Among entering Too Human players will find themselves in the role of Baldur, an Aesir and a god among humans, and caught between an epic struggle between the remaining amount of humanity and the Children of Ymir, a mindless robot horde controlled by Hel, daughter of Loki. Not only does Baldur strive to regain his memories but to protect humanity and defeat Hel and her minions of machines which slaughter the remains of man kind, which have taken refuge in Midgard. Too Human takes Norse Mythology and Lore and it’s characters such as Baldur, Loki, Odin, and Thor then meshes it with a sci-fi futuristic theme to create the world that your adventures and battles take place in. Too Human offers a lot of fast combat both on the ground and in the air, allowing players to knock enemies into the air and deal devastating combos. Players will have a wide range of weapons to crush the Children of Ymir with, melee weapons range from one and two handed swords, one and two handed maces/hammers, dual wield swords, hammers and shields, and a few other weapons types. Ranged combat has a few different ammunition types which will vary throughout the types of firearms that you find; a few of those would be plasma, slug, and laser. A few of the ranged weapons with these ammunition types are rifles, dual pistols, and cannons.

During character creation players will have the capability of choosing the Berserker, a master of melee combat, dual wielding weapons, and main focus of dealing damage. The Defender who is the toughest character and focusing on defense, health, and utilizing the hammer and shield weapons. Champions are the well rounded class that focuses on air combat either with melee and/or ranged combat and has a higher chance of dealing critical strikes; they are the jack of all trade so to speak. The Commando is a ranged combat specialist, a master in explosives, and can have a better understand and control of the Spider ability. Last but not least one of the most useful and hardiest character classes the Bio Engineer who has the ability to regenerate his own health and heal other players. Each character has their own specialty, perks, and unique abilities which sets them apart from other classes such as the Berserker who is the only class that can dual wield staves, axes, and swords while the Defender is the only class that can wield hammer and shield style of weapons and the Bio Engineer is the only class capable of healing itself or others without relying on health orb drops. Each class has a different skills tree which players will spend skill points at every level they progress, each skill tree will be specific to that class and offers bonus’ to abilities, attack speed, damage, the ability to choose one of three spiders that have different effects and actions, and one of three battle cries which will offer different bonus’ to the player and an ally if in multiplayer. Other than the basic classes to choose from at the beginning players will have the chance to choose an alignment, Human or Cybernetic, later in the game. Human offers more of a combo based skill tree and equipment that has up to four rune slots. Cybernetic alignment allows players to use the cannon style of guns and mainly focuses on strength and power.

Single player offers the ability to go through the Too Human story and its levels in a campaign mode with cut scenes so that players can gain an understanding of what is happening and why while there’s also a non-campaign mode so that the cut scenes can be skipped and players can get right to slaughtering masses of machines. Playing in non-campaign mode will not effect how your character develops but what will change when going through non-campaign single player will be the types of enemies that spawn and where which may increase the chances of items dropping and the amount of experience you gain going through the stages. There are four stages which Bladur will go through, The Hall of Heroes, Ice Forest, World Serpent, and Helheim. Each stage has a different length to it and an amount of levels within the stage for example Hall of Heroes has three levels and would be considered 1-3 while World Serpent has five as does Heleim so it would be 3-5 or 4-5. Each stage has a boss at the end and a large variety of monsters before then often mixing up long range machines and close range machine at the same time to create a challenge and force players to adjust and tackle an encounter differently. Unfortunately one of the down sides to Too Human is the fact that maps and enemy encounters are not randomized the only slightly difference in maps and enemy encounters would be between campaign and non-campaign/multiplayer regardless of character class, this can cause a bit of boredom once you’ve achieved higher levels and have to resort to multiplayer to change things up.

There’s little to say concerning multiplayer since the game play during multiplayer is incredibly similar to that of non-campaign single player except for the fact that you can team up with up to one other person and run the same stages as you would in non-campaign. The nice thing about being able to team up with another player though is the ability to combine different classes to be more efficient in combat an example would be having a Berserker to handle close range melee combat and then a Commando to tackle long range enemies at the same time.

Throughout Too Human players will have the ability to insert runes into their armor and weapons if the piece of equipment has an available slot open. As players fight through stages they will encounter runes of a wide variety being dropped everything from an increase in health to an increase in damage. Another use for runes ties in with Charms which essentially are a general bonus to your character but must be completed first to use them. Level one charms appear grey and contain slots to insert runes along with a requirement or mission to complete, once both of these are done players will be able to have the ability described on the charm if it’s placed in the active slot. The ability to complete charms doesn’t end at simply inserting runes in level one charms, players have the capability to take level two runes and insert completed level one charms into them, granting more powerful abilities. This process goes on till level four "elite" charms which are the most powerful and the most difficult to complete yet the most rewarding to complete. The entire Charm function of Too Human adds another level of game play other than just leveling your character up and getting equipment. Personally I think the charm feature is an enjoyable addition to the game. A small note overall to runes and charms is that players can only have so many of each in their inventory and at higher levels with needing to combine multiple runes and charms space constraint becomes an issue since more than likely you will need all the charms and runes you currently carry but need more space for new ones, hence the need for a bank or vault feature to store a characters runes and charms.

Graphics and animation are appealing though differences between stages don’t change much; each stage seems to have the same style and appearance. Details and effects of weapons and armor is nice to look at as well, personally I’ve only seen a few glitches and bugs concerning character movement and interaction. An example would be jumping into the air to perform a air combo then landing atop a mass of enemies and being suspended on top of them until they all fall over before you can land. Enemies getting stuck on ledges out of range of melee but can be hit by ranged, enemies seeming to be stuck laying down on the ground. Decent voice acting and sounds for combat and movement nothing out of the ordinary.

To give a little of an idea on the control layout and combat movement is controlled with the left paddle and combat is done with the right, combat being based on a paddle allows for easy multiple target striking. Double tapping in a direction with the combat paddle allows players to knock an enemy into the air either for an ally, in multiplayer, or the player themselves to perform aerial combos. Holding the left and right paddle in the same direction at a range combat distance shoots a Fierce Attack which essentially is a knock down move with melee weapons, pushing both paddles again at a close range causes players to perform a Finisher Attack which is a powerful multi hit attack. During combat there’s a combat meter which builds as players rack up a higher amount of continuous combos and a wide variety of moves, this combo meter grants quicker attack speed, more damage, and a greater slide distance when moving from enemy to enemy. The combo meter also enables players to use a powerful area attack called a Ruiner; a higher combo meter causes more damage and a wider area of attack. The Human alignment and Berserker class skill trees offer a skill, when fully upgraded, to raise a player’s maximum combo meter. Concerning range combat classes such as the Commando and Champion there’s the capability to knock an enemy or enemies into the air then build a combo meter by unloading on them with a ranged weapon.

In conclusion Too Human has a lot of good qualities that make the game fun and enjoyable, taking it two steps forward, but it has a few unfortunate features and mechanics which takes it three steps back. The replay value isn’t too high due to the stages being the same regardless of which character class you run through it with. There’s a decent story and plot line but it doesn’t pull you into the game and is slightly confusing in the beginning. But if players are looking for a slightly better than average hack and slash Too Human would be a good choice. We will all have to wait and see what is to come since Too Human is to be a trilogy, hoping there will be improvements.