Infamous Second Son has to be one of my favorite games on the Playstation 4 so far and of course the best non port, re-release or remake to hit the platform itself, I have spent extensive hours with the game and have loved almost everything about it, however notably there were a few major issues that really did bother me about Second Son. The first of these issues was the lack of emphasis on good and evil which is a major thing within the Infamous franchise, it was not necessarily bad but the game and the story really showed no distinction. The other issue came from the games main protagonist which is mostly the issue that really needed addressing, the character Delsin was a bit of a loser and just was not serious enough for me to ever feel truly attached to the character which is a shame when the game is full of great characters.
This main issue is addressed in the stand alone content for Infamous Second Son called Infamous First Light. In Infamous First Light you are playing as Abigail Walker or as many of you may know her better as Fetch, by far she is a much more interesting character then Delsin and her story is a whole lot more interesting and even does enough to actually connect with you as the player. For those who have played Second Son you will be familiar with Fetch’s story, Fetch has struggled with her demons for years and the only thing that kept her together was her brother and this story takes us further into this to tell us of her struggles and how she came to be in the situation she is in during Second Son. Of course the story in First Light is set two years before Second Son so there are plenty more details we get to learn about this character.
First Light is not a very big game, we get to revisit Seattle but it is not as big as Second Son, in fact the world is a lot smaller having been condensed down to just one half of Seattle. This is not a problem however as the story of Fetch has no relevance for the entire Seattle and only requires one half of the city. Of course the city also has had some character specific changes throughout the city, because of Fetch’s skill set there are new things such as Neon races which provide challenges to get skill points and can keep you busy outside of the story and do make a nice change from all the objectives inside of the world of Second Son.
The game’s story does not last long either lasting maybe three hours at best but the entire spance of the story is enjoyable and there are plenty of fun missions to be completed throughout. But of course considering this is essentially extra content to a pre-existing game I don’t believe any people really would have come into this expecting a big game and the game does exactly what we want from it giving us more of an opportunity to enjoy this world.
However arguably the game has an issue that will bother most players, in Infamous Second Son you got up to four different power sets to be used throughout the game, however Infamous First Light will disappoint the people who liked the idea as First Light provides us with only a single power set giving players only the Neon powers. So I feel some players may be annoyed by this but to be perfectly honest I never found this to be a problem, during my time with Second Son I often found myself using the Neon powers instead of any of the others offered so I was not concerned with only having this single power set. The main problem I found though is that while physical fighting was a good thing in Second Son here it isn’t as affective, this of course forced me to ensure I found good spots to make use of weak points and blast away at my enemies from safer distances. Though while we are limited to the single ability I also reckon that some players will be happy to know that First Light does bring a small selection of updated powers into play which do provide a nice change from how I experienced things in Second Son. There is even an interesting mission type where you get to snipe down enemies with Fetch’s Neon powers which are also pretty fun.
First Light also features a new section in the game known as the battle arena, in these sections you are placed in a designated fighting arena where your main focus is to fight and survive, this stands as a difference to the basic story with the clear focus only being in making your way through the fights. The battles come in the form of hostage rescues and survival matches which really test your skills as the player. You get to fight a wide level of varying enemies and the further you go the tougher these enemies get and the challenge throughout proves to be fun and is sure to keep many of the players amused with competing to be better then their friends. The arena battles are fun and provide a lot of enjoyment with the time provided.
Infamous First Light is a great expansion onto a brilliant game and I was pleased to get the opportunity to play as a new character and then have a different experience with the game and provide more insight into the general story of another character. First Light is different and is definitely a good game and anyone who has played Second Son really should play it, I would also recommend the game to people who haven’t played Second Son though they may not get the full experience out of the game. I just hope in the future Sucker Punch brings us another expansion to this universe and tells us the story of Second Sons other characters, if this is any indication they would definitely be worth it.
