Ben 10: Wrath of Psychobos Review

Ben 10: Wrath of Psychobos tries something interesting: making an isometric hack 'n slash game where players control two characters at once. It's a neat concept, but it struggles in execution.

The game puts players in control of both Ben and Rook, heroes of the Ben 10 Omniverse series, as they run around levels trying to defeat all the aliens they come across and collect the missing DNA pieces of Ben's Omnitrix so that he can transform back into all of his alien forms. Along the way, cubes and research points can be used to buy special attacks, health refills, and to unlock new aliens for Ben and new weapons for Rook to use across the game's 30-plus levels.

Trying to control both Ben and Rook proves to be difficult. It's possible to tap on the screen to move the active character, switching by either tapping the character's profile or the other character on screen. It's also possible to drag from one character to a spot or enemy to attack. However, both systems have their flaws: it's hard to tell which character is active at any given time, dragging a certain character can be difficult in the heat of battle when both are near each other, and there's often little difference between moving somewhere and targeting an enemy.

But really, the game is grind. Players just set Ben and Rook to attack an enemy, occasionally make sure Ben switches back to an alien form, maybe use a power-up or two mid-battle, and that's kinda it. Even picking up loot isn't terribly exciting, which is a shame because looting should be fun! Even that just feels like a task.

This is all a shame, because I appreciate licensed games that try to be more than just cash cows! There's definitely some good ideas at play here, just nothing that quite works out to be a lot of fun. This might be a good experience for kids who are into the Ben 10 franchise, but adults might find it a bit too frustrating.