This game is perhaps the most unusual indie game that came out on iPhone in recent years. To be fair, it should be noted that the game is not an exclusive iOS, but a port from the PS Vita, where the game fired a little earlier. By the way, the developer of Severed – DrinkBox Studios – has already managed to become famous on the “apple” platform, having released Guacamelee a couple of years ago! They did not expect anything less than a masterpiece from such a team – but what we got, let's figure it out in practice. 
In Severed, we have to play as Sasha – a dark-skinned girl who today is clearly not the best day in her life: she finds herself in a bizarre, nightmarish world, her family was kidnapped by monsters – oh yes, she also lost her left arm. Fortunately, at the same time she received a huge sword – with its help, Sasha intends to destroy as many monsters as possible and save her parents and brother from their clutches. 
The first thing that pleasantly strikes in this game is the graphics. The atmosphere of a nightmare haunts everywhere – and it is expressed in bright shades: red, purple, orange. No serene blue sky and green grass on Sasha's worst day! The picture looks simple – a kind of Material Design of the world of games – but at the same time the details are worked out so that even with special efforts there is nothing to complain about. Monsters complete the picture: they are all different, but at the same time everything seems to have come out of children's nightmares: fanged crows, frightening huge spiders, or even some incomprehensible creatures without analogues in the animal world. They all have their own special abilities and movement mechanics – you need to cut each of the monsters in different ways, but more on that later. 
Severed gameplay is divided into two parts. On the one hand, this is a classic walker from room to room: there are several dozen locations on the level map, and you can move between them by touching the screen. It seems that everything is simple, but then it turns out that the switch opens this door two floors higher, and you can't get here at all until you find the ruby that the crow ate. The riddles are quite simple in terms of level (besides, there are two difficulty modes), so even a child can cope with them. But whether it is worth giving this game to a child is a completely different question. 
The second big piece of gameplay that Severed has received so many rave reviews for in App Store is the combat system. When we attack a monster (or rather, we go into a room with monsters), we need to destroy it as quickly as possible. Three factors complicate the process. First, monsters are quite capable of fighting. Attacks can be parried with a sword, since due to Sasha's lack of arms she cannot hold a shield. Secondly, some of them know how to put up a defense – for example, a spider covers itself with his hands – so you need to either wait for the right moment, or look for which part of his body is open for attack. Thirdly, there can be up to 4 such monsters in one room, each of them is on a different side of the screen and they attack, of course, not in turn, but in a whole bunch. 
After defeating the monster, if we managed to collect a sufficient number of combos, the fun begins: in the allotted time (at the beginning of the game it is extortionately small, after that it can be increased) we need to cut off the extra and not so limbs from the monster – and take them for ourselves. With their help, you can pump the character and artfecates: for example, increase the power of the blow, replenish health due to the damage done, increase the chance of a critical strike – the standard tree of improvements, in short. Some “parts” of monsters can be obtained without killing vile creatures: in vases (or burial urns) that are found in different locations, you can often come across things called giblets – they themselves are not used in improvements, but you can make of them any other detail – eye, wing, paw, etc. 
With some gaming experience, you can complete Severed in 4-6 hours. But here we are faced with the main problem of the game: it is extremely monotonous. The game is linear, which with an extremely simple plot (running and saving the family) is more a minus than a plus. Having pulled all the levers on one floor, we go to another, from there – to the third, return to the second, open the passage to the fourth, again the third, the second, run through the forest – and hello, boss. Winning, we start from the beginning, saving another family member. You can, of course, return to the levels you have already passed in order to discover secrets previously inaccessible with new abilities, but this cannot be called a great variety. 
If you like games with similar mechanics, Severed will definitely be your favorite of the season. I got tired of stomping from room to room pretty quickly, and the lack of a teleport between the already studied areas of the map is slowly beginning to annoy: you have to spend three minutes running errands just to open one door! Despite this shortcoming, Severed was undoubtedly a good gaming experience for me: it felt like I was not holding a phone, but a portable console – which is great. As a result, the opinion was mixed in a good way. Although Severed is an amateur game due to its room-to-room system, it is a must-have for anyone who plays on iPhone at least occasionally: an unusual world, interesting monsters and a unique combat system are definitely worthy of attention .
