Control Resonant ramps up the challenge, equipping players with the right tools to succeed.
Control Resonant presents a challenging experience. As you navigate expansive environments, you’ll often find yourself leaping between walls and ceilings while swarmed by bizarre enemies intent on taking you down. It can be overwhelming, especially since some foes require a significant effort to defeat. I faced my fair share of deaths, but whenever frustration began to creep in, the game’s generous assist mode allowed me to adjust settings for a smoother experience, helping me push through its strange world.
You can access the assist mode from the pause menu, where you can modify various parameters like damage output, damage received, and dodge timing. There’s even an option for invincibility or one-hit kills. For those who prefer a more traditional approach, there are preset difficulty options available. While the game encourages you to try it without assist mode, enabling it comes with no penalties, and you don’t need to restart your game to make the switch.
I started utilizing assist mode early on. At first, my combat abilities were limited, and I often found myself overwhelmed. However, with a few tweaks, I was able to enhance my power without completely removing the challenge, keeping battles engaging at a pace that suited me. After a few hours of leveling up, I felt I was breezing through, so I switched off assist mode to ramp up the difficulty again.
As I continued playing, I found myself adjusting assist mode settings frequently. The game throws numerous enemies at you, and sometimes combat can feel tedious. Instead of slogging through frustrating encounters that hindered my enjoyment of the captivating story and unique locations, I would tweak the assist mode to clear my path and dive into the narrative. This strategy worked particularly well against the game’s impressive bosses, which have massive health bars; I’d typically start a fight without assist mode and gradually adjust settings in my favor after each defeat, allowing me to experience the thrill of battle without completely removing the challenge.
Assist mode also proved invaluable for exploring Resonant’s vast maps, filled with secrets and quests. In one instance, I had to collect strange chunks of mold that the protagonist, Dylan, felt compelled to consume (it’s a bit gross, but it makes sense in context). Initially, I dreaded the task, anticipating that the quest waypoints would be swarmed by enemies I didn’t want to face. I just wanted to uncover the story behind the mold. By activating immortality and one-hit kills, I quickly dispatched the tedious foes and got to the mold and the narrative revelations that followed. When I reached the (satisfyingly grotesque) boss at the end of the quest, I disabled my superpowers to take it on.
Control Resonant does have some excess; there are too many enemies scattered across the maps and an overwhelming number of open-world activities. The combat lacks the depth found in titles from FromSoftware or Capcom’s recent Onimusha: Way of the Sword, making the struggle feel less rewarding. Additionally, like its predecessor, it suffers from significant difficulty spikes. Remedy introduced assist mode to Control post-launch, and with Resonant, it’s available right from the start. This feature allowed me to set my own pace, enabling me to experience the game’s mind-bending set pieces and twists on my own terms.
