to actually get the collectable, and you’re meant to escape with DiamondHead’s glide. I did not have either character yet, so I got myself in a terrible position simply because the game just kinda lets you lol.
Now you might be thinking, well what about reloading your save file? Well unfortunately this game does not have save slots lol, but what it does have is an auto save feature. That causes the game to freeze every 15 secs or so because it’s constantly trying to save. And there’s no way to turn it off, that’s right one bad crash in the middle of saving and you can lose everything in a second lmao. Thankfully this never happened to me, but I’ve seen some posts of poor unfortunate souls who weren’t as fortunate… Also because there’s no save slots, if somebody (particularly a kid) accidentally clicks on “New Game”. That whole file is gone (yes that apparently happened to some unfortunate soul lmao)
So let’s get into the gameplay yeah? Well despite the fact that the whole gimmick of the show is that Ben turns into 10 aliens (at least at the beginning) there are only 6 here that are playable. Which in its defense other Ben 10 games in the past have done this, but it’s still pretty disappointing. All of your aliens have at least one unique ability in battle, like Heatblast shoots fire for residue damage and Four Arms can toss boulders (useless ass move btw), the problem is the aliens are simply not balanced at all and some are just straight up better than others. Like Rath outclasses Four Arms in every way, he even has the better AOE move. You can even make the argument for Shockrock because he’s got a lasso that drags flying enemies to the ground so that you can actually hit the damn things lol. Your aliens can’t cancel out of combos, you if you’re surrounded by a wave of enemies, have fun cause they’re gonna blast you and you can’t even roll out of it lmao. And all of your characters have like 3 combos, and there’s no way way to improve it. There is a leveling system for stats but not move variety lol. Heatblast and XLR8 are the best aliens to use in the overworld and it’s kinda not close. Heatblast’s double jump in combination with objects that should not have collison (like the top of trees) lets him sequence break like a mf. With Heatblast alone I got many collectable that weren’t meant to be collected until much later in the game with Rath lmao. And XLR8 should be obvious in a big open world game like this.
Enemy variety basically doesn’t exist. There are like 4 enemy types in the whole game re-used repeatedly just with different textures to better fit the environment they’re in. Like when you’re in the forest they have a very wood like look to them or in the snowy mountains, they have ice like textures ect. And they all have the exact same attack patterns, it does not change… Side Quests suck. They are very repetitive with almost no real care put into them. If you’re not doing fetch quest, you’re on rooftops chasing after cats, or forced to clear waves of random enemies. No innovation here. I gave the developers credit for at least attempting an open world title on a clear tight budget, but the budget really begins to show as you go on. The overworld is barren with so much space but nothing to interact with. There are no people outside of towns or that random farm, enemies only spawn in specific areas on the map where crystal like collectables spawn so you’re just running around on your scooter or XLR8 doing a whole lot of NOTHING! You’re probably wondering “well what about fast travel? Surely an open world game would have at least that right?” Well you’re right, it does have one. Kind of… Ben cannot fast travel on his own, he’s got to go to the rust bucket and have Grandpa Max take him to one of the 7 or 8 locations he can drop you off, but not your exact location. It is unironically more efficient sometimes to just run to wherever it is you’re trying to go because all the time you’re spending looking Max is time you could have made it to your destination with XLR8 in half the time lol.
And since we’re on the topic of the map, you don’t get a custom map pin like actual budgeted games get, have fun opening up your map 10X to make sure you’re going in the right direction.
The sound mixing was all over the place too. I dunno if Gwen’s actress just had a bad mic during recording, or if something screwed up during sessions but you can barely hear Gwen during all her scenes, it’s like everything that can possibly go wrong with this game went wrong and then some.
On the topic of voice actors, the acting itself is actually pretty decent. Especially in regards to the main cast. Yes the dialogue is very cheesy, yes some of the fake stereotypical accents are a bit atrocious (like that German Mayor good lord lmao) but this is a kids game and you got to let at least something go lol.
There’s random minigames too. There’s a Scooter Time Trial you need to do for the platinum, and another one where you’re basically a pizza delivery boy with a unique graphic as your timer. This is actually the kind of stuff that makes me not complete hate this game. Care went into it (or at least an attempt), Outright Games just simply does not have the budget or experience to pull such an innovative game like this off.
All in all. Power Trip is a mediocre game at best, and a technical disaster at worst. But you can tell the developers obviously care about this IP, and that I can appreciate.
The good:
Acting is mostly solid
Character models for the Aliens is good
Minigames have a bit of charm to them
If nothing else the game is a good nostalgia trip
The bad:
Lack of enemy variety
Sound issues
No save slots
The overworld is barren
Fast Travel is limited and hardly worth it at times
Side Quests are too repetitive
Boss battles save for Hex are not actually boss fights.
The ugly:
Poor optimization
General lack of polish i:e getting into areas that should constitute as out of bounds/not fully accessible till later.
