Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

Poison Control has the kind of premise that can get you on board quickly. You enter poisonous Belles Hells alongside Poisonette and take on enemies while working to cleanse the corruption around you. It is a single-player action shooter with RPG elements, and the combination gives its combat a more eccentric flavor than a straightforward run-and-gun game.

Controlling the protagonist and Poisonette together is the central idea, not a throwaway gimmick. You gather poison, turn it back into attacks, and swap among different weapons as fights demand it. That creates a solid loop on paper, especially for anyone who likes action games where positioning and picking the right tool matter as much as simply unloading on enemies.

Where frustration can set in is the sense that Poison Control is reaching for several things at once: shooter action, weapon experimentation, purification, and a choice-driven narrative. The game is more appealing when you meet it on its own weird terms than when you expect the clean, refined flow of a major action release. Give it time to establish its rhythm, and the oddball setup has enough character to keep you curious.

Graphics

Poison Control uses an anime/manga-styled fantasy look, which suits a game built around supernatural partners, poisoned realms, and troubled souls. The imagery leans into the premise’s pulpy, off-kilter tone rather than aiming for realism.

Story

The story’s strongest ingredient is its compassion beneath all the poison and combat. Each Belles Hell comes from despair, and the journey is tied to learning about the fallen soul behind that realm. That gives the action a human purpose beyond clearing another batch of enemies.

Poisonette and her Soul Mate provide the game’s basic emotional center. Their partnership carries you from one corrupted space to the next, while the people they encounter make despair itself the subject of the adventure. It is an inherently gloomy setup, but one that leaves room for the heightened weirdness expected from this kind of fantasy.

Your choices affect the story, so it is worth paying attention when the game asks you to weigh in. Do not go in expecting every narrative turn to be spelled out by the combat. The more you care about the individual souls and the moral angle behind their suffering, the more likely the story is to land.

Overall Experience

Poison Control is a niche game in the best and worst senses of that word. It has a distinctive hook, an unusual partner dynamic, and a setting that is much stranger than its basic shooter structure suggests. It also asks you to accept some roughness in exchange for that personality.

You should give it a chance if bizarre supernatural action, anime-styled storytelling, and experimentation with weapons sound more inviting than a tightly polished blockbuster. If you mainly want razor-sharp shooting or a conventional RPG progression loop, its shifting priorities may wear on you.

At a 6.5, it is easier to recommend as a curiosity with real charm than as an essential action game. Fans of Nippon Ichi’s taste for the eccentric can find more official background in the publisher’s Poison Control description. For everyone else, the deciding factor is simple: if the idea of cleansing despair with a poison-powered partner sounds irresistible, this odd trip has enough bite to justify the detour.

Retro Replay Score

6.5/10