Ferocious Review – Dinosaur Island

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Many modern shooting games focus heavily on multiplayer or a very specific style, like extreme realism. However, the developers at OMYOG took a different approach with their new game, Ferocious. Instead of concentrating on one particular idea, Ferocious feels like a throwback to shooters from the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 and PlayStation 4/Xbox One eras – games with plenty of enemies and exploration, but ultimately designed to make you feel incredibly powerful.

Instead of modern animals, this place is populated by creatures from the past – everything from dinosaurs to huge insects and enormous sea creatures.

Ferocious starts with a familiar idea, similar to games like Far Cry. You and your brother are shipwrecked on a mysterious island, and you’re the only ones who survived. At first glance, the island seems ordinary, but it’s actually a place lost to time.

This island isn’t home to ordinary animals—it’s teeming with creatures from the prehistoric past, like dinosaurs and enormous insects. To make things even harder, you were separated from your brother during a shipwreck, and he’s been taken captive by another group of people who have their own plans for the island. Now, armed with only basic tools found on the beach, you must find and rescue your brother and escape the island.

Honestly, the story in Ferocious doesn’t get too deep. For the first few hours, it’s pretty much just “go to this spot and take out anyone who might have info on my brother.” Things do expand a bit after that, with new characters showing up, but a lot of questions are never really answered. Like, seriously, why are there dinosaurs on this island? What’s the deal with those old ruins everywhere that look like they were built by people? And why is a whole private army setting up shop all over the place? It’s kinda frustrating, actually.

“Ferocious calls itself a “survival shooter”, but don’t let that label fool you.”

The story in Ferocious is simple, but it’s enough to get you invested and discover what makes the game unique: a blend of solid mechanics and quirky imperfections that surprisingly create fun gameplay. Though it’s called a “survival shooter,” don’t expect traditional survival elements like building a base or finding food. The “survival” aspect mainly revolves around crafting. You’ll explore a mysterious island, collecting plants and hunting animals. You can then use these resources to craft essential items for rescuing your brother, including bandages, spears, extra ammo pouches, and even a holster to carry multiple weapons.

As a huge fan of Ferocious, I’m really excited about how the crafting works! It’s not just a side thing – it is how you get stronger. Forget skill trees, everything about improving your character comes from what you craft. Want more health? Craft better armor from monster parts! Need to deal more damage? Craft more bullets, grenades, and spears. It all connects directly to the fast-paced, action-packed gameplay, which is awesome!

The game clearly prioritizes fast-paced action. As you face enemies, you’ll unlock a diverse arsenal of realistic weapons, including pistols, shotguns, and rifles. While levels offer freedom in how you play, the game subtly pushes you towards aggressive combat – taking down a couple of enemies quietly before diving into a full-on firefight is the preferred approach.

Based on how the game plays, OMYOG seems to prioritize action over stealth.

Between all the excitement, you’ll occasionally have opportunities to explore and solve simple puzzles. These usually involve finding something to activate a mechanism, like a button to open a gate. Even when you unlock the ability to control small dinosaurs, the puzzles don’t become much more challenging – you might need to guide a dinosaur through a hole to reach a switch. You can also use these dinosaurs to attack enemies with the same device, but it’s often more fun to just use your weapons.

The most engaging fights are against human enemies. While the dinosaurs and other creatures look impressive, their artificial intelligence is quite simple. They mostly just rush directly at you, making them easy to avoid and shoot. Many of the battles, like the one against a giant crab, are designed this way – you essentially circle around the enemy and throw explosives at it. There isn’t much strategic depth beyond that.

Okay, so when I’m fighting human enemies, they actually try to fight back, which is cool. They’ll duck behind cover, try to get the drop on me with a sneaky move, and even throw grenades to flush me out. Because of that, and the fact they usually have better gear, they’re way more engaging fights. The mechs are even tougher – they’re like mini-bosses guarding the bigger human bases. Honestly, everything feels really fast-paced because bullets tear right through wood. You can’t just camp behind a wall, you have to keep moving or you’re toast!

I’ve been really enjoying the combat – it’s super fast-paced. The way guns just blast right through flimsy cover means you can’t just hang back and hide, you have to keep moving or you’re a sitting duck!

The enemies, even the humans, aren’t perfect. They often forget where you are after just 20 seconds if they lose sight of you, and can even get stuck in the environment, making them easy targets. When you face both humans and dinosaurs simultaneously, the game’s AI struggles, as both enemy types get confused about what to do. This can lead to some funny moments, like seeing dinosaurs and humans peacefully coexisting until you attract their attention.

The game Ferocious has a striking contrast between beautiful graphics and noticeable technical flaws. It’s a visually stunning game, and the developers clearly prioritized creating impressive scenery for players to enjoy. However, objects sometimes appear suddenly (‘pop-in’), and even on a powerful PC – well above the recommended specifications (AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 32GB DDR5-6000 RAM, Radeon RX 7800 XT) – the frame rate occasionally dropped, particularly when entering new areas. These dips were brief, but they made the game feel less smooth than it should have.

While Ferocious is a visually stunning and often enjoyable game, it feels a little rough around the edges for a smaller studio. There are occasional visual glitches, frame rate drops, and moments where enemies behave strangely, suggesting it could have benefited from more polish. Despite these issues, Ferocious is genuinely fun when it’s running smoothly. With good equipment and against large enemy groups, it delivers a satisfying sense of power. Fortunately, these problems seem fixable, and future updates should make Ferocious an even better experience.

This game was reviewed on PC.

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2025-12-11 21:13