Sometimes going through portals straight up won’t work and you have to reset the game
4.5/10
(Mediocre)
After 38hrs I can officially say with confidence. Ben 10 Power Trip is not a good game lmao, but I didn’t completely hate it. The passion was definitely there, they had the ambition for a great game. The overworld itself is very big and there are good concepts, but the real villain of this game is the budget. The game is a very janky and broken mess. You can clip through buildings, character models will randomly T-pose if the game loads in too fast. The budget definitely went to the paying the voice actors and making the aliens look good and it shows lol. Too many times I was nearly softlocked because I either managed to get into an area I wasn’t supposed to be in yet, or an area the player is never meant to be in, and I had to abuse game mechanics to try and wiggle my way out of it. For example: there’s a boat in the City level where a collectable is located and you can get to the boat as soon as you get Shockrock, but you’re supposed to use Rath to actually get the collectable, and you’re meant to escape with DiamondHead’s glide. I did not have either character yet, so I got myself in a terrible position simply because the game just kinda lets you lol.
Now you might be thinking, well what about reloading your save file? Well unfortunately this game does not have save slots lol, but what it does have is an auto save feature. That causes the game to freeze every 15 secs or so because it’s constantly trying to save. And there’s no way to turn it off, that’s right one bad crash in the middle of saving and you can lose everything in a second lmao. Thankfully this never happened to me, but I’ve seen some posts of poor unfortunate souls who weren’t as fortunate… Also because there’s no save slots, if somebody (particularly a kid) accidentally clicks on “New Game”. That whole file is gone (yes that apparently happened to some unfortunate soul lmao)
So let’s get into the gameplay yeah? Well despite the fact that the whole gimmick of the show is that Ben turns into 10 aliens (at least at the beginning) there are only 6 here that are playable. Which in its defense other Ben 10 games in the past have done this, but it’s still pretty disappointing. All of your aliens have at least one unique ability in battle, like Heatblast shoots fire for residue damage and Four Arms can toss boulders (useless ass move btw), the problem is the aliens are simply not balanced at all and some are just straight up better than others. Like Rath outclasses Four Arms in every way, he even has the better AOE move. You can even make the argument for Shockrock because he’s got a lasso that drags flying enemies to the ground so that you can actually hit the damn things lol. Your aliens can’t cancel out of combos, you if you’re surrounded by a wave of enemies, have fun cause they’re gonna blast you and you can’t even roll out of it lmao. And all of your characters have like 3 combos, and there’s no way way to improve it. There is a leveling system for stats but not move variety lol. Heatblast and XLR8 are the best aliens to use in the overworld and it’s kinda not close. Heatblast’s double jump in combination with objects that should not have collison (like the top of trees) lets him sequence break like a mf. With Heatblast alone I got many collectable that weren’t meant to be collected until much later in the game with Rath lmao. And XLR8 should be obvious in a big open world game like this.
Enemy variety basically doesn’t exist. There are like 4 enemy types in the whole game re-used repeatedly just with different textures to better fit the environment they’re in. Like when you’re in the forest they have a very wood like look to them or in the snowy mountains, they have ice like textures ect. And they all have the exact same attack patterns, it does not change… Side Quests suck. They are very repetitive with almost no real care put into them. If you’re not doing fetch quest, you’re on rooftops chasing after cats, or forced to clear waves of random enemies. No innovation here. I gave the developers credit for at least attempting an open world title on a clear tight budget, but the budget really begins to show as you go on. The overworld is barren with so much space but nothing to interact with. There are no people outside of towns or that random farm, enemies only spawn in specific areas on the map where crystal like collectables spawn so you’re just running around on your scooter or XLR8 doing a whole lot of NOTHING! You’re probably wondering “well what about fast travel? Surely an open world game would have at least that right?” Well you’re right, it does have one. Kind of… Ben cannot fast travel on his own, he’s got to go to the rust bucket and have Grandpa Max take him to one of the 7 or 8 locations he can drop you off, but not your exact location. It is unironically more efficient sometimes to just run to wherever it is you’re trying to go because all the time you’re spending looking Max is time you could have made it to your destination with XLR8 in half the time lol.
And since we’re on the topic of the map, you don’t get a custom map pin like actual budgeted games get, have fun opening up your map 10X to make sure you’re going in the right direction.
The sound mixing was all over the place too. I dunno if Gwen’s actress just had a bad mic during recording, or if something screwed up during sessions but you can barely hear Gwen during all her scenes, it’s like everything that can possibly go wrong with this game went wrong and then some.
On the topic of voice actors, the acting itself is actually pretty decent. Especially in regards to the main cast. Yes the dialogue is very cheesy, yes some of the fake stereotypical accents are a bit atrocious (like that German Mayor good lord lmao) but this is a kids game and you got to let at least something go lol.
There’s random minigames too. There’s a Scooter Time Trial you need to do for the platinum, and another one where you’re basically a pizza delivery boy with a unique graphic as your timer. This is actually the kind of stuff that makes me not complete hate this game. Care went into it (or at least an attempt), Outright Games just simply does not have the budget or experience to pull such an innovative game like this off.
All in all. Power Trip is a mediocre game at best, and a technical disaster at worst. But you can tell the developers obviously care about this IP, and that I can appreciate.
The good:
Acting is mostly solid
Character models for the Aliens is good
Minigames have a bit of charm to them
If nothing else the game is a good nostalgia trip
The bad:
Lack of enemy variety
Sound issues
No save slots
The overworld is barren
Fast Travel is limited and hardly worth it at times
Side Quests are too repetitive
Boss battles save for Hex are not actually boss fights.
The ugly:
Poor optimization
General lack of polish i:e getting into areas that should constitute as out of bounds/not fully accessible till later.
Sometimes going through portals straight up won’t work and you have to reset the game
4.5/10
(Mediocre)
