ShareThis
Beautifully crafted visuals, a world that keeps you coming back, and gameplay that keeps you fighting
What do you get when you take Hades and Hades 2’s roguelite formula and mix it up with a fantasy beat ‘em up game. You get Absolum, created by Guard Crush Games and Supamonks, and published by Dotemu, and it is absolutely everything you could wish for and more. Every aspect of the game is incredibly polished, from the art style and narrative to the gameplay and mechanics.
Let’s touch on the art style, as that is the very first thing you notice in the game. Yes, it is noticeable in a good way. The art style is unique, vibrant, and dark when it needs to be. Every area you encounter in the game has twists and turns that is marked so vividly with its own theme and color scheme and keeps you wanting to play more to see what is around the next bend. One second you might be trouncing through a red-soaked goblin forest and the next you are in a dark, misty, mysterious hidden world deeper in the forest covered in cooler tones. Every single texture for every world item you come across is so detailed, matching the theme of its area. Yet, what is even more impressive is the art team’s attention to making sure each of those areas fits the overarching fantasy aesthetic of the game.
Absolum’s score is a sound cherry on the top of this aesthetic. Every moment of the game, you feel bathed in music that hits just right for that moment. The music changes based on the intensity of the battle or the serenity of many calmer moments in the game.
In a roguelite, progression can be very hard to push yourself through. However, there is a magic to Absolum’s story that keeps you going through the grinding of dying and dying and dying again. You find yourself in Talamh, a fantasy world that is ruled by the Sun King Azra. Azra is a tyrannical ruler that wishes to take out all magic users. An aspect of the game’s story that is really unique is that wizards each have their own “mother”. In the main characters’ cases, that is Uchawi. This magical “mother” is a being that uses her abilities to reincarnate those of her children that die in battle. This is where Absolum’s roguelite mechanic comes from, which will come up later on. What is so fascinating about a beat ‘em up roguelite is that the format allows for really unique transitions of story moments that feel so smooth. You can come across a character in an area that you had never met before and suddenly, if you have the coin or the moment is right, you unlock a new area to come back to and beat a new boss. Sometimes that new character will come back to your headquarters and provide you with a new service. Moving from area to area and finding these fresh story transitions feels so well stitched together. New moments come up often enough to keep you wanting more, rather than getting bored of the same old places and faces.
In exploring those places, you will find an ever changing set of mechanics and enemies to fight. In the forest, home of the goblins ,you guessed it, there are goblins, but the ever changing nature of the war between them and people becomes evident as you traverse. One run, you might encounter goblins fighting humans in the human kingdom or humans infiltrating the goblin forest. Each race, humans and goblins, has its own legion of varied enemies to fight and keep things interesting. Grunts often have spears, but some might have explosives, be armored, or throw blades. Every larger area comes with its own boss that feels unique and brings with it special mechanics that force you to change up your playstyle.
Speaking of playstyle, the combat mechanics of the game feel pretty familiar to beat ‘em ups, with slight variation in the form of rituals. Rituals are the magic boons of the game that feel very similarly executed to Hades. At the beginning of a run, you choose one ritual out of two. This number changes as you upgrade. You also get to choose new rituals at the end of each stage, which vary in length. Rituals each have some unique elemental power attached to them, like water, wind, fire, and electricity. As you progress, upgrades allow you to add other elemental effects to the different elemental rituals and make them increasingly more powerful in certain combat situations. In addition, you can upgrade standard stats, such as damage of certain moves, health, and mana, which is the resource used when executing special moves.
This element of progression allows earlier stages to become less challenging so that you can get back to where you were previously, faster. Special moves, huh? Yes. Special and ultimate moves can be unlocked through a level based progression that is earned by going on successful runs. These moves make earlier stages much, much easier to breeze through, though you do have to beat some tougher bosses to get them. Luckily, the more you play, the stronger you get and it doesn’t feel like a total grindfest getting farther.
If all of the gameplay mentioned above wasn’t enough, that gameplay is changed up even further by the addition of multiple playable characters with unique abilities. The game starts you out with Galandra, who wields a blade, and Karl, who fights with his fists, but you unlock more as you progress further and explore more. As an added cherry on top of this beautiful game, it can also be played in co-op or multiplayer, with each player getting to choose which character they play as.
Overall, Absolum is a masterfully crafted beat ‘em up that takes an already addicting and fun gameplay formula and adds new elements of intrigue to it. All of this is packed into a beautiful world with nooks and crannies to explore to your hearts content and a story that makes it all make sense in an intelligent manner. The coat of paint over the whole package wraps a beautiful little bow over the whole thing, creating a game that is fun to play, satisfying to look at, and makes you want to keep exploring and coming back to.
Nintendojo was provided a copy of this game for review by a third party, though that does not affect our recommendation. For every review, Nintendojo uses a standard criteria.
