Kong: Survivor Instinct | Xbox Review

November 30, 2024 Scott Clark

I’ve not had much personal experience with the Monsterverse. I’ve seen an occasional Kong or Godzilla film from the more recent iterations, but I’m ignorant of the universe. I don’t think I could have told you the names of two other monsters before I played Kong: Survivor Instinct from 7Levels. I was drawn to the game, because I love the idea of not doing what you usually do in games based on these monsters. Instead of fighting Titans or even fighting as a Titan, you’re just a normal guy looking for his daughter amidst the chaos. That and the fact I love 2D gear-gated games, I 100% had to play this game. And I’m certainly glad that I did, because, despite its flaws, it was a blast to experience.

Not Your Father’s Metroidvania

As much I was looking forward to playing Kong: Survivor Instinct, it’s not exactly what I was expecting. The trailer made it seem like it was going to be a gear-gated game with typical backtracking. This turned out to be a tad more linear than your typical game in this genre. Instead of a massive open world to explore and backtrack, you’ll traverse through smaller, self-contained sections of the city. Rest assured, there’s still gear to acquire that grants you access to new areas, but your backtracking remains in your current area only. Once you’ve acquired enough audio files to summon a Titan, you do so in order to gain passage to the next area with a new monster.

Your goal, however, is simply to find your character’s daughter. The world is in chaos with the arrival of these monsters, and all you know is that you need to get to the one you love. This simplicity is a very welcome novelty to this universe and made for a very welcome adventure. The story resolves with a twist that shouldn’t even be called as such, however. It seemed so obviously telegraphed that I find it hard to believe anyone would be surprised.

There’s also a bit of combat with the game, as a certain faction wants the device you found back. This involves clunky encounters that feel as if they just had to include combat of some kind to pad the gameplay. These scenarios involve a rock-paper-scissors approach to combat where you either attack, block, grab, or dash based on the enemy’s first movement. They’re not overly difficult, but get in the way of the actual fun part of the game, which is progression.

Grounded in Reality

One aspect of Survivor Instinct that I really appreciated was the fact that David, your character, isn’t a super being. He jumps like a normal human instead of five times his body height like Mario. All of the upgrades feel natural. For instance, you’ll acquire a lead pipe early on, which eventually gets swapped out with a sledgehammer. The latter allows you access to new areas. You’ll also get a handgun, which I rarely used in combat, but allows you to open certain hatches and doors by blasting the padlock securing them. The realistic nature of this type of 2D adventure was very reminiscent of old-school games like Flashback and Out of This World.

The game is far from perfect, however. One glaring issue I have is the voice acting. I don’t like looking down on voice actors, but the work done here is laughably bad. David’s lines are cringeworthy, and you’ll wind up hearing the same ones over and over again after encounters. To make matters worse, it seems obvious that they used the same actor to play other NPCs in the game. He simply uses a different vocal range or uses a gruffer version of his own voice. It’s oddly distracting.

Visually, however, the game is a treat for the eyes. The background, in particular, is incredibly detailed. This is a nice touch, since it’s genuinely unnecessary for the gameplay. It makes you feel as if you’re in a world decimated by multiple Titans, and you’re along for the ride. When the Titans themselves do arrive, you’ll witness their presence in the distance until they inevitably attempt to find you. This leads to the “boss” encounters of each section. These are refreshing as well, since instead of attempting to take down these monstrosities, you’re simply trying to escape, a la sequences in games like Ori and the Blind Forest.

Kong: Survivor Instinct Final Verdict

Kong: Survivor Instinct is a game that neither surpassed nor failed to meet my expectations. Although it wasn’t what I expected, it’s exactly what I wanted: a short, involved experience that was a lot of fun to experience. The novelty of playing an actual human who has no interest in taking down Titans was refreshing, and the game scratched my gear-gated itch in a way that I appreciated. It’s not without its flaws and is far from perfect, but wound up being a great game to run through over a weekend. In my opinion, this was well-worth the price tag, and I’d like to see more games of its kind in the future.

To hear me talk more about Kong: Survivor Instinct, we sure to listen to our November 28th podcast episode around the 1:03:47 time stamp.

This review is based on a purchased copy of Kong: Survivor Instinct on Xbox Series X. It is also available on PlayStation and PC.